Cape Breton's Magazine

few days now and again, cutting wood, cut? ting the trash--the little trees that come up, bushes--by the side of the road. Or when they'd haul the ferryboat up down here, to fix it, he might get a few days' work at that. I don't know how we lived. We lived on about $10 a month the first year we were married. We couldn't live by ourselves that winter, 'cause there was no way we could heat. We had to move in with my father and mother in the winter. My fa? ther had the jail. And he still kept his cows and horses up here. And George used to come up and look after them. It was Depression, real bad Depression. There was no unemployment insurance. George's brother and his wife and child were on relief, BO' each per week, in Syd? ney Mines. $2.40 for the three of them. They had to buy at certain places. They were told what kind of dry beans to get. They had to be yellow-eye beans, not pinto beans or navy beans. I think what got George really sensitive to injustice and everything was, he could remember the strike in 1925, and what suf? fering they went through. Actual hunger. He was the oldest, and then he had a sis? ter, and then brothers, and all that. And they set up a soup kitchen in Sydney Mines. 1 good reasons to buy league debentures Profitable Debentures offer a high rate of interest. Safe investment League Savings Debentures are protected by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation for announts up to sixty thousand dollars. Guaranteed Return The principal and interest are guaranteecT upfront. Flexible Debentures can be short or long term with interest paid monthly, semi-annually or annually. Interest payments deposited with a Credit Union qualify for a special bonus. Authorized Trustee Investment ' League Savings debentures are recognized provincially and meet the requirements of a trustee investment. League Savings 8 Mortgage P.O. Box 668, Sydney, Nova Scotia BIP 6H7 539-8222 And he was a queer mixture, you know. He believed in socialism and helping one an? other, but he was so terrible independent and proud, he would not go. I can remember him telling me one time about the pains in his stomach, smelling the soup as he was going by, coming home from school, and he wouldn't go and get it. And they were sell? ing cookies and crackers and things then in open barrels--you wouldn't remember that. The broken ones they used to put in bags, and people could go, take a paper bag full of that stuff home. And his sis? ter Edith would. And how he'd be just dy? ing to go and get it. And his mother and father would coax him to go and get it. No, sir, he wouldn't. Nobody was going to see him going to get it. A queer guy. The war came, and the Depression ended. I . think it was war work, the first work he got. It was at the naval base at Point Ed? ward. He went down, and he started washing dishes, and he lasted one night. He wrote me a pitiful letter, how he couldn't stand it. I was home alone with our daughter. So he said, "I'm not coming home. I'll get something else. But," he said, "I just can't do dishes again." All night long he had washed dishes for the fellows--they were working right around the clock, you know. So he got a job looking after a boil? er, something like that. And then he went with the divers, and he was on the raft, helping the divers. WELCOME TO THE FULLY LICENSED Harbour Restaurant (Under New Management) OPEN ALL YEAR 'ROUND Dining Room Overlooking Cheticamp Harbour Cheticamp, Cape Breton * 224-2042 A Good Selection of Seafood Cape Breton Woolen Mills store and Gift Shop Yarn Made on the Premises * Local Handcrafts A Large Variety of Hand Knit Sweaters OPEN YEAR ROUND: Mon. - Fri., 9 - 5 JUNE TO OCTOBER: Mon. - Sat., 8 - 6 Drop in, or write for shade cards and price lists. MAIL ORDERS WELCOMED Cape Breton Woolen Mills Ltd. R. R. No. 1, Irish Cove, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia BOA IHO (902) 828-2776