Page 73 - With Dan Angus Beaton, Blackstone: Farm Life, Dredging on the Great Lakes, and Tales

ISSUE : Issue 47

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/1/1

This time of the year they'd be just har? vesting their crops. Their basements would be full of potatoes, cheese, butter and everything, stored away for the winter. They were independent. They wouldn't go hungry until next spring again. Well, you could travel all over the country, every county--the 4 counties on the island today --and there isn't a bite in any home. Everything is bought in the stores. Well I remember when you were selling to the stores rather than buying from the stores. We buy everything from the store today, and that applies to every home in every commu? nity. (Well, nearly.) Pretty well, yes. BELLE ISLE LINCOLN MERCURY -SENIOR SERVICE- Any Make Car Care Plan for Senior Citizens • FREE Loaner Car on Overnight Repairs • FREE Pick Up and Delivery of Your Car • 'REE Tow to Our Service Department • FREE 20% Off on Ford Parts • FREE 20% Off on Repairs Done Here • FREE Life Insurance on Car Loans • FREE I. D. Card BELLE ISLE LINCOLN MERCURY SALES LTD. 195 Prince St., Sydney 'At the Tracks" 539-9292 1988 MERCURY TOPAZ MERCURY LINCOLN Eggs, meat, potatoes, vegetables, every? thing that we eat, no matter what it is, all have to come from the store. What we used to raise on the farm. Well, you have to be employed today. That's the problem. (You did not stay on the farm yourself, did you?) Well, would you advise anybody who can get employment to stay on a farm? (I'm not criticizing.) I farmed, yes, I farmed, until I got to the extent that I couldn't farm any longer. But the boys, they got a fair education, and every one of them got a pretty good job. We raised 12 of a family. I'd advise them not to come back to the farm. They're better situated where they are. (When did you decide to work off of the farm?) Well, I left here when I was a very young man. And the first thing I did, I went working in the mines. Up north in Tim- mins, Ontario. The reason I went there: my father was living, and there were 8 in the family. Well, somebody had to make a move. There were lots of them here to do the work. Well, I was a young man starting out. My first cousin was going away, an'd he coaxed me to go with him. 1988 MERCURY TRACER So we went there and we got a job there. Right away. Well, I worked there for a year. I didn't care for the mines too much. I was mucking in the mines, you know--shovelling. It was hard work. Gold mines. I was timbering in the mines, too. I got "miners' complaint" or sickness. And the doctor ad? vised me to leave there. (What's a "miners' com? plaint"?) Well, a sickness, something that I caught. There were 8 of us caught it. Six of them died. Six died and two lived. Some kind of a virus. Whatever you were eating was going right through. Well, they got ready to ship me home, too. But I came out of it. I was young and strong when I came out of it. So when I came out of it, I went into Boston. I spent a year there. I didn't like that: there was no money at all there. I was working in a lead pencil factory. Making' the little steel that holds the rubber on. Running a little machine that was making those things. And there wasn't too much money--work was hard to come by, then. (But you had no trouble getting the job?) Not too much. But there was no

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