Salt Spring Island Archives

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Audio

Sue Mouat

interviewed by Arthur Black

Sue Mouat with Arthur Black.
Accession Number Interviewer Arthur Black
Date March 23, 2012 Location Sue Mouat's home Meadowbrook
Media digital recording Audio CD
ID

255_Sue-Mouat_Black.mp3

otter.ai

13.04.2023

no

Speaker 1 0:00
So, I guess if if ever I was going to talk to a Saltspring pioneer, this is my chance. I'm pretty close.

Speaker 2 0:08
No, no. I'll tell you who are the best I think Marguerite Lee and Malcolm Vaughn.

Unknown Speaker 0:14
But were they here in 1946?

Speaker 2 0:17
Sure. Migrate was born here. And so it was Malcolm.

Speaker 1 0:22
But you came in 1940. Where you were you were. You came as a nurse to jail. Where did you come from? Victoria. And you came here to to work at lady mental?

Speaker 2 0:33
Yeah. Well, I because I was one. I was on call of registered nurses. Right, the registry? I guess it was, and most of the gals that were on call would only work. Occasionally, were married, and it would work when their husbands are homeless. And I was the only single one and they were under the hospital. Holiday relief. So I can come for a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1 1:02
So you're just a young single girl. Now 1946 In June, there was an earthquake. We were here for that. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:11
Sitting in the dining room at the hospital. And suddenly, the the light was hanging on about four foot stretch. I started going back and forth. And I knew I had a really heavy patient upstairs.

Unknown Speaker 1:27
Ignore elevator.

Speaker 2 1:29
The staircase was about this wide. And how am I going to get her bring the mattress with her on? It was kind of over.

Unknown Speaker 1:40
So So you you didn't have to do that. No, it wasn't.

Unknown Speaker 1:43
It was more centered around Courtney.

Unknown Speaker 1:45
Was there any damaged?

Unknown Speaker 1:48
I think maybe a couple of wells. I'm not sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:53
So you're here 4016 by 1951? You're already making the newspapers in Sydney. You were you were the I think President of the pottery guild.

Unknown Speaker 2:02
So you moved in pretty quick. Yeah.

Speaker 1 2:06
What was that like? But what did you do? Did you make fun of yourself? Me? Oh, do you still

Speaker 2 2:12
know? I just got too much arthritis in my hands. That I don't think I have one piece left. Either with my mother, my sisters.

Unknown Speaker 2:24
What other societies Did you join? Because I know you were very busy.

Unknown Speaker 2:30
I wasn't very busy them because I had children. You know, one car. husband had the car. And in those days that was one car that was hard to get cars after the war, wasn't he? I mean, they hadn't made them for since before the war. And then

Speaker 1 2:57
well, there wouldn't be a lot of coal from them and so only How would you how many miles a road would you have been sold? I mean, driver was

Unknown Speaker 3:04
sort of thing I

Speaker 1 3:07
there's supposed to be about 500 miles on the road now but I'm sure there wasn't the most of it's paved on Saltspring.

Speaker 2 3:15
Farm places like that. Yeah. Because of radio stuff up there that would have been there. I'll tell you who would know more about early roads is oh, he was BC tell for years. They go to the Legion suffers all the time. Margaret.

Unknown Speaker 3:35
If you don't remember nobody does.

Speaker 2 3:36
Yeah. Well they live in Roscommon and they but they could they come to the dinners all the time. They bring they bring Sandy Gordon comes with them. I can't remember the BC Cal guy's name. But he would know a lot about gnarly road like that. Because that would have been quite a road.

Speaker 1 4:05
Somebody told me that you're a puzzle solver. That's that's what you're best at you. You kind of you're kind of a generalist, you look at look at a situation and try to figure how to make work. I'm thinking specifically about how you've managed to get a lot of things written about Saltspring or recorded about Saltspring.

Speaker 2 4:22
Well, we certainly I both were were charter members. And just felt so many old people were dying and nobody had done anything about it. And embird Orchard you remember that name? I know the name. Yeah. Well, he was he came over here and didn't really I just thought it could have been so much better done. And then

Unknown Speaker 4:54
the community society we're pretty good.

