Salt Spring Island Archives

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Audio

St. Mary's Lake Farm from 1920-1950

Lucy Stuart

Accession Number Interviewer SSI Historical Society Address
Date April 9, 2003 Location Central Hall
Media tape Audio CD mp3 √
ID 168 Duration 34 min.

168LucyStuart.mp3

otter.ai

Summer 2021

yes

Riley Donovan

168LucyStuart - created 2009
Tue, 8/17 2:47PM • 50:47
Description:

Lucy Stuart describes her childhood on the island and the many different entrepreneurial ventures her and her family took on to make ends meet. Many interesting anecdotes about early Salt Spring life. Of note is a mention of a stone house on the top of Broadwell Mountain which was reputed to date to pre-contact times, and a story of Lucy and her brother discovering ox skulls in the forest which they believed dated from early settler times.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Farming, Agriculture, Stuarts, St. Mary’s Lake, fishing, Lucy Stuart, bullock, stonecutter’s cottage, First World War, Second World War, Salt Spring Island

SPEAKERS
Ivan Mouat, Unknown, Audience member, Lucy Stuart

Unknown
Salt Spring Island from 1990, (correcting) 1920 to the mid 1950s, primarily around St. Mary's Lake, and Ganges. We are fortunate today to have

Lucy Stuart with us. She now lives in Victoria and she came over today to be with us. She was born and raised on Salt Spring Island. Her parents, Theo and Jean Vergette, came to Salt Spring in 1920. They bought the old Mouats place on Tripp road, where they had a nice farm. Lucy is here today to share her memories of what it was like going to school on Salt Spring Island, what it was like to help out on the farm, and even maybe some, she had some time for social life. I will ask you to listen to what she has to say. And when she is finished, then you may ask questions. Please help me welcome Lucy Stuart.

Lucy Stuart 01:12
Nice to be here, everyone. I've had quite a delightful time this morning I went to our old place at St Mary's lake, over the top of Broadwell Mountain where we used to play with Charles Kahn. And I'll try not to be too long-winded on this but, as Barbara said, my family, my mom and dad moved here in 1920. They have both emigrated from England earlier in the century. Mom in 1910 and dad in 1911 from England. And they had met at (unintelligible) station following the First World War when after my dad came back from being overseas with the 67th Western Scots and the transfer to the Royal Flying Corps (unintelligible). And they had bought the place and moved over here a couple of months before they were married. The house was not in good shape. It had been rented to loggers and there was two-three holes in the kitchen floor and they'd just thrown a plank across them. And there were lots of rats. So mom came to visit, I think either she stayed at Harbour House or a neighbour's I'm not too clear, and she said well fine I'll get married, but you've got to get rid of those rats. The holes first, so that became a priority. However when they were married, they had spent their honeymoon at the Empress Hotel and then they went up to Westholm to see my other grandparents and came across by launch to Vesuvius. And Gavin Mouat brought them up in his car to the farm. And Erin Sprinker had been doing the chores while dad was away, and he was very shy. So, he just departed when he heard the car. So dad went down to the barn to do a bit of milking and when he came back up, he heard mom screaming, so he came in the house and she was standing in the middle of the kitchen table with the oil lamp beside her And a ring of rats around her. Needless to say you know what the priority was: the floors and the rats. However, they made a good, comfortable house out of the place which I visited this morning and it was quite a thrill to see my old room. See how well it was cared for. It was built, I think somewhere around the late 1880s. My history said 1886 but somebody else said 1890, on lumber that was rafted down from Nanaimo, and brought across by oxen from Vesuvius. The, it was the old standard saltbox house with four bedrooms upstairs, downstairs a living room. Too small, two bedrooms, and a lean-to at the back that had a big family kitchen and a pantry and a scullery and a bathroom with nothing in it at that time. We had, for years a round tub, about that deep and four and a half feet across. We put in front of the kitchen stove on Saturday night and that was bath time. Later on during the war, the Second World War, we did an indoor flush toilet which was real (unintelligible). Farm prices in the, in the 20s were really pretty high. And dad was very keen, because he had trained on the Salvation Army farms in Great Britain.

Lucy Stuart 05:11
He was very keen on being a good farmer. So he bought good stock, at Westholm where he farmed his mother's farm, the main thing was milk production. So they had, I think Holstein cows because the milk shipped them out freight train to Victoria every morning. And they also had milk run in Chemainus. But when he moved Salt Spring, the concentration was on butter fat, because you had a Creamery, and so he got to get pedigree Jersey cows from UBC farm and also (unintelligible) Berkshire pigs, again from UBC farm. During the war, during the 20s he did ship a lot of pigs around. People were trying to establish farms. And one of the, I think the furthest he ever shipped a pig, and it was a young Berkshire boar, and six weeks old, he shipped it to the Yukon. And that left, Victoria, no pardon me it left Salt Spring, it went to Vancouver, and then up the coast to Skagway, and over the white pass and Yukon railway. On the ship it got thoroughly spoiled, it grew out of its crate. So, when the pig walked off the train at Dawson, and the farmer wrote a wonderful letter to dad. He said it walked off as if it owned everything. And it had grown out of its crate. He said, it lived to father many, many piglets. So dad was happy about that. We also were on record of production, which is the government operated control, I guess you'd say, so that you had animals that produced as well as they could. And we had one cow Capsa who also had come from UBC farm and in 365 days, she produced something like 4462 pounds of butter fat, which is a lot of butter fat. And that was rounded about 13% butterfat. Nowadays we wouldn't drink it because it would do our hearts in, but at that time, it was what people wanted. And we also grew a lot of fruit. There were many trees on the island. I was delighted this morning to see quite a lot of the trees are still there, and still producing. Although our big cherry tree has gone, I noticed that, but then it would be well over 100 years old. So, when dad bought the farm, Bullock had had it, and they subdivided. So, we got a long narrow strip between 30 and 40 acres, (unintelligible) on St. Mary's Lake, and going right to the back, which now is almost I think the Broadwell road. We had at the back of the property, we had a wood lot, which we cut about two trees a year. It hadn't been logged because the trees were too big. All the, they were logging in before the First World War and during the First World War, when they wanted railway ties. So they would simply cut a tree down, cut the railway ties out of it, discard all the rest of it onto a sled, what they call the sledpile and of course it was a mountain of sawdust. Cause these were big saws that made big chips. So consequently, when the springs on (unintelligible) flooded our fields would be covered about that deep in sawdust from these sawdust piles. But if we needed to build a chicken house or something, we only have to go and get some stuff off the slab piles and we had a good chicken house. Might have to buy a few shingles but that was about it. However, let's see, during the 20s prices were good. We shipped fruit to Vancouver. Well then the depression came along; nobody could sell anything. We would ship good fruit to Vancouver and we would (unintelligible) back for freight. So, I'm not sure if it was just that time that people got together and put in the jam factory. Probably somebody here could tell me when the jam factory first started operating. Anybody know that? 1926? Okay, so it was actually, predated the depression, but I guess even by then we weren't getting as good prices and there was a lot of berries on the island then which don't ship well.

