Page 36 - Aunt Annie MacLeod, Wreck Cove

ISSUE : Issue 48

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/6/1

of pampered and taken care of.) Yes, I said that--I had kind of a--if you think about it--I was telling a girl that was adopted. I said, "My life was something like that," I said. I was, you might say, adopted. I never knew my father and mother. (The peo? ple who raised me,) they were loving peo? ple. It didn't seem to bother me that my father and mother weren't there. (What we seem to be told so often is how hard life was and how much work people had to do.) Oh, yes, young people. (But as I understood, it wasn't required so much of you.) No, no. I don't remember doing any hard work till after I got married. Well, the reason I wanted to do hard work then was: I didn't have to do it, but I wanted to do it. Like farm work, I hated it. But I did it because I wanted it done. So. But before that, I didn't have any hard work, that I know of. Growing up, I don't remem? ber anything like that. (The idea that I have is this young, pretty girl who wasn't required to do very much. Got a lot of love. Then she suddenly gets STORA' Slora Forest Industries PROUD TO BE PART OF A 700 YEAR TRADITION married. Then you start working. And what , kind of work did you do?) Well, we used to have to pick little stones. They didn't have then like rollers or something that push the stones. Nobody did that in the later years, but first. Picking little stones. Then if George (Annie's husband) was away doing something, and he had cut perhaps a big field of hay or big field of oats--well, I used to try and have it all gathered up so it'd be ready for him to put in in the evening. Now if I didn't care, he wouldn't say anything to me about it. He didn't expect me to do it. But I wanted to do it. (You did that on top of--what time of the morning were you up each day?) Oh, we had to get up early because--in the summertime, anyway. In the wintertime, I wasn't so bad. But in the summertime, see, the cows were in a pen. You had to get up early and go out and milk the cows. I never liked milk? ing. I guess I didn't start that young. But George always milked if he had time. But when he started fishing lobsters he didn't--he had to go out early in the morn? ing. So I used to go milk? ing the cows. And then one morning Allister (Annie's son) came and he had a dish. He said, "I'm going to milk this cow." I said, "All right." So I thought, well, he'd be milking some. When I went to the cow, he had milked it. I never for? got that. He was able to do it. (So that became his job.) Yes, he kept it up. STORA FOREST INDUSTRIES LIMITED is the largest forest products company in Nova Scotia. The company produces more than 300,000 tonnes of market pulp and newsprint annually generating sales over $200 million worldwide. A member of the STORA GROUP, Sweden, STORA FOREST INDUSTRIES LIMITED is proud to be part of the oldest company in the world. 26 YEARS OF PROGRESS IN NOVA SCOTIA And then you'd be in the milking, separate it and all that work. And then hauling water and washing, and all the rest of it. (Did you keep chickens?) Yes, we kept hens, and a pig, and cows and horse. (Who fed all those, when George went to the lob? sters?) Oh well, I did first. But then when Allis? ter got old enough. Well, he was only 7 years old when he milked that cow. I remember that. So he start? ed then, he'd do that work. Doing things like that. (Would you do spring clean? ing?) Oh yes. We had to pa? per, and paint, and what? not. Oh yes, we did house- cleaning. And bedclothes and all that. In the spring of the year. And before my time--well, I remember of them doing it-- they used to take out

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