Unknown Speaker 4:59
You encourage roofs Say, well did you not to do? Well, I

Speaker 2 5:01
guess I was really pleased when she came because she was our first really professional sort of

Unknown Speaker 5:09
researcher, and she collected oral histories.

Unknown Speaker 5:13
And I think they're all on tape, aren't they? Are they written as well?

Unknown Speaker 5:25
Now, I mean, she sort of knew the right questions.

Unknown Speaker 5:29
And more straddling he, he kind of all

Speaker 2 5:35
because he was the first kind of professional. And he said, Well, you know, where did you get it? You know, where was it? Did you just hear just hearsay? Or Sydney review. And that's what got me going down to Victoria. Pretty well. digging out some stuff, it was in the 90s going down

Speaker 1 6:02
twice a weekend. That's a lot of research.

Speaker 2 6:05
Well, you know, I had a daughter living there, I could spend the night there. And they were very, very good to me and bzr

Unknown Speaker 6:15
What motivated you to spend that much time and effort because

Speaker 2 6:18
I was already in the historical society and I was seeing all these old people dying off and nobody had asked them about the schools they went to the health care they got seemed to me so much was getting lost.

Speaker 1 6:33
But you managed to marshal some pretty good talent to chase down those things.

Speaker 2 6:39
The profits, right, no. Well, what I did was, most of this is done at the end. I don't know why I have this.

Speaker 2 7:02
Great big long tables of the archives. I have all these sheets of paper.

Speaker 1 7:07
So you did this by hand. You wrote this? Oh, yeah. Well, laptop, wasn't it? Yeah.

Speaker 2 7:13
But I mean, I would have religion, I would just stick down stuff like that. I mean, I didn't have a tape recorder. And I don't think I could have that's a lot of work. But it was so much fun. But I just read through the Sydney review and there would be say something about that related to religion, something that related to a certain person, you know, bits and stuff. So

Speaker 1 7:45
you would view it literally pouring because you got smallest things here like Lady lady Lake opens, feted vicarage Central. And the prices that were involved in a father camera into Brooklyn, New York is taken over the Gulf Islands. So you've got every

Speaker 2 8:02
anybody wants to come. Somebody who's going to do a history. Catholic Church in the Gulf Islands. Oh, god, there's a bit there and there gives you a date. Yeah, you can go and look that

Unknown Speaker 8:13
up. Charles Cohen must have been glad to meet you.

Speaker 2 8:16
Because he's I was sure that to make it don't know how many have you talked to him? Oh, yeah. I don't know how many pounds of stuff we had. Because there were about 12 of us. And we each took so many subjects. And religion just helped me when I took Mark was looking after us and we had Jean barman came over from UBC is a friend of my son. And she said okay, take sections of history. Like we started. I did pre history too. I think anything I could find out about Indian. Did you find out much? Sadly, not very much, but I do remember

Speaker 2 9:07
the Molson property. Oh, Lizzie over Lizzie. Yeah. Well down there when the first settler got there. They found a canoe up in the tree that had been a burial site.

Speaker 1 9:20
Well that's the big spit is down there so I guess Yeah, it'll be a fish fishing area as well.

Speaker 2 9:25
Well, it'd be a wonderful place to hide a canoe it would you know if you're afraid of those guys coming down from the Queen Charlotte.

Speaker 1 9:33
Yes, they were ferocious but to show up every once in a while and there was there was the battle in in Ganges harbor basically.

Speaker 2 9:43
I mean, I probably had one on pre history like this. And I don't know why I have this religion one hair from for some reason. I have been about 12 different subjects.

Speaker 1 9:55
What particularly interested you was it wasn't religion and health care. specifically, you

Speaker 2 10:01
know, who was living here why they were living here. I've actually one that I've been meaning to write up as whether because I remember Ivan's father telling me, I never recorded him that your husband might know my father in law. When he was about nine, in the early 1890s, it was an incredible storm here. And something like six feet of snow way worse than the one in 1916. Wow. Which was really another bad. Sucks for you. Oh, they must be written up. Probably in a Victoria paper. I've never gotten. I don't want to drive off the trickier now.

Unknown Speaker 10:51
Yeah. You still drive around on salts home?