Lucy Stuart 10:13
So yeah the jam factory was a really, quite a good enterprise there. My mom's health was never very good, they were told to leave Britain because of the very heavy pollution, air pollution, they'd been in Lancashire. And when she came out to Seattle, it improved a bit, but it was still anything but good. And, every few months she would wind up in hospital. When she was 26, she was told, she has less than a year to live, Which as a newly wedded woman, that was pretty tough going. However, she had two children after that. I'm the second one. And she died just before her 80th birthday. Part of the thing was that they just assumed that she had lost a lung to TB, and the Jubilee and somewhere in the 40s, she was in for a ruptured appendix. And they said, could we have a look at, they said to my dad, could we have a look at your wife's chest and we really figure out what went wrong. And it turned out that when she was born, only one lung had expanded. And it pushed her heart over under her right arm. And the little stub of the atrophied lung used to bleed, so they just assumed she had TB. And we all have TB scars, I got TB when I was 20, but I never had to go into hospital for it. But that was just part of their life in those days.

Lucy Stuart 11:57
However, we just (unintelligible). but dad had a really tough role to hold because he had to look after us, look after us, sometimes she'd be in hospital. He'd have to do the chores. downs. Take us down to Ganges in the old Model T Ford and it was not exactly fun. Later on, during the Depression, we were able to get a hired boy. Now, dad was a very good farmer. And he belonged to the Farmers Institute and the record of production and so on. So sometimes (unintelligible) hard boys. unbeknownst to the boy, we would be paid the 5, pardon me. The father would pay the $5 a month to the boy instead of us paying it, because he was learning the good methods of farming, and so we had several boys. I understand, I was just talking to Charles (unintelligible) this morning at our old place. And one of our hard boys had been back a couple years ago, which is kinda neat that he remembered. Another person who babysat for us, was an absolutely wonderful man, Mr. Rudge? I don't remember his first name. He had been.

Audience member
Cecil Rudge.

Lucy Stuart 13:26
Oh, thank you. I'll try to remember to write that down. Pardon me, I'm just going to get my bottle of water here. Oh, thank you. That's great. Yes, Mr. Rudge was wonderful. He used to come to us, mom and dad liked to go to dances. And they'd go to dance over at Duncan and so on. Usually take us along, but I guess we got a bit older it wasn't quite so easy. So, Mr. Rudge would come and stay with us and babysit. And then the next day, he'd get busy washing windows or doing laundry or ironing or whatever he could turn his hand to. And he would stay until his next babysitting job came along. He lived in a little cottage on what I call the creek that ran through Ganges, I guess it doesn't run through there anymore. But he was, we just had very good memories with him.

Lucy Stuart 14:39
One of the things that was a real boom on the island was the fact that some farmers got together, and they bought farm machinery collectively. There was one farmer who was going out of business and rather than them all bid against one another at an auction, they got together, and they said, okay, now, how much can we afford to pay for this? So, they bought a manure spreader, and this was almost all good, new equipment. A manure spreader, a seed drill, I think a threshing machine, and maybe one other piece of equipment that I can't remember. And no, I'm certain it was a binder, not a threshing machine. Father Reynolds had the threshing machine. Anyway, so they owned this collectively. And you passed it from one person to the next. Now different people had land that was ready earlier than other people. So that was fine. They, one person would have it. We were sort of in, well we had side deals so we were fairly early on stage and often it would come to us, and it would need fixing. But it couldn't be fixed with baling wire, it had to probably go to Mr. Mcafee and be welded. However, it was certainly a tremendous help, and it increased our production and it also saved a lot of back breaking work. One of the jobs that I had on the farm while I was still in school, of course there was always haying, there was lots of haying. The only thing my brother Jeff helped with was haying and chopping wood. He was not a farmer. He wanted to get off the farm. Got too much prospects so he decided he would build himself a cabin. So, he used to go to Vesuvius and rent, pardon me, borrow a boat from Arthur Inglis, he'd row over to Crofton where they were holding the freighters. Most of that lumber I think was going to Britain. And he would pick up what was in the water, they never collected it, it was just lying you know. So, he would load the boat and he would back to Vesuvius. And he'd pull the boat up at high water mark and put (unintelligible) up there. Clean up the boat, load some of his pieces of lumber on his bike and ride home. Or push home if it was too heavy. Cause it was only a single speed bike in those days. And during the week he'd transport his lumber and arrive the next weekend for more. Well of course after a while, the longshoreman got to know him. So, they'd say, oh what do you need today? And he'd say oh, well, I'm looking for two by fours. So (unintelligible) So he built himself a really nice little two room cabin. By the way, I think part of it is still there at lake, at what we used to call lakeshore fishing camp which is now Salt Spring RV Park. It's the one nearest the road. Part of it looked familiar. So, he built his cabin and got a roof on it, and said he was going to live in it. Well, he was, I guess just turning 16 and mom and dad said no, you are not. So, the first fisherman that came along got to rent it. But prior to that we had rented rooms in the houses, a bed and breakfast sort of situation, because we had four bedrooms up and two down. And people would come fishing up at the lake but they'd stay at the Harbour House or maybe even Booth Bay resort. But they said they spent so much time going back and forth, it would be much nicer if they could stay on the lake. So, they did that. I should have mentioned about the stocking the lake with small mouth black bass fry. I think it was in 1920 or '21. '21 I think. The fisheries man George Bardale, brought a telegram saying expect 16 tons of small mouth bass fry to be released into St. Mary's lake. Now, this was the proposition. They were coming on the boat to Vesuvius. And how was he gonna get it to St Mary's Lake? There was one truck around the island and about three cars. So, he phoned dad and said that this was coming so they, I guess collectively, went to collect it. He showed dad the telegrams, sure enough it says sixteen tons. What came off the boat was 16 little tons. With five fish in each one. So, they released them into St Mary's lake off our waterfront there and they voluntarily closed the lake for five years. Well, those black bass just took right off. They cleaned up the trout and by the time people were starting to come from the States to fish, it was just wonderful fishing. They used to come, sometimes they were very jaded fishermen. They would come and say, hmm where are these fish? Well dad kept one in a wire cage beside the wharf. And it happened to be the biggest, biggest bass he'd ever caught, it was four and a half pounds. So he'd just say, well, there's one of them there. They'd see it and they'd grab their rod and they'd jump into the boat and they'd head off. They almost always came back with their limit of fish, which I think at that time was 15.

