Page 27 - This Was Marble Mountain

ISSUE : Issue 22

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1979/6/1

MacDonald's store; snap of the manse m 1917; John Maga, interpreter. Rudi Maga; There were two big stores • Alex MacDonald's (pictured above) was twice the • ?? I < 1 ?? I ?? • jt'mn ??iii . T • 'r: 5! , u. f ?? I ??' i??jL-. size"'at it is now. Lawrence Campbell runs it today. And MacLaughlin's store is still there, but that's about all. It was three stories. Then there was Blind Billy MacKen? zie 's store. And Isaac Jones was alongside. And there was a fifth store too. But the two big ones • smything from a needle to farm equipment. But the prisoners of war • they didn't want to work the way they should. And they were finally shipped off, back to the intern? ment camps. There were several times they tried to escape. And my-father and Big Rod MacDonald went after them. My father was provincial police and MacDonald was the company police. But the foreigners weren't all prisoners of war. There were people working there from Holland, Swe? den, Denmark • even before the war. And my father would interpret for them. IRudi Maga (who took many I of the photos used here); I wasn't born at Marble Mountain but I grew up there. I never took a job there. I used to like to go around taking pictures. But my father, John Maga, worked there as the in? terpreter. He spoke nine languages. You see, they I had all kinds of Euro? peans in the quarry. They couldn't get enough la? bour locally. And during the war they had prisoners of war. Took them from the internment camps here in Canada. They were the foreigners here when the war broke out • so they were in? terred. During the war, a big percentage of Cape Bretoners were drafted. They had conscription back in those days. I've seen them take the only boy that was left on the farm because he was of age and that was it. Rudi Maga; Sometimes the horse would be in front of the car and the car would push him right into the chute that goes into the crusher. The whistles would blow and John MacKay was always there --he watched everything. They'd get the boom and shut the plant down and lower a man down and put ropes onto the horse and haul him up out of it, all busted up. Lost a lot of horses that way. Centre below;trestle with crusher inside; rt:the conveyor out to the loading dock; above that;vessels loading with rock.

Cape Breton's Magazine