Speaker 2 10:57
This man Laurie or daughters get $5 million worth of insurance Monday through Friday, and she said no, you need five only costs 37 more dollars.

Speaker 1 11:10
Worth $2 million for $37 is the deal. You're you're also interested in early maps of the island. How did you how did you fare with that? Oh, well

Speaker 2 11:19
let Barry cotton Did you know Barry? I did not know. Oh, well. He's still alive. As far as I know. He was very active in mapping and surveys. We had him at the archives. The history historical. No, in the process of looking for maps, I met Barry and he had all kinds of lots of time. He spoke about mapping.

Speaker 1 11:52
You were not the beginning days of some lady mental hospital, but you certainly were at an earlier stage of equity, an earlier building. And with the original hospital. What was it like to work there?

Speaker 2 12:07
It wasn't working there was just nursing. You go down to the pub. Saturday night was Beth was later Beth Degnan. But she was Beth Peters. And everybody loved her ever. I mean, she was an incredible nurse. And she would take the whole staff like four of us down there. And then the beer would start arriving. Just about everybody in the place would say Oh, drink ah for the nurses. It just turned me off to beer completely. Fine. A

Unknown Speaker 12:51
lot of people would think that was heaven.

Speaker 2 12:52
Yeah. Yeah, it was the old pub in the back. Harbor. Yeah. Layers of smoke.

Speaker 1 13:05
That's changed. You helped solve a problem in the in the beat the beaver Magazine ran an article once not too long ago, I believe. And it was there was a photograph that appeared and you kind of shed some light on a subsequent issue of the beauty remember that?

Speaker 2 13:27
Yes, it was about one of the women's That's right. It was a whimsy. Yeah. And there have been a picture of a dancer on the cover. A very beautiful black dancer from Montreal, I think. And I just wasn't really interested in reading it. But the next copy, there was a little box on one page saying that Mrs. Williams is still alive. It's very active, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I took the copy over to Dick Toynbee, because I use it to Johnny wins was his best friend off in school, I think was Johnny. Anyway, he phoned and he tech sells so badly because all the years working at the store they used to maybe once a year go to places like Montreal on buying trips. And he never knew that Johnny was there. He got to talk to his widow. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 14:36
Well, it's interesting

Speaker 1 14:39
and it was all you also met the person Blackburn or relative of the person black righteous. Oh yeah. How did that come about?

Unknown Speaker 14:50
I honestly can't remember who put us onto them.

Unknown Speaker 15:00
I don't know. I didn't I don't know

Unknown Speaker 15:05
probably 20 years ago or less, I can't remember they've been back since

Speaker 2 15:18
quite often the store or push things over to me. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 15:24
And you're still active. You're still still doing research and

Speaker 2 15:28
oh, yeah, I'm not like I used to because I'm not. Bing.

Speaker 1 15:34
Are you in into the new technology area on Facebook and Twitter?

Unknown Speaker 15:38
Absolutely. Email. And I do Google stuff. Yeah. Quite often playing bridge theater.

Speaker 1 15:51
Well, you've got 65 years of memories, at least in console spring.

Speaker 2 15:56
Yeah, but we were worked away a lot. Yeah, we lived, you know, a 57. My kids went to school and BC and Alberta and Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario. And WT so we all it was always sort of considered home. We came every summer.

Speaker 1 16:19
When when you came here in 46. I think gasoline was selling for 15 cents a gallon and an average new house in Canada cost about 5000 and change. It you had 555 1000 was

Speaker 2 16:32
like giving $100,000. And if you had a car? Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:37
I think cars were going for about $1,200. At that time.

Unknown Speaker 16:40
They say they were almost impossible to get property for five years after the war.

Unknown Speaker 16:48
Was it was that a hardship on Salisbury was good when it was a horse and wagon?

Speaker 2 16:52
No. When I got his first day when I came to work, I was getting off the ferry at Fulford and I heard the voice yell at me. Hey, nursing. And there was a bus. And it was Charlie Brenton had the bus.

Speaker 1 17:09
Boston 1946 We had our first one I went last year.

Speaker 2 17:14
He said Beth told me Don't California. Of course. I was the only foot passenger.