Lucy Stuart 20:40
The only problem was that they never fileted them. I was the one that got the job of cleaning and fileting them. And I don't ever remember getting a tip for it either. I did sell chickens. (unintelligible) chickens. (unintelligible) because I used to skin the chickens, which I mean, today would be great, because you're not getting all that fat. But in those days, when I was getting 75 cents a chicken and I just could not see spending an hour to pluck it. And that, I mean, they were, brought, they were what we call broiler size now. Full of (unintelligible) so I used to just skin them. I though well if they don't like it they can go in the store and buy some. Anyway, I sold eggs and fruits, and grew vegetables and so on. That's how I earned my money because after I graduated from high school, when I was 17, I got my university entrance, but I just never even thought about going to university. I really wanted to be a nurse, but I couldn't be because I had a very serious injury when I was a child and one hip was no good, so. I decided well if I can't be a nurse, I'll be a farmer. I took the agriculture by correspondence my last year at school. Didn't quite finish it so I had to go back. And I also took a botany, no I took (unintelligible) so I'd know what the botany stuff was about of land. Anyway, after the war, pardon me, after I graduated which was in '43 I think. By the way, we had moved from the old chicken house school. By the way, I went to Central School next door here for grade seven and eight. Prior to that I had gone to Mrs. Cornhouse's school which is down on the old Stokel (?) property. I'd gone there till I was 11. Or 10, I guess. And then we moved to the old chicken house school, which was next door to the Mahon Hall. And we were there while we were building the new school. Chicken house school was quite an experience because it was so poorly lit the teacher couldn't even see when somebody when they snuck out the back window for a smoke. So, you imagine how hard it was to learn. We had, I recall, two lights. One on either side. I mean, the rooms, it was divided, I guess it'd be the size of this room but divided in two. And the 11 and 12s were in one room and the 9 and 10s were in the other room. Anyway, we survived, and we got into the new school, it seemed like heaven. You know it was bright and light and clean, and we had a Home Ec room and all kinds of luxuries. So that was fine. I either walked to Ganges, because we lived beyond the, how should I put it, within the boundary of where you couldn't ride the school bus, or unless you paid five dollars a month. There was no way we'd have five dollars a month. However, one day the cow stepped on me and broke two toes. Well, I got to school the next day with some difficulty on my old bike. And when Mr Fullister (?) saw me hopping down the stairs. He said, Lucy, what's wrong? And I said well, I think I've broken a couple of toes. And he said how did you get here? I said, well on my bike. Well, he said you're sure not going home on your bike. So, he carried me out to the school bus. And he said, (unintelligible). He said, Lucy's riding the school bus from now until the time her foot is better. And I rode it on and out for the next two years and nobody asked me for five dollars. (laughter) I still don't know why.

Lucy Stuart 24:52
Anyway, we got a pretty good education, and you know all around considering everything. The only thing I do sort of regret is we learned very little Canadian history. We learned tons of British history. I could have told you what every product was from every town in Britain, I think. Cause that was part of what we learned. But I've read a lot of Canadian history since. Yeah, and speaking of history, something I should have mentioned the back of our property, which was a wood lot. And then beyond that there was a little sort of a meadow with a piece of Duck Creek running through it. There was the remains of an old log cabin there and I understand that's where the Copelands lived. Now they were one of the first black families I think, that came to the island. Somebody said that you'd mentioned they'd moved to Victoria. Somebody mentioned that they had...

Audience member
They went to Victoria

Lucy Stuart 25:53
They did. What do you know are they are family or just a couple?

Audience member
(chatter) There was a black family named Alexander, I think they were a part of that family or related to them? In Victoria.

Lucy Stuart 26:11
Oh, we knew the Alexanders. See, the Copelands had gone before dad bought the property (unintelligible). No, I guess no, Mouats bought from Copeland. Yeah, that's right. But one day when my brother and I were out in the woods. And we found the head of an office. And by that, I mean a very defunct ox. And we were so proud. We brought this home. And we had a pergola over our gateway, and it led into our entrance. And so, we stuck it up on there. We thought that was pretty marvelous. But Mr. Bullock was coming to tea that afternoon. My father saw it and nearly had a fit and said get rid of that thing. So, we had to find somewhere else to display it. But it was a big ox, and that would be one of the ones that brought the lumber across, I would think from Vesuvius. We had a whole invasion of muskrats at St. Mary's Lake during the 30s. They cut down all the reeds. First of all, people thought this was going to be a disaster. But for the first year, for years, we didn't get a pink scum on St Mary's Lake in the summer, which really was horrible because as it deteriorated it was an algae. We thought it was an algae. As it deteriorated, it was just so smelly. We thought it was maybe because of the willows, all the willow pollen, and the wool, from the Willow trees and so on. But, after the muskrats cut the reeds down, we didn't have a problem, so whether it was related or whether it was farm run off we were never quite clear. As we developed our fishing camp, we had people that came from all over. Particularly from the States, they were really big on small mouth white bass. They had lots of large mouth black bass in the States, but the small mouth ones were the ones that were real fighters. And we had people like Margaret Kate Brown would come and Sir Ernest Petter, they lived up at Comox, and other people, and of course they would get me to row for them. They thought that I knew where the fish were, well, I had a pretty fair idea where they were. But I sure didn't know how to fish. And I learned quite a lot from them. Oh I was never a keen fly fisherman and they were fly fishermen. One year we had a group of, I'll say a group of Americans because that's where they were. And they were heavy drinkers. We didn't know this. And they would go out early in the morning. This morning, they went out and they had a bit of a disaster. And they came back. All soaked to the skin, and hopping mad. And I was working on the boats, and I couldn't understand what went on. Well it turned out they lost all their fishing tackle. So well we said well where were you? Oh, we were up at the other end of the lake there you know. And so we tried to get, be more specific, well you see the house there, were you close to that. Oh, yeah, yeah, we were real close to that. And we just, you know, dumped the water out of the boat and climbed into the boat, rowing home and we were gonna get some dry clothes on. So dad said well, and they happened to be staying, I think at harbour house. So they, dad phoned, and got them a taxi. Away they went. So dad and I got talking. We know we're gonna be able to (unintelligible) on that surely because it was on the reef, there was about an acre of flat rock off what was Dodd's property. And so dad and I, after milking that night, we went up there. Of course, it was only, like three feet deep. Dad had his hip waders on and I just had my swim suit. We found everything except the one rod that the fish had been on. Of course, we'd warned them (unintelligible) two standing up in the boat at the same time. And of course, because they got so excited, all three of them reached for the rod. So that was what, so they lost their one rod. However, the next day, they were the happiest campers, you would imagine. Because they got all their tackle back. But for the most part, the fisher people were wonderful, and we had a lot of fun. It was hard work. I wouldn't ever pretend it wasn't hard work.

Lucy Stuart 31:01
But, let's see if I can find my own notes here. Some of these I'm gonna, I'm gonna put all of these into your archives if you're interested. Oh, one of the interesting experiences I had. Okay, now this one wasn't so interesting, but I will mention this. I worked in Mouat's store in the winter for three or four winters, until people came back from the war. And the reason I of course worked in the winters is there was too much farm work to be done at the fishing camp and all of that. I had the arrangement that I could leave the first of April. However, I got terrible chill pains, I'd always had chill pains. Because the floors in our hosts were always cold and we had no furnace. We had a kitchen stove and three fireplaces. However, when I worked in Mouat's, they were way worse. Because they were single floors with maybe half an inch crack between the boards and the wind whistled up the harbour and they came up. And in spite of like heavy wool slacks and wool underwear and the whole bit, my feet were just a terrible mess. So, I used to go down to the feed shed. And I used to crack open the bottle, the tap on the storm oil and just run it over, I just ran it over my shoes as well as my socks. I hate to think what it probably did to my liver. But it was the only way I could get relief from the terrible itching. And needless to say, any doctor looking at my toes they says, whatever happened to them. You say chill pains, they're not very short ones you mean. But they had, another experience that I had that I really enjoyed. During the war. There was no one left to farm to do the farm work, you know, as far as the intensive work, such as potato digging, and silo filling and threshing and all that sort of thing. So, I worked on the, all of the different gangs, different farms, we'd go to usually the Willie Conners (?) first. And then we'd go to Jesse Bonds and then we'd go to, we didn't grow much in the way of potatoes, but we did have, we grew winter wheat. Winter wheat and (unintelligible) and purple vetch. And that was the first crop that we would put into the silo. And that was always, it was like, loading pea soup into the silo. And I had the job of crapping the silo because I was the smallest one, and you had a hose running to make matters worse. Well, one time we were working at Willie Conners (?), and there we were putting in corn. So, you had to have (unintelligible) water, and that was chopped up by the silo filling machine. And so, I heard the engine stop, and I thought well that's funny, they hadn't come to get me for lunch. And I was getting pretty anxious, you know, the water was running, and I couldn't get out because they put the barriers in where the entry was. And the ladder was on the outside, not on my side. So finally, I heard somebody I heard hurrying, people yelling and so on. And of course, the whole crew came to get me. They had sat down to lunch and Irene Palmer looked around and said where is Lucy?

