Salt Spring Island Archives

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Audio

The History of Mouat‘s Trading

Marguerite Lee, W. Newton interviewed by Charles Kahn, 2017

Accession Number
Date 2017
Media digital recording Audio mp3 √
duration 72 min.

443_Marguerite-Lee_W-Newton_Charles-Kahn_Mouats-Trading-History_2017.mp3

otter.ai

18.02.2024

no

Outline

    Work experiences at a grocery store.
  • Isabel I started a relationship with Tommy Scott after he read her book.
  • The stairs were still, then the main floor was renovated with a coffee shop and office.
  • The store caters to everyone's needs, including groceries and candy, and employees often worked late due to the store's busy hours.
  • Speaker 1 recounts helping in various departments at a store, including the hardware department, and mentions Mrs. Stephens, another senior employee.
    Memories of a small town in the 1960s.
  • Speaker 1 describes their job responsibilities and work environment.
  • Tony Scott worked in an office in the back corner, but his role was unknown.
  • In the 1960s, a small community shared humorous stories about local events, including a tempest in a teapot.
  • Speaker 1 describes their work experience, including working after school and during holidays, with their children also helping out in the store.
  • Speaker 1 reflects on the past, mentioning the challenges faced by women in the workplace and the lack of community events in the 1960s.
    Local businesses and farming in British Columbia.
  • Speaker 1 discusses work schedule and benefits, while Speaker 3 expresses interest in clothing store's niche market.
  • Speaker 1 recounts the history of farming in their area, from the 1960s to the present day.
  • Speaker 1 recounts a difficult experience with fabric purchases.
    Memories of a mall from the past.
  • Speaker 5 describes the demographics of the mall's customers, mentioning that it was mostly older people when they visited, but now there are more young people, college students, and families.
  • Speaker 5 also notes that the mall has changed over time, with new businesses and attractions, but the overall atmosphere and customer base have shifted.
    Work, flooding, and photos.
  • Unknown Speaker reflects on past experiences and memories with colleagues.

Unknown Speaker 0:09
So, everybody was

Unknown Speaker 0:13
absolute no relationship

Unknown Speaker 0:16
until Isabel

Unknown Speaker 0:28
Isabel

Unknown Speaker 0:35
I started when I was 12 I was over to their house late afternoon and it was still

Unknown Speaker 1:06
feeling a different I think this book organized around a period

Unknown Speaker 1:21
like this the early

Unknown Speaker 1:56
I made notes as things came up so, there's no logic to that I mean you can consider that to the period obviously

Unknown Speaker 2:13
sometime after that Tommy Scott

Unknown Speaker 2:24
word of the book

Unknown Speaker 2:28
it whether you use this

Unknown Speaker 2:37
opportunity

Unknown Speaker 2:46
she was also shareholder pretty

Unknown Speaker 2:50
lady come in was competition some

Unknown Speaker 2:57
decided to work out the this

Unknown Speaker 3:11
talk

Unknown Speaker 3:31
they pointed out to me that the company was also probably go into the whole thing

Unknown Speaker 3:40
because all of a sudden reality came into being

Unknown Speaker 3:49
and if it's all done because money main job was

Unknown Speaker 3:59
upstairs

Unknown Speaker 4:05
looking like what what is the

Unknown Speaker 4:10
central spillway?

Unknown Speaker 4:35
The stairs was still

Unknown Speaker 4:38
okay, so what happened on the the main floor the stairs came up

Unknown Speaker 5:14
So, upstairs the stairwell with either the cashier right now there is a little coffee shop where you entered which was more than a curtain where you actually enter the office the office and all the living to speak

Unknown Speaker 5:44
with the Dalai

Unknown Speaker 5:53
Lama Lady's office

Unknown Speaker 6:10
this was ice cream

Unknown Speaker 6:20
the Congress came along like this and this and all that kind of stuff and how

Unknown Speaker 6:32
this isn't and this is sort of a storage area so to speak under the back of the stairs which is now really the main goal was was currently facing

Unknown Speaker 6:57
in opposite the opposite of tourism okay that was the main door and there was a big display window here which was all