Speaker 1 17:19
So we aren't wearing the hat then I guess I wonder how he knew you were a nurse.

Speaker 2 17:23
I was the only footpath. Yeah. Pretty easy neuro

Speaker 1 17:27
it though. So what when you look back on, like, the Saltspring that you came to? I guess it's hard to remember now in 1946. But there must be so many things that seem would have seemed totally unbelievable.

Speaker 2 17:43
Yeah, like no dentist, one doctor who when I met him at the hospital for God isn't Cartier Cartier? He said. I used to practice there. And I said, Oh, yes. Oh 918 97. And I looked at them I said that was the year my mother was born. And the look on his suddenly

Unknown Speaker 18:17
Saltspring was getting bigger and bigger. And it wasn't long before

Speaker 1 18:20
we got to remember the population wasn't in 46 Roughly.

Unknown Speaker 18:24
No idea.

Unknown Speaker 18:26
Must have been in the 100 zone.

Unknown Speaker 18:27
Well, I would think so. I'm sure it was in the Sydney area view once a year.

Unknown Speaker 18:35
Probably in your notes somewhere too.

Speaker 2 18:37
It might well be I might. I did promise diamond order. I go down and go through a lot of this stuff. Winter one day when she has time.

Speaker 1 18:49
You must have seen a lot of characters in your time on Salzburg. Besides yourself.

Unknown Speaker 18:55
Yes. Unfortunately, I miss Mr. Bolt.

Unknown Speaker 19:01
Mr. Bullock, when was he still here? Yeah. I'll be darned. What other characters do you remember

Unknown Speaker 19:16
that you can talk?

Speaker 2 19:20
I honestly just like that. I can't think of any. We're suddenly talking about family. I would probably come Yeah.

Speaker 1 19:27
Well, it was a very flamboyant doctor that was associated with the hospital. I don't think that 46 But But

Speaker 2 19:33
Dr. Sutherland woman knows that what

Unknown Speaker 19:37
was it was a man who fevered capes and he was kind of an odd duck.

Speaker 2 19:43
Oh. You're talking about the pharmacist husband. He wasn't a medical doctor. He was a PhD. Oh was

Unknown Speaker 20:00
It'll come to me. I

Unknown Speaker 20:02
think he was known to take a whiff of the grape from time to time to.

Speaker 2 20:06
Yes. Yes. I just tried to think of her name she sold the pharmacy to less Ramsay. Right? And I certainly knew her but just bang. Come to me.

Unknown Speaker 20:20
What about goody goody?

Speaker 2 20:22
Oh, yeah. And I've got a couple of tapes of goodie here. They aren't dropped the archives.

Unknown Speaker 20:32
Well, he would qualify as a as a Saltspring character. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 20:36
That he, you know, was really sad because latterly he had lost his hearing a lot or didn't know. And it was he actually was here. Meadowbrook was before before I can.

Speaker 1 20:51
Well, he was he was a mortician and the bus driver and I forget what are the things he did? You weren't quite sure what he was when he's coming over the hill. We just come into your your last ride or not?

Speaker 2 21:02
Yeah, I remember he and Isabel were at our place for dinner one night. Maybe doctor and his wife maybe. And there was by that time we had a phone and it was something to do with a patient of for Galliano, but there were a lot of very rude remarks about who was going to be doing what was he going to be? Was good he gonna be there as the ambulance driver or is he going to be there as a mortician?

Speaker 1 21:44
So we told me that he used to be a pretty good customer at Harbor house and his favorite line when you win a service. Remember, I'll see you in the end.

Speaker 2 21:55
He also I think he made a lot of very good homebrew that ciphered that he used to put it in his square bottle is the embodiment of it apparently if you and I think it was I can't remember who told it always had a bottle in the car and is it taking the body over to Victoria? He and whoever been helping him this ambulance driver drinking these nice square bottle

Unknown Speaker 22:29
fluid that's called Fairy Sherry isn't

Unknown Speaker 22:37
a Sydney it was true.

Unknown Speaker 22:40
Well, rivers are good whether they're true or not. So you remember he ever characters from from from your years?

Unknown Speaker 22:47
I didn't even think a good Ito. You mentioned

Speaker 1 22:50
the trouble was growing up on Saltspring is you don't realize these characters until you get outside. Yeah, outside the goldfish bowl.

