Page 6 - With Margaret MacDonald of Glace Bay

ISSUE : Issue 25

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1980/6/1

Margaret: We didn't have a garden. You couldn't get him to work in a garden. He didn't like it. The mine was his life. Anna: By the time Friday would come, things would be a little bit slim. But we were allowed to eat. Daddy brought it home, and Mom cooked it--and we ate it. And we weren't told, no, you can't have that, that's for tomorrow. Eat what you want. People always said, what you don't put in your kid's stomach, you put on doc? tor's bills. Today, kids don't have what we had to eat. Margaret: I remember once a week I baked an eating pan, a mixing pan • great big • pan full of cookies, oatmeal, ginger, sometimes a corn cake, sometimes a ginger cake--and bread galore. Twice a week, great big batches of bread. You can't be a loafer and get along. When you see a min? er's wife or a miner's family that haven't got the things they need, you'know there's a loafer somewhere--because if they both have their health and willing to work, they're going to make a living. It was a tough life. But it was a healthy life. Anna: You don't know the meaning of tough? ness, boy. Margaret: We never were hungry. Anna: But this is everybody. You went to school and you wore your rubbers till you were so damned ashamed--it was a dead giveaway. You know, when you were a kid, you want to skip and you want to play hop? scotch- -and your pride because you've got holes in the soles of your shoes, so you've got to wear your rubbers to keep your feet off the ground. But my mother would be having a card game every Sunday night, making a little lunch and making ar apron or something for a prize. And she'd have all her friends in and they'd play cards, and whatever she made over the cost of it, she would put it in the teapot. And when there was enough in the teapot is the time the three little ones got- their shoes. I'm not telling any lies. The pride, the pride you had. Margaret: Talk about pride. She was going to school and had holes in her shoes, and the teacher wanted her to take a pair of shoes--"No," she said, "I'll get shoes Saturday." Anna: "My mother is trying to earn the mon? ey for our shoes and we don't need them. We're not poor." And another thing. They used to have free milk in school, in the little half-pint bottles • glass ones. And the cream was at the top. And we were so proud, no way would we take that milk. They had milk lunch and milk. Our tongues would be hanging out on the desk for the want of that milk. You know what we would pray? For a stormy day and half the kids would be home from school, and the milk would go bad if we didn't drink it. So then we'd drink it, just so they wouldn't be stuck with all this milk going bad. And in the winter, it wasn't refrigerated, but it was cold, and the little bits of frost would be in the milk, from off the truck--and oh my god, wouldn't that be good! But the only time we'd take it was Known for Quality Products and Careftjl Service • Jewelery and Gifts MacDonald Jewelery Limited 357 Charlotte St' Sydney - 864-6318 Causeway Shopping Bank of Nova Scotia Alteen's Jewelers Bank of Montreal Trans Canada Credit Don's Flowers Castle Cleaners Causeway Smoke & Gift Campbell's Pharmacy MacMaster's Barbershop Shopper's World The Bod Shop Centre Radio Shack Mary's Arts & Crafts Maher Shoe Hammude's Men's Wear Woolworth's Dept. Store Sobey's Co-op Insurance Causeway Insurance Canso Realty N.S.Liquor Commission One-Stop Shopping in the Heart of Port Hawkesbury Better Health Centre WITH THREE LOCATIONS TO SERVE YOU: In Sydney at 364 Charlotte Street: 562-1237 and K-Mart Plaza, Welton St: 539-7381 and in North Sydney Mall: 794-7085. We Offer a Large Range Health, Vegetarian, Spe? cial Diet & Diabetic Foods and Vitamins. Health is HapDiness OPEN MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY located 1/2 mile off the Cabot Trail at emiOEit flQil't Neil's Harbour PHONE:336-2228 (6) Enjoy your favorite seafood!

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