Lucy Stuart 34:59
And they all said oh no we left her in the silo, and I had visions of having to swim. However, I got three pieces of pie for lunch that day, and she made wonderful pie. Believe me, harvest meals were really wonderful as was the harvest supper that we had every year. And it was good work. But it was hard work. I still see Elmer Lee in Victoria, now he and I used to work when we were threshing. he would be on the, like the sacking, we sacked everything. And, and I would be lifting the bushel bins, which I don't know were they one bushel or tow? I think they were one. But anyway they were darn heavy. And I was less than five feet tall, and Elmer was six foot four. And I said to him, I said, why aren't you doing this? You're the big strong man! And he said God, my back would kill me if I did this. I was teasing him about that a while ago. He wasn't sure whether he remembered that. We have to pour this into the sack. I mean he had the job of tying up the sack and moving the sack, admittedly. But it was kind of amusing. During the war, there was nobody to pick the fruit, you know, we would say to people come and help yourself to apples or plums or whatever, because we just don't have the time or the people to pick them. Sometimes people would come and other people would say, well, if you pick it and bring it to me. We said, no way. However, we had lots of apples. Somebody told me that the provincial mental hospital on Wilkinson Road in Victoria, which is now the Wilkinson Road remand centre would, needed apples in the worst way. So, I contacted the superintendent who was a very nice gentleman. And he said, yes, we certainly do need apples. He said we're going to send a truck over for them. So, I determined how many he was talking about he was taking about two truckloads. We didn't have, we have about a truckload, but not anymore. And so, I contacted Willie Palmer, who'd lost his workers when the Japanese people were sent to the interior and to Alberta and Ontario when it was internment. And so, he said, I don't have any to pick my fruit. So, I said, well, if I buy apples from you, I said ill pick them, I'll make my own boxes. I told them where they were going. He said well that would be fine. So, we did that. And (unintelligible) two full truckloads. I bought my apple boxes knocked down (unintelligible). And they sent a truck up, took one road from our place, and then another day (unintelligible). But the next year, mom had been really ill. And she was recovering from surgery. So, there was no way I could spare the time. So, they said. Oh, I know, the superintendent when I phoned him, told him that, he said, well, we really need the apples. He said, if we send over a crew, you've got cottages. And they came with a cook and guards (?) would you put them up and they could pick the apples? Well, I talked to mom and dad about this, and they didn't see any particular problem. So, they came over. They seem pretty harmless and cheerful. The only thing is I had an awful job persuading them not to put leaves and twigs. So, I finally wound up by packing all the boxes, so that at least they would get what they were paying for, and they paid me a pretty fair amount. And the cook, I had an experience one day, the cook seemed very hospitable. And I went one morning to see how things were going and did they need any more milk and egg and so on. And he asked me for a cup of cocoa, and I assumed because he was already, I assumed he was Chinese. So of course, it was the height of the war. I said something about Geez it's really a shame what the Japanese are doing. I saw him give me a really really strange look. And he happened to be using a carving knife at the time. And I thought, I think I better get out of here and downed my cocoa and headed out the door. I didn't realize that he was Japanese. And he was pretty upset about what I'd said. So, I learned after that to keep my mouth shut some times. Have I run over my time? Pretty nearly, I guess.

Lucy Stuart 40:07
Just trying to think what else now. I told you about my brother building the cabin. By the way, he did leave the island. He was part of the militia, part of the Canadian Scottish. And he wanted to go with the fellows. But he was only 17. And my dad said, no, he said, I served in the First World War. He said, you're going to get ki- you know, people are going to get killed soon enough. He says, I'm not going to swear that you're 18 when you're only 17. My granny was pretty smart. She lived in Victoria. She said, Jeff, why don't you go as a light housekeeper, for a year. By then he'll be old enough to be able to make up your mind what you want to do. So he did that. He went to Leonard island at Tofino, and had a really interesting year. He took some marvelous pictures, which amazingly have stayed as black and white as the day he took them. Which I think is quite a credit. And then he went from there, by this time, things were moving along. And so he went, he had already done a lot of logging, before the war, he had logged on Salt Spring. We actually used to go to school, and mom and dad thought he was at school but he wasn't. He was booming. The booming ground was right below where, almost below Mahon Hall, almost where we had lunch today. And he would find out from the kids at lunchtime when it was going to be an exam and he'd come in and get 90% or 95% and poor Mr. Fullister (?) there was just about beside himself. So, one day phoned up mom and he said Jeffrey has got to come to school. She says well he leaves for school every morning. He says, yeah, I know he does, and he's going booming. So, they gave him an ultimatum, okay, he'd either go to school full time or quit. So, he quit. So, it was after that he worked for Elder Logging, that's Sooke. And then later Nitinat. Nitinat was a whole different scene to the little logging camps that he had worked on before (unintelligible) and so on. At Nitinat, which was oh, I guess Bodell (?) and Stewart at that time, which was a big company. They had strict strict rules, you could not talk at meals. And that nearly killed. my brother, because we were used to hearing conversations, dad would read Shakespeare to us, we'd read the paper. And to have to sit there and not say a word was just awful as far as he was going. The food was wonderful. They got steak and orange, not oranges, but apples and all kinds of things that, you know were not available otherwise. But, yeah no, the not being allowed to talk, but it was the rule of the culture I guess in a big logging camo. I guess too many fist fights started from that. Well, I'm sure if anybody's interested in any more, they can get it from what I haven't read, or what I haven't told you. I failed to mention my mother had been married during the First World War and her husband was killed when he was 19 in France. So, they only had 10 days together before he went overseas. So, she was really, she was recovering from the Spanish Flu which killed millions of people worldwide. In 1918, she went to a family at Cowichan, which were called the Stewart family. He was called Glen Stewart. And she was recuperating there when my dad came back from overseas and they met, and you know the rest of the story, or part of it (laughter). Well, thank you very much for your patience.

Audience member
During the 60s and 70s and 80s I lived up on the north shore of St. Mary's Lake, on I guess it was the Dodd's farm. Do you remember them?

Lucy Stuart 44:44
Oh yeah. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. I knew Lassie well.

Audience member
I remember the woods were full of bits of fencing. I think they must have had goats or something.

Lucy Stuart 44:51
Oh, they did, they did they had lots of goats. Well, it was right off that point where those fellas fell in the water and thought they were gonna drown. So, they got back in the boat, they could have received all their fishing tackle themselves if they hadn't panicked.