Speaker 2 22:56
But I'm sure that Malcolm bond would be way better. I mean, his, his dad came was pretty well. A teenager, didn't they Jesse bond? Yeah. So Malcolm had a terrific history of themselves. And he's very, very good. That's a Marguerite is too. You're not getting off the hook that easily. No, no, but I mean, her grandparents lived here. And her grandmother worked for Mr. Bullock. And Marguerite, I don't know if she started getting any of her stuff to the archives yet has she? But she's, she's got a terrific memory. And did go to school here.

Unknown Speaker 23:42
too little too late.

Unknown Speaker 23:44
You also are an author. You wrote a book with Charles Cohen. What was that like? Because Because Charles is is a

Speaker 2 23:55
critic. Really what I did was I had done the research. And he did the editing. And now he's just, he's a dynamo. Oh, well, we would never have got the Saltspring history published if he hadn't been here. It needed a huge amount of editing. And gene environment had suggested we do it in periods from early days up to about 1885 And then 8619 1314 And then from 1915, up to second world war and just stop there. And when Charles took it over. He said, You know, I've got months at the editing because there's just so much material. Plus he decided to bring it up to the present time. I'm because it would sell a lot more copies a lot more people's names are still here

Unknown Speaker 25:05
but a lot of work for progressive view

Speaker 2 25:08
that as he said the research from the first from the Second World War to the present whenever it was he published was pretty well all available when you do Sydney review or latterly, the character was in the spotlight

Speaker 1 25:28
or not between two covers. That's that's the advantage of no but

Speaker 2 25:32
probably by then he was probably doing a lot of stuff on the computer. I don't know.

Unknown Speaker 25:43
I don't even remember when it was we started with

Unknown Speaker 25:47
9494.

Speaker 1 25:55
So Sue, are you still still busily in researching about Saltspring?

Unknown Speaker 26:00
Not really, that I hear lots of gossip. No, I see very few people here. In here as even as long as I am.

Speaker 3 26:14
I wondered about those keys. Sue? Oh, the Royal Jubilee Richmond

Unknown Speaker 26:21
pavilion. Well, that that was the nurses home.

Speaker 3 26:25
Oh, so why do you have two keys mounted on a pack? Well, because

Speaker 2 26:29
they were raising funds. Eight of us moved in the sudden. And I was the JULIE Oh, just a few years ago, maybe 10 years ago for some and saw that they were selling these keys as well wanting donations because I think they were going to put in some kind of TV system in emergency was a fundraiser for emerge.

Unknown Speaker 26:59
Oh, well, there's an idea. So did they lock you out? When you went out in the evening as a student? Back in.

Speaker 2 27:11
You have to go in and see Mrs. Carter. Oh, let's say 10 o'clock. Everything was locked in. There was no way that Yep.

Unknown Speaker 27:21
So what if you came back after 10

Speaker 2 27:24
Then you would have to ring the bell and she would come was doing it happened some of us a couple of girls who that really hadn't really serious fairs going on. We would let them in. Fire Escape. Oh god, we're here to keep to a mercy.

Speaker 3 27:48
So did you if you had boyfriends or dates, they'd come and meet you.

Speaker 2 27:57
They could come into the waiting room. You can talk to them there. With the office right across the hall. Now we had a we had a good war. come home from work and 35. Nurses wanted to be the officers men 25 girls needed other rock points. Yeah. It wanted a date. You're gonna have one every night. We were using so beat because we were still working. seven to seven,

Unknown Speaker 28:35
seven to seven days a week, did you?

Unknown Speaker 28:42
Well, you had three hours off. Usually you had lectures them. And if you were on he got up or staggered back.

