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.