Audience member
I think I remember somebody saying that he was a professor?

Lucy Stuart 45:08
Yes, he was, a very, at Cambridge. Yeah Cambridge, yeah Cambridge University. I don't know is Bob Dodds still around?

Audience member
No he died (unintelligible)

Lucy Stuart 45:18
Oh did he? Huh, huh, yeah. Any other questions?

Audience member
Lucy you said something about, this morning, about a stone house (unintelligible).

Lucy Stuart 45:29
Oh, yeah. I don't know if this is fact or fiction. But we were told this so many times that on top of Broadwell Mountain, I think more towards the far end of it, by the way we used to climb up and down that cliff, above the lake there, that was part of where we played. Nowadays, people's hair would stand on end. But, we had lots of freedom, we roamed the woods and so on. They said that there was an old stone house up there that they thought predated European contact. And the door was a single slab of stone with a pivot at the top and the bottom. Now whether it was (unintelligible), I don't know. You know, we heard this story so many times, as far as we're concerned it was fact. Maybe nobody's ever heard this, I don't know. Yeah, we used to, we'd make log cabins along the top of the cliff there above the lake. And my friends, the Hools lived at the far end of the lake, and because we wanted to go and visit, we made the... (tape stops, then starts again). Walking home in the dark like this, you hear this "hooo" "hooo", well there all those big rocks. And I had visions of all kinds of things in those caves including the boogie man. And now I know it was owls, but I didn't know that. Anything else? Yes.

Audience member
There used to be the stonecutter's house on top of (unintelligible)

Lucy Stuart 47:14
On top of where?

Audience member
On top of, just below (unintelligible)

Lucy Stuart 47:19
No, I didn't know that. Maybe that's the one they're talking about. By the stonecutters. That may well be the one the were talking about.

Audience member
(unintelligible) can you tell us about your father in law's farm out at (unintelligible)?

Lucy Stuart 47:39
Oh, yeah. I should have mentioned that. The man I married, Mark Stuart, his dad has owned the old Potager farm, which is the white beach. It's (unintelligible) Couple's Bob and I think Couple's family live there still. And my father-in-law worked in the Chemainus mill, but when it unionized dad would not join the union. So, he brought the whole family over to Salt Spring, he'd built a couple of cabins on a beach over the years. And they lived in a farmhouse, but it wasn't really living, it was just existing because there was no running water or electricity. Oh, they had real problems with the bitter cold. The kids were pretty young. However-

Audience member
When would he have bought that?

Lucy Stuart 48:34
Oh he bought it before the 20s I think, or maybe early, early 20s. Yeah, I think it would be maybe just after the First World War. I'm not sure. He was a Dominion land surveyor. And he was also a mining engineer. He had many, many attributes. He did work on the island later. Well, he did farm, try to farm, for a little bit. But his heart wasn't in it. And he went surveying up north to survey the hydro lines from Peace River dams down through the interior across the islands, surveyed the line where it went across from Salt Spring to Galiano and so on out into Vancouver Island. He was still working even as a surveyor even when he was in his 70s. But he died at 87. Still had all his marbles. My dad had all his marbles and he died at 92. So, is that it?

Unknown
I think for the questions.

Lucy Stuart 49:56
Well, thank you very much.

Ivan Mouat
Lucy, I've got to tell you, I'm Ivan Mouat, you wouldn't recognize me (unintelligible)

Lucy Stuart 50:06
Oh, Ivan! I didn't recognize you, sorry!

Ivan Mouat
I wanted to thank you for having a delightful afternoon starting the 40s, the 30s, 40s, and 50s, told with a great deal of humour, and told with you know lots of facts, but a great deal of humor. I'd like give you a copy of (unintelligible) Charles Kahn's book Salt Spring Island. and thank you very much.

Lucy Stuart 50:30
Oh, my that's exciting. Thank you very much!

168_Stuart-Lucy_St-Mary-Farm.mp3

otter.ai

09.03.2023

no

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Saltspring island from 1990 to 1990 1920 to the mid 1950s, primarily around St. Mary's slave, and Ganges. We are fortunate today to have Lucy Stewart with us. She now lives in Victoria and she came over today to be with us. She was born and raised on Saltspring Island. Her parents, Theo and Jean. Birgit came to Salt Spring in 1920. They bought the old modes place on Trip road where they had a nice farm. Lucy is here today to share her memories of what it was like going to school on Saltspring Island. What it was like to help out on the farm and even maybe some she had some time for social life. I will ask you to listen to what she has to say. And when she is finished, then you may ask questions. Please help me welcome Lucy Stewart.

Unknown Speaker 1:12
Nice to be here, everyone. Writing delightful time this morning. Place over the top of broad North Mountain near where we play

Unknown Speaker 1:32
to design this as Barbara said my family my mom and dad moved here in 1920. They have both emigrated from England earlier in the century. In 1998. They have met at station following First World War when my dad came back from being overseas with this question Scott's transferred to the flying cars they have bought the place here a couple of months before they were married. The house was not in good shape because it has been rented to larger holes gets planted cross. There were lots of rats that came to visit HIV status harbor about certain neighbors and she said Well, fine, you've got to get rid of those reps. That became a priority. However, when they were married, they had spent money for so tail and then they went back to the restaurant. Or the grandparents came across by launch to pursue his his cards

Unknown Speaker 3:12
Eric sprinker have been doing tours about that way but he was very shy. So he just departed when either the car so that went down to the barn to do the milking and he came back up to her mom screaming gave him the house and she was standing at the kitchen table with the oil app beside her. And the ringer wraps her after the saying oh know what the priority was the floors and the rents however they they made a good, comfortable place which I visited this morning and it was quite a thrill to see my own room. See how well it was built, I think somewhere around the late 1880s. History Since 1886. But some of these Nike lumber that was drafted and the broadcast by opsin. From the zoo was the old standard saltbox house with four bedrooms upstairs downstairs living room to swap two bedrooms into the back and have a big family kitchen and a three and a scullery and the bathroom with nothing enters at that time. We had for years around four and a half feet across. We put it through the kitchen stove on Saturday night and that was later on during the war. Second World War. We did the other question, which is real. farm prices and The 20s were really pretty high. And dad was very keen because he had trained on the Salvation Army farms in Great Britain. He was great pain so he got good stock. The west town where I had prom was mother's maiden name was milk production. So they had, I think Holstein cows because they shipped the milk red train to victory every morning. And they also had milk. But when he moved to Salt Spring, the concentration of ozone because you have Creamery and so he got to get a green Jersey cows from UBC. And also Berkshire, again from UBC. During the war, during the 20s, he did ship a lot of pigs around, people were trying to get established farms. And one of the furthest he ever shipped. That was a young boxer for six weeks old be shipped to the Yukon. And that left Victoria

