Page 54 - Aunt Annie MacLeod, Wreck Cove

ISSUE : Issue 48

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/6/1

were proud you were--I think that's why. (You wouldn't keep it a secret.) No. (If you had married a man who was a Liber? al , would you have become a Liberal?) Oh, I don't know. Well, (George) would have gone Tory with me anyway! Oh, yes. He wasn't that kind of a person. He'd go along with me, whatever I did. I don't know if that is good or not! (There must have been families where the wife was Liberal and the husband was Tory.) That wouldn't have happened to us. I'm pretty sure that George would have gone what I was. (Is it true that some people are born Liberal or Tory. Is that right?) (Dannie MacDermid. Aunt Annie's nephew: Oh, true without any doubt, actually. You know, at that time, you were born a Protestant and born a Tory, or a Liberal.) (Annie Mae: Yes, and yet.) (Dannie: Well, to a lesser degree yet, but only to a lesser degree.) (Annie Mae: Not with the generation that's coming up now. But my generation: I was a Tory, my father was a Tory, and I always have a leaning for the Tories, sure I do.) (Dannie: The peculiar thing about politics and the Highland Scot. For instance, all the governments were Tories. I was a Tory when I left here in 1930 and began to read and see what was going on, you know, how crazy the system we lived under was. Became a New Democrat, or a CCF-er at that time. But yet, even today, I have that leaning. I have to fight it, you know.) Aunt Annie: That's the way, now I was saying. If I went to vote, I wouldn't vote Tory if I was vot? ing. I haven't been voting since about 3 or 4 years. If I was, I'd vote NDP. But still, in my heart, I'm Tory. But now, I didn't feel like that about re? ligion. I mean, when I went United. And you know, all the Morrisons were Presbyterians. That's another story. And I hadn't made up my mind what I was. I was a church member. And of course, all the Morrisons--I was living at Grandfather Morrison's then. We were married then, but I don't know if I had made up my mind. I kind of think I had, that I was going to vote Presbyterian, be? cause they were Presbyterians in the house, all of them. And I remember I went in the room to get dressed to go voting, and my aunt came in, and she was Presbyterian--the one that brought me up. She said, "How are you going to vote, Annie?" I said, "I don't know." She said, "Why don't you vote with your brother? He's going to vote United." Now, wasn't that strange? I never forgot that. That made up my mind. (In 1925, they had a vote? As to whether you would be a Presbyterian or a United?) Oh yes, of course. (Dannie: All across Can? ada.) (Annie Mae: And it was pretty wild down there then, too. Just as bad as poli? tics, then, all right. The children in school fighting about it.) (Is that true?) (Dannie: Oh yes, that was a terrible time in this area--1925.) Well, that was all through the country. It wasn't down there alone. All through the country it was the same. (And what was the fight over?) (Dan? nie: Well, about whether you were going to join the United Church, the new church. The United Church was made up of the Methodist, the Congregationalist, and the Presbyteri? ans. And they had got together, and they finally decided that they were going to unite into one church, the United Church of Canada. And of course, the Presbyterians particularly--you know, they tell the story of the two Scotsmen, sole survivors of a shipwreck, landed on an island, and the CT'TTX CO-OP Building Supplies ' V WK STATION ST., PORT HAWKESBURY - 625-2600 KING'S ROAD, SYDNEY - 539-6410 qD ' C3l-HL_IF'rVl>2

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