Speaker 3 28:54
So you did all your training in the war in the war time? Yep. Interesting. So do you remember if they had drugs and things that you know, they wouldn't have had? Much? I don't think could they? There are so

Speaker 2 29:15
many we had a treatment. We had a box over in the nursing station. And I was working in the opera ship when I was a senior you know, I was in my final year and you had one week of your final year. You usually were in charge of the hospital that night. I mean you have all 600 patients or whatever. So when the night supervisor was on her days off, her assistant was on you We're on call and that assistant had her three hours off to sleep and being in the ER it was a great big room probably 4050 feet either way with all the operating rooms off and you know your eye Nose and Throat, or the PDQ general surgery but we're only allowed one little light over our desk because they didn't blackout the operating rooms unless there was a case so we were in this one little light was great. And then as the floors would phone you to see if there was a dancer and admission or an accident and you'd have to go down and sort that one but I went down one day and it was the switchboard called me so there was one of them third north so John I want to need to be didn't call you I said that's funny switchboard call actually miss must made a mistake back up to this great made all these dark rooms off me all around me. I followed up switchboard and said, Hey, what happened was certain hours and she said I realized after I call that call came through from your floor in the room where they make up all saline solutions. And then I looked up and realized my drug cupboard was ripped off the walls fire. And so so they they and tasty away so they had taken away. And I pretty well knew who it was almost immediately. It was a student nurse. Oh, she had been a student. And she had been kicked out. She had become a drug addict. Oh my goodness. Anyway, she knew her way around. Anyway, she sneaked up to this solutions room. Got me. Wow. Mr. Knight ordered a just wonderful man. Mr. Zola, Salah. Kellyanne, and that's the same fam. Oh. He was just so good to ask.

Speaker 3 32:27
So it sounded like who made up the saline solutions and things like now you never think of who makes those?

Unknown Speaker 32:36
When you're on days, maybe

Unknown Speaker 32:40
the nurses would do it. Oh, my goodness.

Unknown Speaker 32:45
Your supervisor telling you what to do.

Speaker 3 32:49
And that would be all sterile probably like doing Yeah, wait a minute.

Speaker 2 32:55
I mean, blood transfusions are very rare, then they would occasionally do a person to person transfer you Oh, my. So different. Believe me.

Speaker 3 33:13
So you wouldn't have II wouldn't have service man in the hospital? It would be just be from them.

Speaker 2 33:22
I mean, serve as one. Oh, we seem to be all that. Well, nature had their own hospital but we had a what was called active service. And they would be McCauley point. And there were a lot of little they were always afraid of the Japanese. So there were several little stations up and down the coast. I was not too many years ago, I went on that Aurora explorer trip just we haven't been in no way. Well, there's a little island I guess, York island between Vancouver island and the mainland. But it's the the most Northerly Island between the streets and charging. And it was all set up with gun emplacements and everything and you could see the yes, all you can see now is just almost concrete things because everybody's nicked all the stuff that was there. They were always afraid of the Japanese coming in that way. You see they have bombed most of them. Yes. And there was some. I remember at the time, that was some talks that maybe it had been done deliberately to make the Canadians more afraid of the Japanese and that they were British shells. The British shells that all been taken from the fall of Hong Kong, or how Japanese got all that stuff.

Speaker 1 35:00
There was there was some talk of incendiary bombs to came across with a balloon. It

Unknown Speaker 35:08
was a good article about Legion magazine not that

Unknown Speaker 35:13
long. It's made me worse.

Speaker 2 35:17
Actually, I have a book to art Martin has it right now. Where is the School for the Deaf and Vancouver? Jericho, Jericho beach. That was the big station here on the west coast during the war. And it's called Jericho beach and Lee has a spell for you came from the history, Historical Society came, talked about this book he had written he had just retired from the Air Force. They were going to close the old buildings at Jericho were going to be dismantled. And they asked him to write up a history of the war on the Pacific. And he went over to Japan and talked to the admiral

Unknown Speaker 36:08
boy who had been in charge of a submarine that had been abandoned by the British or the baby

Speaker 2 36:22
and it had a little plane in the sort of hatch on top and the British couldn't stop at leaking when it went down to the depths that would need to be so anyway the Japanese got a hold of the technology and of course they were way better be really good cameras you know they were just good technology and they figured it out anyway to get a hold of unfortunately aren't Martin across the hall has my copyright just called Jericho beach. But it's about the threat of the Japanese they did sink a ship off California

Unknown Speaker 37:08
it's great it's so so called hysteria wasn't wasn't all that misplaced. No.