Unknown Speaker 6:23
Saltspring to Vancouver and then up the coast to Skagway and over the right paths. And you're gone railway on the shipping thermos bottle out of its crate. So when people walked off the drain, last empathy farmer what a wonderful editor walked off on everything. And it had grown out of its crate. And he said father many many pixels. So that was happy about that. We also were on record of production which the government operated control I guess you'd say, so that you have animals that produce as well as they could and we have one cow capsule who also accounts for 365 days she produced something like 4462 pounds of butter fat, which is a lot of butter fat. And that was rounded about 13% butterfat nowadays but into our hearts. At that time it was well. We also grew amount of fruit there were many trees on the slide that this morning to see quite a lot of the trees are still they're still producing. Our big cherry tree has gone up but then it wouldn't be 100 years old. So when they had it, they subdivided so we got a long narrow strip between 30 and 40 acres running offset Mary's Lake and going right to that, which now is almost I think Broadwell road. We have at the macro property we have a wooded lot, which we've had about two trades a year, it has been lost because the trees were too big. All of they were logging in before the First World War and during the First World War when they wanted railway ties. So they would simply cut a tree down, cut the railway ties and own it and discard all the rest of it onto a sled, what they called the stockpile and of course it was a mountain of sawdust, disease. Big sausage made big jumps. So consequently, springs on and flooded our fields would be covered in sawdust pile but if we needed to build a chicken house or something, we only had to go and get some stuff off the slab piles and we might have to buy extra channels for that. However, say during the 20s prices were good. We shipped fruit to Vancouver Rolanda depression came along, nobody to sell anything. We would ship good fruit to Vancouver. They'll back for free. So not sure if it was just at that time that people got together and footer in the jack factory. Probably somebody here tell me when the factory first started operating. Anybody know that? 1920s It was actually predated the depression. But I guess even by that we weren't getting as good prices. And there was a lot of berries on the don't ship well. So he goes down factor is a really, really good enterprise there

Unknown Speaker 10:24
my mom's health was never very good. She told me because very heavy pollution, air pollution in Lancashire. And when she came out to Redmond, Seattle, improved a bit further still anything but every few months she would wind up in hospital. When she was 26, she was told she has a year to live. Which view nearly wet woman that was pretty tough flying. However, she had two children after that. Second one. She died just before her 80th birthday. Party The thing was that they just assumed that she had lost a lot of the doobly. And somewhere in the 40s. She was in for a ruptured appendix. And they said, Could we have a look at that we have a picture rights chest and see if we can really figure out what went wrong. It turned out that when she was born, only one lung had expanded. First, her heart over under her right. And the little stub of the atrophied lung needs to bleed. So just assume she had TB. And we all have TV stars. TV when I was 20 never had to go into hospital. But that was just part of their life. However, we just

Unknown Speaker 12:04
had a really tough because you have to look after look after as sometimes she'd be in hospital. You'd have to do the chores. digress downs, and they will Model T Ford. It was not exactly fun. Later on. During the Depression, we were able to get a higher ROI now. There was a Greenwood farmer, and he blocked his farmers Institute to record their production and so on. So sometimes this hard voice unbeknown to the boy, we wouldn't be paid to fight. The father would pay the $5 a month to the boy instead of us paying because he was learning good methods. So we had several boys. I'm standing talking to Charles this morning, as are all one of our hard boys had feedback a couple of years ago, which is kind of nice. Another person who babysat for us was an absolutely wonderful math, Mr. Rice. I don't remember his first name. He has been over Thank you. I'll try never to write that down. Pardon me, I'm just gonna get my bottle of water here.

Unknown Speaker 13:38
Oh, thank you. That's great.

Unknown Speaker 13:45
Yes, Mr. Raj was wonderful. He used to come to us, come on down. And they'd go to dance over and so on. You usually take us along but I guess when we got a bit older, it wasn't quite so easy. So Mr. Rogers, come and stay with us and babysit them. The next day, he'd get busy washing windows or doing laundry or ironing or whatever, he would turn his hand and he would stay until his next babysitting job came along. He lives in federal court in what I call the creek the round doesn't either anymore. But he was we just have very good memories

Unknown Speaker 14:39
one of the things that was a real boon on the island was the fact that some farmers got together and they go out they bought farm machinery collectively. There was one farmer who was going out of business and rather than have all bent against one another, the auction they got to the Other and they said okay, now how much can we afford to pay for this? So they bought a manure spreader. And this was almost all new equipment and manure spreader, a seed drill I think a threshing machine and maybe one other piece of equipment that I can't remember. And now I'm starting to find the rambles have crashed. Anyway, yeah. So they join on this collectively. And you pass it from one person to the next now different people have landed, it was ready earlier than other people. So that was fine. One person would have it, we were sort of we had side deals fairly early stage and often it would come to us and it would be fixed but couldn't be fixed with baling wire was happy to be a probably Mr. McAfee. However, it was a certainly a tremendous help in increased our production, and it also saved a lot of back breaking work. Running the jobs that I have the front runners don't school. Of course, it was always hate. The earnings my brother, Jeff Kelly, was paying what it was not a farmer. He wanted to get off the track. Too much prospect, so he decided he would build himself a cabin. So he used to go to the Zoom is rented and frankly borrow both from our strenuous the roll over to cross and where they were living appraisers posted that buffer. I think it was Britain. And he would pick up what was in the water they never collected it. So he would love the boat and go back to Taiwan and put a slug around the boat. Striking right home, of course, was to have only a single speaker. And during the weekend, transport is referred to as the next weekend for our authors after a while. Longer Sherman got to know him. So what do you need? Oh, well. I'm looking for two by fours to do so we sell her a really nice little two room cabin. By the way, I think part of it is still air at like what we used to call like your fishing camp, which is now Saltspring RV park is the one nearest the road. Part of it. As Kevin said he was going to look like he was just turning 16 No, you aren't. So the first fishermen that came along, got to rented but prior to that we had rented rooms in the houses, breakfast sort of situation because we have four bedrooms up to down. People would come fishing the next day at the harbor house or maybe a resort. But as they said they spent so much time going back and forth nicer

Unknown Speaker 18:38
saw they did that. I should have mentioned about the stalking the smallpox black bass Friday. I think it was in 1920 or 2121 I think

Unknown Speaker 18:54
fisheries George Borrowdale robbing telegraph, saying expects 16 tons of small black bass fries to be released into seminaries right now, this was a proposition. They were coming on the boat to the zoo. And how was he going to get it to superiors late? There was one truck.

Unknown Speaker 19:18
So he found that this was coming. I guess collectively. He showed telling me telegram strong consistency. What came off the 16 channels with slight fish in each one. They released the berries laid off right there and they post voluntarily post delete for five years. Well what was black bass just took right off. They cleaned up the trout