Unknown Speaker 7:18
the couple of displays

Unknown Speaker 7:22
downstairs you down to sales and your

Unknown Speaker 7:32
groceries

Unknown Speaker 7:37
or some kind of maintenance and then we went down to the smell and that was that was lumber and building supplies

Unknown Speaker 8:03
the storage was

Unknown Speaker 8:16
the building beside the quantity side the

Unknown Speaker 8:22
series

Unknown Speaker 8:25
the physio and the team and all that that's where they stored the number the physical number was over the number was beside the building so, that was sort of the general point so when I was hired I worked in the biggest businesses

Unknown Speaker 9:07
depending on if you're on one side you're dealing with the Navy or the other side you're dealing with Isabel Yes She was helped by little Smith.

Unknown Speaker 9:33
The sequence of numbers

Unknown Speaker 9:44
and the connection is what

Unknown Speaker 9:48
was related to

Unknown Speaker 9:57
the other one

Unknown Speaker 10:00
level one that WORKED upstairs was was still works at the meeting is a volunteer

Unknown Speaker 10:41
during

Unknown Speaker 10:51
the loss of a school bus

Unknown Speaker 10:54
so he always tend to make work late

Unknown Speaker 11:01
he would come in late usually about 10 o'clock because he doesn't

Unknown Speaker 11:10
notice

Unknown Speaker 11:15
43

Unknown Speaker 11:38
So gradually

Unknown Speaker 11:46
building on

Unknown Speaker 11:51
so I spent time after school holidays Christmas holidays working upstairs

Unknown Speaker 12:04
downstairs in the cigarette candy department which was the corner that now has the lawn furniture and Christmas lights to store their businesses

Unknown Speaker 12:29
let's see

Unknown Speaker 12:38
what are the hours

Unknown Speaker 12:44
we open

Unknown Speaker 12:51
to sitting close close because Sunday

Unknown Speaker 13:17
it was it was the main supplier cleaning company was only a groceries

Unknown Speaker 13:21
so, it's the local needs

Unknown Speaker 13:28
to go to Victoria was a huge undertaking that was something you did with a great deal just great

Unknown Speaker 13:52
so the store caters to everybody's needs

Unknown Speaker 13:54
for everything. So

Unknown Speaker 13:58
people would come in

Unknown Speaker 14:03
they'd be buying groceries downstairs and then they pick up some candy goes into the kids meals for the husband and when they come upstairs and

Unknown Speaker 14:19
so

Unknown Speaker 14:26
on the other thing that we did which was a great machine that you remember punching in the sun, but we also don't touch it. And you know those little books are about the size of a recipe. Let them open a little Manila page drops down and you put the carbon in the middle of the page so people can no charge the charge any singular writing all these things

Unknown Speaker 15:09
each department has its own

Unknown Speaker 15:22
the list still have

Unknown Speaker 15:40
all the shells and things that were leftover and we still have the lotteries that strung along downstairs we have to get up to the house shelves

Unknown Speaker 16:02
so actually I ended up working downstairs and helping because you know one thing led to another I got over into the hardware department on I help them some nails and hammers and saws and things like that and one summer there was a lot of building going on in Nichols lumber the lumber yard lumber

Unknown Speaker 16:38
today I think it was

Unknown Speaker 16:51
you can't remember or

Unknown Speaker 16:59
know somebody who will have a great day as another resource

Unknown Speaker 17:17
because he's

Unknown Speaker 17:23
a consumer as well as

Unknown Speaker 17:43
a recording recalling

Unknown Speaker 17:55
loss so if you have the children together carrying complete him in his past Excellent. And she can sparking stories and things like that

Unknown Speaker 18:08
because I can remember her job and she was always pregnant and it was always one more than

Unknown Speaker 18:17
any other summer there was a lot of building ended up going down and helping answer the phone helping the building supply I thought that was quite novel, because that was obviously the

Unknown Speaker 18:53
grocery department too, and I wasn't happy with the grocery department, because so many people have tried to count one pound two pounds of you know, all these pages and charge books. And I didn't like that too much. So I didn't stay there too long helping out. And it was Mrs. Stephens. She helped

Unknown Speaker 19:30
she was another senior, because they just weren't any young people. So this

Unknown Speaker 19:39
is because so many people.

