Farewell Party at Aunt Martha’s and Uncle Wilbert’s
Louise : I’ve shed more than a few tears – I remember that day well – I still have the pen.
Farewell Party
Author: alseaviewreed
Cavendish PEI
Your Mother dies very young. You lose a potential brother. Your Dad leaves you to go to Ontario. How bad can it get?
But here’s the thing. Yes, he is leaving you with your Grandparents – in the home he grew up in – but it just so happens to be the most famous farmhouse in Canada – maybe the entire world. It is now a National Park. It is Green Gables. The home of Anne. How many young girls around the world would love to be able to say they spent a year growing up at Green Gables?
And No – it’s not Matthew and Marilla – it’s even better – it’s Ernest and Myrtle.
Welcome to the Cavendish year.
It all starts in September 1944. Keith has sold the farm in Chelton to Jack Sobey. Everything else goes in an auction sale. Keith and sister Anita head to Ontario on September 22nd. Ina and Louise are left on their own.
They start Grade Two at Cavendish school. A much shorter walk this time through the woods on the Webb Farm. Their grandfather Ernest has even made a path for them.
The height of the tourist season is over. The sisters have Lovers Lane, the Haunted Woods, the Babbling Brook and an entire Championship Stanley Thompson designed golf course all to themselves. The photo below is the only time I have seen Ina with a set of golf clubs, but even at that age she thinks it is a stupid game – and refuses to touch a club. Louise on the other hand started golfing at a very young age. No wonder in later years she always wins the annual Reed Fenske golf tournament at Red Sands in Margate.
The sisters attend Sunday School. Aunt Anne and son, first first cousin David,visit from the south shore as much as they can. Aunt Pauline, the lone Webb Aunt still on the island, is also a frequent visitor.
Reverend Coffin is often a guest. Myrtle is the church organist. Hymn sings are an evening activity.
Just before Christmas Reverend Ewan MacDonald, husband of L.M. Montgomery, and former Minister at the Cavendish Presbyterian Church, passes away. Chester and Stewart MacDonald bring their father’s body from Toronto to Cavendish. The funeral is at the Webb house. The body and coffin are placed in the parlor right below the sisters bedroom. Listen to the second Ina session to learn more.
At Christmas the girls are all excited to be participating in the Cavendish School Christmas concert. Myrtle proudly reports that the girls did very well. Grandad Ernest almost freezes his face off when he goes to Hunter River to get the Christmas gift that has arrived from their Dad in Ontario. Listen to the second Ina sesson to find out what the gift is.
The girls visit their Uncle Edward Lowther and Aunt Mary McNeill Lowther on New Years Day.
Aunt Lorraine comes home from Ottawa in late March. Louise remembers looking out the kitchen window waiting in anticipation of her arrival.
In the spring both girls get the chicken pox. Their Aunt Anne is expecting. Uncle Charles comes all the way from the other side of the Island. Charles is very excited to share the news of the arrival of a baby girl cousin – Margaret Elizabeth MacFarlane -with Ina and Louise. Due to the chicken pox the girls have to quarantine a long agonizing eighteen days before they can meet their new cousin. The classic photo below is the last one taken of the girls before they leave PEI to join their father in Ontario. Two days later they are on a train to Ontario.
Ina Session – Two -Cavendish
Our second significant Ina Session – recounting her days in Cavendish. One of her favourite years – and – thanks to the book “Anne of Green Gables” will probably be the one remembered by family 100 years from now. Did you know my 4th great grandmother lived at Green Gables one year?
Louise recollections
I can remember visiting our great grandmother, Ada, in their home. She was in bed and her hair looked so white on the pillow and she looked very tiny.
During the winter, the living room at Green Gables always seemed to have either a rug in the frames or a quilt and neighbor ladies often came to work on them in the afternoons. The little cast iron stove was set up in there during the winter and it was nice and cozy in there.
Ethel Moore was the teacher when we first got there, I think. Jennie (not Jessie) was in one of the higher grades.
The green for what is now Hole#11 was right beside the house and golfers had to shoot across the hollow there. Ina and I had a swing at the edge of the green. It’s a wonder we were never hit by flying balls!
Aunt Nete’s car was always put in the barn in the winter.
Ina said Grandad never disciplined us. He disciplined me once. I deserved it and it hurt him more than me! Gram was going to Institute with someone and I walked home with Bessie Moore after school . Unfortunately the car Gram was in went past us and I got home before her but when she got home she was really upset with me! That evening Grandad sat beside me on the kitchen couch forever and when I finally stood up he gave me a little swat on the bottom. I have never forgotten it!
