This is the very first “Ina Session” recorded at her high tech Condo Recording Studio in Georgetown, Ontario in November 2020. ( okay – we just used the voice recorder on my Huawei phone) Both Ina and son Alan were nervous at the start – but we got through it.
Following each session we would send the recordings to her sister Louise in New Glasgow Prince Edward Island.
Louise’s recollections are below.
You asked about what we ate. Lots of potatoes and milk for sure. I remember often having “sops” in the evenings. It was chunks of homemade bread with warm milk on it and some brown sugar.Maybe there wasn’t anything else. We certainly didn’t mind it.Dad would pull two chairs over to the sink and put one of us on each chair and we were to wash and dry the dishes.
I can vividly remember the night Ina talked about when we went to Aunt Martha’s during a snowstorm. The horses were up to their bellies in snow and Dad and Mom had to get out to try to shovel them out. We should never have left home and our Mom died a few days later.
The wake and funeral are also vivid memories. Dad stood with one of us in each arm and cried his heart out. We had never seen him shed a tear before.
You asked about games. I remember playing cards with lamplight at the kitchen table with Clayton and Frances, Dad and Mrs. Wells. She was always Mrs. Wells to us and we loved her. She smelled wonderful and was really a kind lady. Harry and I visited her in Delray, Florida, and she was as nice as ever.
I remember going to the brook by the beach at our shore in the spring when the smelts were running. They were so plentiful that we scooped them out with our hands and buckets. Also after helping with hay we would go to the beach for a dip. It was wonderful!
Visitors— Grandad’s brother, Uncle Ted, and his wife, Aunt Anna, visited from California and brought us each a doll. It was a very exciting day. I don’t remember that we had ever had a toy.
I remember the rations during the war. Also how excited we were when we finally got to taste bananas. Also there were a lot of Gypsies (beggars) knocking on the door looking for food. We were pretty scared of them.
Our teacher at North Carleton was Dorothy MacFarlane, not Lowther,. Her Mother was Aletha Lowther, Harry’s Dad’s sister. She was a wonderful teacher but one day during art class she gave our class children’s scissors to do something. I cut out the square on the front of my plaid skirt that Aunt Nete had made for us. She never gave me scissors again. To make things worse Aunt Nete was there when we got home!
At recess time and lunch time we played Anti Anti Over with a ball thrown over the outhouse—- girls on one side, boys on the other
Cavendish was a long way away by horse and wagon or sleigh.. when we went in the winter time we had heated bricks at our feet and lots of blankets. It seemed to take until dark to get there and we’d stay for a couple of days.
