Page 22 - Dr. Austin MacDonald: How We Got the Hospital Down North

ISSUE : Issue 40

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1985/8/1

there. And we had one at the hospital. ' Then we had car raffles. And Dick Logue in Sydney supplied a car. Ford dealership in Sydney under Eddie O'Neil supplied the oth? er one. And we got them at cost, plus a little reduction, which was their donation, you know. And then some of those fellows, they just kicked in a cheque for $500 in addition--things like that. So, it was a popular thing. And we worked it to the limit. And movies--we had a little projector. Ma? rie used to go around the communities and put on a show--if she could get a movie film to put on. Everybody'd turn out. She'd charge a small fee, and she'd make a few dollars on it. One fellow said he had no cash, but he had a barrel of salt her? ring, so he'd donate that. So Marie said, "That's fine. You put it in the back of our jeep, and we'll go and peddle the her? ring." So she got the matron, Kathleen Wil- kie, with her. And they went from house to house. By evening they had sold all the herring. Twenty-five cents a herring, they were charging. They came back with $100 or something like that. But this was the kind of thing. A hundred dollars went a long way, then. (Marie: We had suppers put on by the com? munity.) That's right. We put on a picnic at Labour Day for a couple of years. And we made around $3000 each time off that. All the organizing for those picnics was done by Willy Pat Fitzgerald. Quite a head on that fellow, you know. He knew every pot of potatoes and every roast of beef and how much it weighed. He had all this ready the day before the event. And he could list the whole works for you. He really had it well organized. He had all the women--the women all loved Willy, any? how, because he was a great storyteller-- and they would work for him, and they really did. So that's the way it worked out. And then all of us who had some money kicked in everything we could towards it. The union (at the gypsum quarry) had a check-off. A man named Joseph L. MacNeil from Dingwall was president of the Gypsum and Allied Workers' Union there. And he was a very able labour leader. He and a bunch of the others talked the membership, which was over 300 men at that time, into putting on a weekly check-off of two bucks a week, towards the hospital. And that mon? ey came directly every month to the hospi? tal board. I think that accounted for 30 or 40 thousand or something. The amount HYUnOPII The Most Successful Import Ever introduced To Canada AROOCCHIO EOPSS / 'Zik ' 34 State St., Sydney 539-7999 ??- Your First Welcome to Cape Breton * The Skye Motor Hotel Comfortable Rooms, Cable Colour TV, All Conveniences All Major Credit Cards Accepted OPEN ALL YEAR 'ROUND * LICENSED DINING ROOM * 6:30 A.M. TO 10 P.M. Adjoining Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's NUCLEAR INFORMATION CENTRE (902)625-1300 P.O. Box 190 Port Hastings,Cape Breton N.S. BOE 2T0 WE HAVE INFORMATION ON YOUR PROPERTY - AND YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT IT IS! We have over 20 pieces of information on every number you see on this map, and we have a number on every property in Cape Breton County and Richmond County. (By April 1986, we'll have a number on every property in Cape Breton Island.) - A SERVICE WORTH INVESTIGATING - 15065337- i 15065329 I50653II '' - 150 65303 "15065295 15065$87' 15065360 15065402 15065410 15565963 15065444 15065469 15065477 15065493 15134406 Land Registration / and Information Service ' Property Mapping and Records Division jy 66 Wentworth Street, Sydney, N. S. BIP 6T4 CONTROL SYSTEM of concrete monuments for surveying BASE MAPS: Orthophoto for rural areas, Line Maps for cities, town, villages PROPERTY MAPS with boundary information and ownership information REGISTRY ASSISTANCE for government and private users Your Property Is Our Business -Ask Us About It TELEPHONE (902) 539-2011 or (902) 539-2622 An Agency of the Council of Maritime Premiers

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