Speaker 2 37:16
Japanese balloon here on the island as well. And now Tom time me told me that one landed I think between Galliano and Saltspring. And remember, Lotus recovered told me about all kinds of little shreds of aluminum paper that the Pat Bay used to mess up for NASA. Radar. Yeah. And she said that it wasn't the all kinds of a referral farm. You know, there's something that really should be looked into is lotuses diary. Her niece has it now. But she kept a diary. I think the whole time she was unsalted. That would be valuable. Yeah, one note that that another one that I listened to part of not long ago was

Speaker 2 38:18
that would Damascus fathers diary. Natalie Janeski became Natalie Horrell and she is still a horrible kid sharp sharp, sharp. Anyway, she has her dad's boy is there ever a PhD on early agriculture on Saltspring Wow. All her dad wrote You know, one dozen eggs today. Down to Molex and bought it. You know, sack of feed and everything was priced everything. And he came right out he came I think 1919 lived in the crown Barry did this really desperate? Scratch farming kind of stuff. But Natalie's got all this material. She's 89 Like I am so.

Speaker 3 39:20
So I I was also interested in in your childhood, because I ended up in Courtney for a few years. And I know, I know you lived in Royston. And I did indeed. I was hoping to see that painting.

Speaker 2 39:37
Me and my sisters or my brother on the beach at Royston. Really? Whoa. No. Friend of mine a baker wrote painted a form for nice wood.

Unknown Speaker 39:53
Oh my artistic it's wonderful.

Speaker 1 39:57
It reminds me of one that Carolyn instead. Doesn't look like Charlotte and style but but like that have children in the in the water.

Unknown Speaker 40:04
Are you this sweet new one with the pink? Yeah baby well protected

Unknown Speaker 40:12
from the sun

Speaker 2 40:15
that's great. No We lived right down. I mean that's the house next to it. Nancy wicked painted that it was a little photograph I had my sister was sick. I asked Nancy to do a little painting for my sister anyway, she said she got carried away and did a big one it still

Unknown Speaker 40:43
well, you're such an amazing gardener

Speaker 2 40:46
and that that beach is right in front of it. There is a little sort of track when we were kids. It's a road that almost look like your house on Baker road.

Unknown Speaker 40:58
Mr. Flowers

Speaker 3 41:00
Yeah. Somebody told me that your parents were had a nursery?

Speaker 2 41:08
They did. They had a rhododendron nursery, and the timezone nobody else did. Mostly, my mother's

Unknown Speaker 41:22
not one time I remember reading through a quarter the rhododendrons, so North America

Unknown Speaker 41:30
what was it? Where was the

Speaker 2 41:30
Mr. Royston Oh these are part of my garden. Baker road was hard to leave that garden I already had an acre pond with a license on it. I'm would stand there fly fishing. I will only claim Seven fish sold way more efficient. I want to clean a day

Unknown Speaker 42:03
when he was catching them perfect. Is it still there? That pipe?

Speaker 2 42:11
I don't know. I had a phone call from the press owner a couple of weeks ago and he is in deep distress about something about the pond and

Unknown Speaker 42:21
people wanting him to drain it because it's an earth dam to worry about anyway. I shot him off to my lawyer daughter it's

Speaker 3 42:40
just lovely. Well your place at Brink really had a beautiful garden to you've got to touch yet well

Speaker 2 42:47
I sort of want to get those framed because I really enjoy I really didn't want to move there. I really liked my garden and it turned out okay

Speaker 4 43:06
beautiful so in 1946 Publish no salesman was 17 155 or anything Yeah,

Speaker 1 43:18
I thought it'd be much less than 170 but

Unknown Speaker 43:27
that was just one taken in the fall.

Speaker 3 43:31
So a nursery well that's really interesting. Did you have to work with your parents when the nursery Oh, so are you picked up your gift for gardening?

Speaker 2 43:45
I think I I love their you know the garden. For those a nursery. I used to Paisley do not much. Still in school. My nieces and nephews did more because by then my parents are older needed more help. So they all made a lot of change. So how many siblings did you have? That's us for four children in three years. Oh, super great place to grow up.

Unknown Speaker 44:32
It's still beautiful there. Ya

Speaker 2 44:36
know, my mother got an honorary doctorate for music. Her work was

Unknown Speaker 44:45
to see your last name was Greek. Greg Greg.