Unknown Speaker 20:01
By the time we were starting to come from the States, it was just wonderful fishing. It used to come. They were very, very jaded fishermen, they would come and say, where are these fish? Or that kept one wire case besides the wars and if it happened to be the biggest one finger Stassi there was four and a half pounds. So he just missed one of them there. Rather than a jump into the boat, they almost off which came back with, which I think at that time was 50. The only problem was that they never felt I was in the Philippines. And I don't ever remember getting I did sell chicken. breast chicken. There. Yeah, I think that was really great. Because I used to get the chickens, which I mean today would be great. You're not getting all that. But in those days, but I was getting 75 cents a chicken. I just could not see you spending an hour to pluck it. And that's I mean they were brought or they were what we call broilers sighs now full attempt to just to just get but what they don't like it, they can go in the store and buy something. Anyway, I sold your vegetables and so on. And that's how I was after I graduated from high school. I was 17 university entrance University. I really wanted to be a nurse but I couldn't be because I have a very serious injury when I was a child. So I decided well for can't be a nurse all farmers. I took agriculture by correspondence my last year didn't quite finish it. So I had to go back. I also took Latin. So right from the start was anyway after the war, of retinue after I graduated by the way, we have moved from the chicken house. By the way, I went to Central School next door here for seven months. Prior to that I adopted Mrs. whorehouses school which is down the old school bell property. I've gone there until I was 11. And then we moved to the old chicken house was next door to the prom hall that we were there while we're building a new school. Now school was brightened experience because it was so poorly lit the teacher couldn't even see somebody when they snuck out the back window for a small so he imagined how hard it was to learn. We had I recall two lights one on either side. It was right. Yes, it would be the size of this room but divided into 11 The twirls were in one room. Nine chance we're in the other room. Anyway, we survived and we got into the new school it seemed like heaven was rising laser. We had a home all kinds of luxuries. So that was fine. I either want to Ganges because we live beyond the within the boundary of where you couldn't ride the school bus or unless you take drive. Away we have however, one day the cow stepped on toes next day with some difficulty on my own. And Mr. Sami property hopping down the stairs. He said Lucy was your eyes. And he said how did you get here? I said well I find when you said your shirt not going home on here so to speak. And he said you said Lucy's riding the school bus from now until a time her thought is better. And I wrote it on now for the next two years. Nobody asked me to drive. I still don't know why.

Unknown Speaker 24:52
Anyway, we got a pretty good education and you're all wrong considering everything. And the only thing I do sorry regret is we learned very little Canadian history. Tons of British history. I could have told you what every product restroom every town in Britain, I think that was part of what we learned. I read a lot of Canadian history since the new history. Something I should have mentioned the back of our property, which was a wooded lot. And then beyond that there was a little sort of meadow with a piece of duck creek running through it. There was the remains of an old cabin there and I understand that through the Copeland's are they were one of the first black families I think, that came to the island

Unknown Speaker 25:45
and mentioned they had moved to Victoria. Somebody mentioned that they did what do you know where they are family or just a couple?

Unknown Speaker 26:05
Depends

Unknown Speaker 26:11
Oh, when you the Alexander's to the Copeland's had gone before dad bought the property from him before? No, I guess no, it's bought from. Yeah, that's right. But we one day when my brother and I were out in the woods, and we found the head of an ox, a very different box. We were so proudly brought this home. And we have a pergola over our gateway that led into our entrance. And so we don't stick it on there. We thought that was pretty harmless. But Mr. Bullock was coming to see that after nearly how to get rid of it. So we had to find somewhere else to display it. But it was a big ops and that would be one of the ones that brought the number across I would think from the Soviets.

Unknown Speaker 27:14
We had a whole invasion or muskrats scenario during the 30. They cut down all the reefs are first of all people thought this was going to be a disaster. But for the first year for years, we didn't get a pink scum on various lakes in the summer, which really was horrible because as deteriorated it was an algae. This we thought it was and as it deteriorates, it was just so smelly. We thought it was maybe because of the willows. Well apart from the product, Chase and so on, that after muskrats cut the reeds down, we didn't have a problem or whether it was related or whether it was farm runoff whenever.

Unknown Speaker 28:08
As as we developed our efficient count, we had people all over literally from the States, they were really big on small house like they had lots of large black baths in the States for the small amount of real fighters. And we have people like Kate Brown would come the answer is pattern data from other people and the procedure would get me a roll for it. They thought that I knew or the fishery or Well I had a pretty fair idea or they were but I started didn't know how to fish and I learned quite a lot from them. I was never a fly fisherman. They were mostly one year we have a group of Americans because they were and they were heavy drinkers. We did. And they would go out early in the morning. And this morning they went out

Unknown Speaker 29:12
they had a bit of a disaster. And they came back all so huffing man, and I was working on the boats. It turned out they lost all their fishing. So when we said well, where were you? Oh, we were up at the other end of the lake. And so we tried to get be more specific when you see that house there. Were you posted that? Oh, yeah, yeah, we're real close to that. And we just dump the water out of the boat climbed into the rolling home. We're going to get some guys. So yes, it will and they have to be stained. I think Harper house so they dance way they went. So Dad and I got talking. We're gonna be able to increase on this journey because it was on the reason it was about an acre of flat rock off dot what was dad's property. And so that night, that night we went up there. Of course, it was only like three feet deep. They haven't had a chip waders on I just had my swim suit. We found everything except the one rod that the fish should be. Because we weren't dots most to standing over the boat at the same time. And of course, because they got so excited all three of them reached for the rod. So that was right, so they lost their one rod. However, the next day, they were happiest campers. They got all their tackle back. But for the most part, the Fisher people were wonderful. We had a lot of fun. It was hard work but

Unknown Speaker 31:13
somebody needs to I'm gonna, I'm gonna put all of these into your archives if you're interested

Unknown Speaker 31:28
or one of the experiences I have. Okay, this one is interesting, really well managed this. I worked in both store in the winter for three or four winters until people came back from and the reason I of course worked in the winters is it was too much farmworkers arrangement. The first hour I got terrible job bans, I'd always had job plans. Because the floors in our house were always cold and we knew that no furnace, we had a kitchen stove and three fireplaces. However, when I worked in mods, they were way worse. Because they were single floors with half an inch crack between the boards. And the wind was the harbor. And in spite of like heavy roll slabs, there were a whole bit my feet are just a terrible mess. So I used to go down to the feed chair. And I used to crack open the bottle, the tap on storage oil and just run it over I just ran over my shoes as well as my socks. I hate to think right probably did to my liver. It was the only way I could get relief from the terrible itching. Any doctor working on my toes basis, whatever happened to you said Joe means they're not really sure what you mean. But

Unknown Speaker 33:00
they had another experience that I had that I really enjoyed during the war there was no one left to farm to do the farm work

Unknown Speaker 33:15
as far as the intensive work to just potato digging and so I left your lane and threshing and all that sort of thing. So I worked on the all the different games at different farms, we'd go to the really commerce first. And then we go to Jesse bonds and then we go to we didn't grow much in the way of potatoes, but we did have we grew winter wheat when do we embarked on purple veg. And that was the first crop that we would put into the sidewalk that was always wanting to sue. I have crappy asylum because I was the smallest and you haven't who isn't running to To make matters worse, or one time we were working really Congress. We were they were putting in corn so he had their water chopped up by the silo. And so I heard the engine stuff and it was funny, they hadn't come together pretty anxious, you know, because the water was running. I couldn't get out because they put generators in for the entry wise and the ladder was on the outside and hot on my side. So finally I heard somebody I hear people yelling and so on. To first the whole group came together. They had sat down to lunch and I read the paper and looked around I said where's literacy?

Unknown Speaker 35:01
They all said, Oh no.

