Page 78 - With Ida Mauger of Cap La Ronde

ISSUE : Issue 71

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1996/12/1

Ida Mauger of Cap La Ronde CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 It was just wonderful how they would get along, you know what I mean. Brothers and sisters all living together. And they would work together. It's so different now. They all move out and they have homes of their own and everything. But at that time we were so close. You know what I mean. And they wouldn't want to go and live too far away. If they did get a piece of land and build a house, they wanted to be close to the old people. But now, how things have changed in all the years. (Was there, in your time, after you moved to this house, was there poverty in Isle Madame?) Poverty? Oh, yes, there was pov? erty. Poverty in Petit-de-Grat, poverty in Louisdale. Oh, my goodness. My husband used to butcher, too, you know --he'd sell meat. And every Friday of each week he would go--he'd have his big bain wagon they called them, you know, and he'd pack his meat in that. When they started getting trucks, he got a little half-ton truck. So, he'd go selling his meat. And when he'd come to Petit-de-Grat, he'd put aside the nice soup bones, because he knew that when he'd get there, that there would be old ladies that they had no money, but they would like to have a little bit of meat or a little bone for to make soup with or something. And you know, when he would come to Petit-de-Grat, they'd be around the wagon, they'd be like flies, the poor old ladies. "Have you got a lit? tle soup bone for me?" they would say. And ..AS SERVING INDUSTRIAL CAPE BRETON FOR OVER 37 YEARS '', FUELS ' Senior Citizen Discounts * Furnace Leasing 1' Discount for Cash CALL TODAY 564-8213 Lennox would have his soup bones all ready because the week before, he used to no? tice, you know, that they would be liking to get a soup bone. They couldn't afford to buy much meat, even though it was cheap. But a bone--you'd give that away-- you wouldn't charge for a bone. But let me tell you, that the bones my husband gave had plenty of meat on them. And they would say, "Oh, my goodness"--the next (time)--"what a lovely feed. It was all meat--it wasn't bone--it was meat you gave us," they would say, after the week was over. And they had their soup and their meat. That was won? derful for them, to have a taste of meat. Oh yes, they couldn't afford meat. And meat was cheap then. ALAN SULLIVAN 566 Keltic Drive (Why were people so poor, dear?) Well, they had noth? ing. They had no money. And if they had an article of clothing, it would be patched and re-patched a dozen times, till it would become that it couldn't be worn. And their feet would be sticking out their shoes and freezing their feet in the wintertime. It was poverty. I remember when the first flu came around, you know.

Cape Breton's Magazine