Grandad made us fish hooks out of safety pins one time and rigged poles up for us. We would walk down Lover’s Lane and fish in the brook. I can remember seeing fish in the brook but can’t remember ever catching any.
I don’t think we ever had skates. I tried roller skating in Toronto when I was in my teens. I never did learn how to stop without running into the wall!
The MacNeils used to come to play cards withGram and Grandad and their two sons, Eric and Alvin would come with them. They were a year or two older than us.
That time when Aunt Lorraine was coming we were knitting in the kitchen and watching the lane for her arrival. I kept dropping stitches and Gram wasn’t very happy with me.
I remember the coffin being open and the cat being right in with Ewan MacDonald. I shooed it out.
I also remember walking to Uncle Edwards for dinner one night. Seemed like a very long way.
Grandad used to go to the Lake of Shining Waters, #16 on the golf course, in the winter with other neighborhood men and they’d cut the ice into blocks to be stored in the ice house in sawdust. Don’t think we had an icehouse. It was where you guys spent the summers.
Pickering Ontario
May of 1944 the Girls leave Cavendish. Grandmother Myrtle takes them on the train to Toronto . By this time Myrtle is a pro at taking this trip – she first made it in 1926 when she went to visit Maud in Norval. ( though at that time she has Maud’s husband Ewan – who you just met dead in the parlor at Green Gables – take the trip with her) Ina’s brief recollection of the train trip.
One of their first visits in Pickering is from their Aunt Marion, cousin Elaine who they had met in Cavendish in 1942, and her brother Ian who they had never met. Sadly they wouldn’t know Ian for long. ( you’ll have to listen to Ina for more details)
Dad Keith has married Ethel Swindelhurst of Ballinafad who had been working for his sister Marion in Norval. Keith is now working at the Bob Ruddy farm in Pickering Ontario.
Below the two PEI farm girls stun the Ontario farm boys by taking all the prizes at the Markham fair. A proud father looks on.
Stewarttown, Ontario,
Keith decides he wants to be closer to his sister Marion in Norval. His wife Ethel is from Ballinafad on the west side of Toronto as well. He takes a job in Stewarttown just west of Georgetown, Ontario. He will look after the prize ayrshire dairy cattle at Glendronach Farms owned by G.D.H.Wright. As well as the prize cattle there are also prize horses in a large concrete barn. The farm, orignally an Eaton’s farm, is beautifully situated. Willow trees shade this west branch of the Credit River as it meanders it way through the ravine. The Webb family will live in a home on the farm.
The girls will start Grade Three at the Stewarttown School. It is over a mile and a half uphill hike up the 15 side road.
Along the way they call on their friend Barb who lives alone with her parents on the farm just at the crest of the hill. Barb Cromar becomes a friend for life. As seen below, in her teen age years Barb often comes with Ina and Louise to PEI for summer vacations. She and her Mother are serious Anne fans. Just before this session starts Ina calls Barb in Scarborough, Ontario to help jog her memory. The two talk like friends who just saw each other yesterday.
Louise recollections:
We didn’t miss too many Saturdays when Barb, Ina and I would walk to Georgetown to a matinee. I guess Dad must have given us the money for it. We never got an allowance.
We used to spend time at the river(brook) that ran behind the house there too.
I think Dad drove his first tractor there and we always laughed about the first time he came to the end of a field and hollered ‘Whoa’ and drove through the fence!
He bought his first car when we lived there. Very shortly after getting it he was driving us to Elaine’s birthday party and turned his head to look at something and drove into the ditch.
Norval
Another year and another change for Ina and Louise – by this time they must think that each new year brings a new place to live and a new school to attend. Keith buys a small Garden Market on the town line above Norval Ontario. This change also coincides with a change for his parents. Ernest and Myrtle can no longer live at Green Gables. The farm home, in the McNeill/Simpson family since the late 1700’s, is now the home of a fictional character – Anne of Green Gables – and her fans from around the world. Ernest and Myrtle come to Norval for the spring and summer. Ernest helps Keith with his new operation in Norval. Ernest and Myrtle are excited for Keith – but at the same time – very sad about their own situation.
Ina and Louise will go to a new school for grade 5 . North Carleton – grade one, Cavendish – grade two, Pickering – grade three, Stewarttown – grade four, and now Norval – Grade 5. And still no school bus to pick them up – and another long walk – down hill into the village of Norval in the morning – and uphill on the way home.
