Cape Breton's Magazine

'' -??''/a Willy Pat with son. Calvin, and clinker boat; Mr. & Mrs. Willy Pat Fitzgerald. I want to know what's going on. I reared a family of 22 in Victoria County • and I reared the most of them through the de? pression, when the hard times were on in the thirties. They went through giving re? lief, the Liberal councillor. And he came to my place. He went in the pantry, what was in the pantry to eat and drink. I didn't hold anything against him for that. He came out of the pantry and told me I couldn't get any. You got plenty to eat and drink and you can get it. This is only for those who haven't got it, and can't get it." I said, "Mr. MacDonald, that's not relief. That's what I call a lazy man's salary. If you work, you won't get any. But if you lay back, the county will feed you. That's a lazy man's salary." And he said, "I think you named it." I never got five.cents in my life I didn't work for. I never got relief. I never got a cent from the county or the government or anyone else I didn't work for. Always had plenty. You know, cash goes pretty quick, if you don't squeeze it tight. But the way we lived • she and I • we grew our own potatoes, our own turnips, cabbages, everything that we needed, we grew it. And in the fall • 35 or 40 barrels of beautiful potatoes in the cellar. Always kept pigs. Any time we wanted fresh pork, I killed a pig. We always had two milk cows. The fall of '46, I killed two pigs--they'd weigh 250 each. I killed a yearling • I know she dressed 200 poimds. I had 700 poxmds of fish, pickled fish and dried fish. I had two pork barrels salted full of fillet mackerel. I bought 35 100-pound bags of floor. There was a fellow went aroiind sell? ing beef in the fall. She bought a quar? ter • a hundred pounds, 10 dollars. And I don't know how many deer I had. But I used to get a deer whenever I felt like it, when they were fit to eat. I don't think it's any crime to kill a deer when he's fit to eat. Middle of September till the middle of November • they're fit to eat. The first thing that'll spoil a deer is when they start eating spruce and you taste the spruce off of the meat. And that winter of '46, there were 21 of us, and everyone home for the winter. And we ate four times a day • that would be 84 meals for one fellow. My wife worked hard. My wife baked all her own bread, cakes, and everything, and would use a 100-pound bag every two weeks. She made all her own quilts arid all the socks arid mitts for 22, besides doing all the wash for them in a washtub and scrub-board, hauling water from the brook. She worked hard. There's no doubt about it. I am married 5' years, have a good wife, and we raised a good family. We have 106 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren. I don't owe anyone and have enough saved to bury us both when we die. Warmth, Comfort and Farm-fashioned Hospitality await you at the Inn* INVERARY INN. Baddeck, Nova Scotia Our Dining Room is famed for its Scottish Fare. Isobel and Dan MacAulay. Innkeepers The Inn (ah old farmhouse), the Bain, pine-paneled Cottages and modem Motel Units are located on the outskirts of Baddeck,. just off the Trans-Canada Hi'iway. A Berkshire Traveller Country im For Reservations Phone 90i-295-26?4