Unknown Speaker 35:06
I have visions of having to swim. However, I got three pieces of pie for lunch. And she made wonderful pie. Believe the harvest meals were really wonderful. Absolutely the harvest suffered that we had every year. And it was good work. But it was hard work. I still see our elderly in Victoria and our he and I used to work when we were thrashing. He would he would be on the receiving sacking, we sacked everything. And I would be lifting, for sure. To switch over to I think they were they were drunk. And I was less than five feet tall. Or were six foot four. And I sit I sit here why aren't you doing this your debate straw man? My neck would kill me if I was teasing him about that. Why would you do this, you have to pour this into the sack and we have the job of tying up the sack and moving the sack admittedly. But it was kind of amusing. During the war, there was nobody to pick the fruit. You know, we would say to people come and help yourself to apples or plums or whatever. If this we just don't have the time or the people to pick them. Sometimes people would come and go people would say, Well, if you pick it bring it to me to say Norway. However, we have lots of apples. Somebody told me that the provincial Hamlin hospital and Victoria, which is now the Wilkinson rotary remap center would need an apples in the worst way. So I contacted the superintendent who was very nice. And he said, Yes, we certainly do need apples. He said we're going to send a truck. So I determined how many and he was talking about he was starting to truckload we didn't have we have a boat of charcoal, but not anymore. So I contacted Robert Palmer who lost his workers. The Japanese people were sent to the interior Albert Ontario tournament. And so he said I don't have any my fruit. So I said, Well, if I buy apples from my own boxes I told them where they were these fine. So we did that. And

Unknown Speaker 37:56
I bought my apple boxes not done that they should have to track out from our place and other data as to commerce, but the next year, mom had been really ill.

Unknown Speaker 38:14
She was recovering for surgery. So there was no way I could spare the time. So they said oh, I know that they're super random data when I told him he said well we really need the apples. He said if we send over a crew you've got common to work can't with a cook and guards would you put them up and they could pick the apples. I talked to mom and dad about this and we didn't see any particular problem. So they came over they seem pretty heartless and cheerful. The only thing is I had an awesome job persuading them not to put leaves and twigs. So I finally wound up by packing all the boxes, sold a mistake and they paid me a pretty fair amount. And I haven't experienced one day very hospitable. And I went by morning to go and so on. And he asked me him for a cup of cocoa. And I assumed because he was there and I assumed he was Chinese. So of course the price of the war. I said something about Gee it's really a shame the Japanese are doing well I saw him give me a really really strange look. And he helped me to use the a carving knife at the time. And I better get out of here. headed out the door. I didn't realize that he was Japanese. She was pretty upset. So I grabbed after that I've run over my time. Pretty dearly, I guess. Just trying to think what else now? It's only Iraq my account. By the way, he did leave the island. He was part of the militia is part of Canadian Scottish. And he wanted to go with the fellows. But he was only 17. My dad said no, he said, I said the First World War. He said, No, you're gonna get people with Kilson. And obviously, I'm not going to swear, the urinating when you're 17. So my granny was pretty smart. She lived in Victoria. She said, Jeff, why don't you go as a white housekeeper a year. By then you'll be old enough to be able to make up your mind. So he did that he went to Atlanta diamond. And have a really interesting year just a marvelous pictures which amazingly have stayed as black and white. Which I think is credit credit. Then he went from there. By this time, things are moving along. So a lot have already gone. Before he had logged on Saltspring we actually used to go to school. He was in school, but he was he was booming. booming ground was right below where almost almost where we had lunch today. And he was find out from the kids at lunchtime when it was going to be examined. Come in and get 90% or 95% for Mr. Former stewards just about beside himself, so one day and he said Jeffrey has got to come to school. She said when he leaves for school every day, I know he doesn't, he's going booming. So they gave him an ultimatum to have to either go to school full time or quit, so he quit. So it was after that he worked for elder logging suit. And then later at nit, Matt and Nick, that was a whole different scene to the logging camps worked on before midnight, which was I guess, during that time, which was a big company, they have strict strict rules, you could not talk at meal and that nearly killed because we were used to having conversations that would reshape spiritualists we'd read the paper and they have to sit there and not say a word was just awful as far as he was growing. Food was wonderful. They got steak and orange, not oranges and apples and all kinds of things. Were not available otherwise. Yeah, not being allowed to talk but it was the role of the culture I guess. I guess to make this right started

Unknown Speaker 43:25
we are unsure if anybody's interested in any more they can get from what I have read

Unknown Speaker 43:41
I failed to mention my mother had been married during the First World War husband was killed when he was 19. So they only had 10 days together before he went overseas. So she was really rejuvenated recovering from the Spanish Flu which killed millions of people worldwide. She went to a family couch which is dirt cheap was recuperating. They are when my dad came back from overseas

Unknown Speaker 44:23
Thank you very much for your patience

Unknown Speaker 44:37
during the 60s in the 70s and 80s I lived up on the North Shore Oh yeah, remember that?

Unknown Speaker 44:44
Oh, yes. Oh yeah, new Lassie. Well,

Unknown Speaker 44:46
I remember that What's your full of bits of fencing? I think

Unknown Speaker 44:51
oh, they had they did they have months ago? Well, it was right off that point for those fellas and fell in the water and thought they were gonna drown. So they got I bet they could have retrieved all our fishing tackle themselves if they

Unknown Speaker 45:05
remember somebody saying that he was a professor?

Unknown Speaker 45:08
Yes, he was a very at Cambridge University. I don't know is bumpstop Dawn still around?

Unknown Speaker 45:22
Any other questions?

Unknown Speaker 45:29
Oh, yeah. I don't know if this is fact or fiction. But we were told this so many times that on top of Broadwell mountains, I think more towards the far end of it, by the way, we used to climb up above the lake, that was part of where we played. Nowadays, people tear which death on them. We had lots of freedom, we roamed the woods and so on. They said that there was a stone house up there that they thought predated European contact. And the door was a single slab of stone with a pivot at the top on the bottom. Whether it was February or March, I don't know. You know, we've heard this story so many times, as far as we're concerned.

Unknown Speaker 46:25
Maybe nobody's ever heard this. We'd make mock cabins along the top of the stairs.

Unknown Speaker 46:35
And my friends who was asked because we like to do our visit we made

Unknown Speaker 46:45
walking home on the dark side here this evening. Well Are all those big rocks. And I had visions of all kinds of things. And those caves included the movie map out but I didn't know anything else

Unknown Speaker 47:14
tucked away No, I didn't know that. Maybe that's the wonder

Unknown Speaker 47:28
that may well be the one that we're talking about.

Unknown Speaker 47:39
Oh, yeah. I should have mentioned that. The man I married Mark Stewart. His dad has on the old conectar farm, which is the white beach which talked to couples, couples families. Still. I found them worked in manners. But when it unionized ever taught during the union. So we brought the whole family over to our Saltspring he built a couple of cabins on a beach over the years. They lived in a farmhouse but it wasn't really was just existing because there was no running water or electricity. We have problems with it gets. However, if we bought it before the 20s I think there were maybe early early 20s. He came out Yeah, I think it would be maybe just after the First World War. I'm not sure. He was Dominion lands. He was also a mining engineer. He had many, many attributes. She did work on the floor he did try to fly for a little bit gets hard. He went to bang up north just raised the hydro lines from the East River dams down through the interior across the island. Line from where it went from going out to Salt Spring and so on.

Unknown Speaker 49:33
He was still working as a surveyor when he died I still have my dad died at 92 So

Unknown Speaker 49:56
thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 50:04
I'm sorry. I didn't recognize you.

Unknown Speaker 50:12
I want to thank you

Unknown Speaker 50:19
for it 40s 30s And 40s 50s told with a great deal of humor. I'd like to do that coffee. Oh, that's exciting. Charles Thank you very much.