Their father and stepmother work hard to build up the business- and the girls pitch in without question . Originally Keith sold Pansies , Tomatoes , and Asparagus. In the fall he would work for the Apple Factory in Glen Williams – he must have earned some extra apples because ads start appearing in the Georgetown Herald.
Aunt Anne and Uncle Charles make their first trip to Ontario. Keith and Ethel and the girls take them to – where else – Niagara Falls
The Girls join the Norval Girl Guides and attend Church/Sunday School at the Norval United Church.
They make visits to Aunt Marion, Uncle Murray and Elaine who live on the other side of Norval as you go up the hill on the way to Brampton. And vice versa
Norval – Ina Session
Louise remembers:
We never had bikes so Thelma Hunter and Ellen would get Ina and I to ride their bikes to the top of the hill by the cemetery for them.
At the height of the asparagus season we would pick asparagus before we went to school and again when we got home.
During the summer we picked strawberries for 5 cents a box across the road (can’t remember whose farm) and raspberries at Patterson’s, also at 5cents a box.
Dad also had a cow which he kept in a small barn back by the woods. I don’t remember a pig. The day of Ina’s wedding the cow and Dad bumped heads somehow. Dad broke his nose. He got in front of a mirror and forced it back in shape. It was very swollen and red for the wedding.
Mother and Dad played euchre regularly on Saturday evenings with the Patterson’s next door while Foster Hewitt announced the hockey game in the background.
Norval years – Milton High School
The girls start High School. It would make sense for them to go to Georgetown for High School – it is only up the hill from Norval. But when it comes to our girls and school – nothing is that simple. Because the Webb’s live in Halton – and on the wrong side of the Townline it is determined that they will go to Milton to High School . Well – at least they don’t have to walk. There is a bus there early in the morning to take them to Milton – which is 20 kilometers away. Well – that is 20 kilometers – if you take the shortest route – but of course the bus doesn’t – it criss-crosses the country side – up one line – across side roads – down the next line. The bus is good for making friends though. I live in Milton and I have witnessed Ina run into people she took the bus to high school with – 60 years ago.
Louise carries on in high school right to Grade 13. Ina – always practical – goes to grade 10 in Milton then opts to go to Georgetown High School for a course in stenography. Stenography – I had to google it – is learning to take notes via short hand – don’t ask me what that is – and then later typing them out – on a thing called a typewriter. As you will see, she uses these skills later while working on an important Canadian project.
Norval – Young Peoples, PEI Vacations, Toronto
It wasn’t all work while in Norval. The girls did have a social life. Norval United Church had a very active Young Peoples group – as did Mayfield United Church just north of Brampton (Hint, Hint).
There were summer vacations in PEI. A highlight of those vacations was hanging out with their Gardiner cousins -Evelyn and Ruth in Bedeque. It would also involve a deep sea fishing expedition with Uncle Waldo.
Louise explains:
Uncle Waldo was the son of Ellie Lowther and Edward Gardiner (We called him Uncle Ed). Uncle Waldo and Aunt Edith’s daughter, Evelyn MacDougall lives in their house in Bedeque. Uncle Waldo built a bungalow across the road in their later years.
Technically speaking then : Uncle Waldo wasn’t an Uncle at all – he was a son of an Uncle – which by my calculation – makes him a cousin. And, by the way, they would also visit their Aunt Martha and Uncle Wilbert – but don’t waste years of your life trying to figure out how they are related. They were good neighbours and friends who earned their Aunt and Uncle titles.
The girls would stay with their Aunt Anne and Uncle Charles and cousins Beth and David in Fernwood on the South Shore , then head over to the North Shore to Cavendish to see their Grandmother Myrtle. Myrtle was now alone. Grandfather Ernest passed away in 1950.
There were also weekend trips to Toronto to visit their cool city Aunt. Aunt Nete was determined to get some culture into these country girls. She took them to art galleries, museums, movies and Toronto Marlie hockey games at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Norval – Independence
The sisters are growing up – their time in Norval is coming to an end. Louise is off to Toronto where she will work for the Bell Telephone Company. She will also be living where her Aunt Nete works – at Willard Hall.
Ina has made a bold move all the way across the road to gain some independence. She lives with the Smellie family and her friend Jane. Ina achieves Norval notoriety as the stern, no nonsense strict disciplinarian Cubmaster.
Christmas get together at the Laird home 1955- at the top of Norval Hill – on the left as you head towards Peel County