Speaker 2 44:51
I was my brother's a couple of weeks ago and he was pointing a restaurant for a reservation and he said the name is grid gr e GG I always do it because I say gr e IG. They always say, Oh, Mr. Green.

Speaker 3 45:17
Interesting. So you would have been going to school in the dirty 30s?

Unknown Speaker 45:22
I did indeed.

Unknown Speaker 45:25
Interesting. Yeah.

Speaker 2 45:27
I was really lucky, though, because I was too young to go on training. When I finished grade 12. And you the UVC is realizing a whole lot of rural kids wouldn't be able to get to university. So they, somehow or other, I don't know, who set it up Department of Education to do first year university in four or five different places in the province. Because kids simply you know, nobody can cars. And they're like gas anyway because of gas rationing. So they said, upgrade cert chains, and one of them was it Courtney, so I got my first year university there was only done the one year and I don't know why they didn't continue. But it was great when I went back to university to a right into second year. Because I think that parents may be paid $10 a month for the grade 13. Interesting. Yeah. Well, it was.

Speaker 3 46:42
So they were ahead of their time. In a way, in a

Speaker 2 46:46
way Yeah. Imagine the universities are really crying right now. To get kids.

Speaker 1 46:57
Because the cost is so high cost is incredible. And even if it's if it's a it's a popular university, you can be a class with 500 people. First year, it's just like, it's all done on TV screens. Okay, put them in a room.

Speaker 2 47:13
So you might as well do distance ed. Stace. Yes. You get something one year at university and a real lecture. Yeah. is different. Yeah. And all the social stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it's loved.

Speaker 3 47:31
So that's where you went? When you went? When you were being in Alberta? Yeah.

Speaker 2 47:38
I took this great course called a second look, that was a second look at your life. And this prophet. You have he had done it for men because he found so many men of about 4550 Got some girl pregnant when they were both 20s the car salesman or something and suddenly he's, you know, married guy was selling cars really should have been a physician or, or whatever, an engineer. So this program was set up for middle aged men. And the first year he gave it, he did it out of the university. Well, he ended up getting nothing but professors wives, which was not what he had planned. And then the second year when I read about it in the paper was why W or maybe there's a why I'm I can't remember, but it was in town. And still no man saw women. And I got quite friendly with this one woman, we always sat together. And she was just thinking about splitting with her husband, and had been a school teacher. And I just sort of thought, well, either on going on maybe back to nursing, or whatever. Anyway, we held all these incredible aptitude tests, intelligence tests, and then we would get blank pieces of paper. Your best friend has just won a trip for two to the Bahamas and wants you to go with her. But your husband is really keen for you to go. But your 16 year old daughter really doesn't want you to go and just any way you have to answer all these people. It was anyway at the end he said to this friend of mine. Get out of teaching right away. You're a salesperson. She She sold our house in two days. Oh, she is me. What are you doing? Get back to university. He was very good. It's a terrific course. But whether he ever got young men into it or middle

Speaker 1 50:07
of your time that was that was really revolutionary guys.

Speaker 2 50:13
And of course now young people can maybe too. The computer, you know, just

Unknown Speaker 50:22
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 50:26
Which will be cheaper either

Speaker 3 50:33
well after the war didn't didn't turn a lot of the servicemen could they get there?

Speaker 2 50:39
Oh, were they? Yeah. Free? I don't know. It was free that the universities were full of ex servicemen

Unknown Speaker 50:50
certainly subsidized. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 50:54
See, Ivan had got his teaching before the war because he just when he joined up, they automatically gave anybody a permanent certificate. They didn't have to sort of work for three years or whatever to get approved. But he went back after the war, but quite a bit after and just summer school.

Unknown Speaker 51:22
You had children by them?

Speaker 2 51:23
Yeah, he did. You could get your teacher was that you? Didn't you go to normal school you didn't. Didn't get a degree. But he so he went back later to be good. Well, we're glad

Speaker 1 51:43
you're here. We're glad you shared what you know with us. It's a vital piece of history. Thank you for talking with us today.

Unknown Speaker 51:52
Welcome. See what