Unknown Speaker 19:43
I've never really thought about it. But last night when I was making these notes and it's not a teenager's perception, you know that someone's 30 years old. They were older, older people I must have

Unknown Speaker 20:16
known that we just want that much

Unknown Speaker 20:23
I guess my artistic talents and display talents develop and I just do quite a lot of the displays in great things and accessorize himself and then one summer I was given the responsibility of being the big display the seven displays in a changing guidance develops I don't know it was something to do with they have some emotional going one of the things from the lower yield I think he had a hernia and it was either a hernia announcer I don't know but it always when he got upset and he was he was quite low and when he got upset he grabbed his stomach

Unknown Speaker 21:33
caretakers

Unknown Speaker 21:37
in the office M er L

Unknown Speaker 21:40
for system

Unknown Speaker 21:55
please welcome Ben Beenox mother is a contractor

Unknown Speaker 22:09
we're all at Cornell

Unknown Speaker 22:25
a door that was accessible in a coffee shop in the back area by the shoes there was a door that went in and they had that around the area and that was their sort of outdoor

Unknown Speaker 22:49
never always publishing

Unknown Speaker 23:12
and money get all these gun bills

Unknown Speaker 23:16
always charged kill

Unknown Speaker 23:17
somebody accounts receivable that was her job she saw all these bills and posted them to the ledgers and then sent the statements out at the end of the month

Unknown Speaker 23:41
that people would come up with standard was very dark over the counter at the office the rest of the sales floor stumbled upon candidate the people who would come in to make an elevator pitch

Unknown Speaker 24:21
have no idea because I mean

Unknown Speaker 24:29
not necessarily. It's not necessarily necessary but that so there was the open area with the office and Kenworth and Laurie and not only offices off to the side instead of general managers store and Matt looked after the managing of the hardware and their lumber yard and all the rough and tumble stuff. And then in the back corner was an office for Tony Scott work and no idea what Tony did. Other than I think she paid off

Unknown Speaker 25:00
all the invoices the payables

Unknown Speaker 25:06
incur from wholesalers because she really didn't deal with customers so it has to be an internal thing and then murli and Marie slipped and broke her arm one summit

Unknown Speaker 25:32
Laurie came to me and I want you to do me a job this summer

Unknown Speaker 25:38
so I and I did think about it now more than you think you wouldn't take a job here total up the bills and make out the statements and all that you know I was old long before my time so I was very mature as a teenager the job I did that summer

Unknown Speaker 26:16
charge of hardware and numbers I think the management purchasing but yes was the sales and the delivery person

Unknown Speaker 26:38
most of the most of the service providers out

Unknown Speaker 26:49
there basically

Unknown Speaker 27:00
the look at

Unknown Speaker 27:02
some of these issues as well

Unknown Speaker 27:05
you see a 61 I came back so I worked

Unknown Speaker 27:21
I worked out I worked out

Unknown Speaker 27:29
calling

Unknown Speaker 27:37
yes yes

Unknown Speaker 27:52
know Bill Trump did have the garage

Unknown Speaker 27:55
so it was it was separate

Unknown Speaker 28:22
something is interesting the corner of Molex which bases itself you know that corner that was a room that was full of things that hadn't been able to sell in the past and it was no it was just in their latest storage just storage and when the when they started to develop this point there had to be long occurs then what occurs today of course

Unknown Speaker 29:06
we've just entered what was really incredible

Unknown Speaker 29:09
people in the 50s no longer wanted going on with the new modern stuff wages porcelain or something. And as a result, I can remember that nobody wants that so that all the soil and it was all cleaned out and dumped into the field and the mat room became oh

Unknown Speaker 29:59
why Do

Unknown Speaker 30:10
you know when you're part of a small community you can remember these things happening you don't know if you were working in a store you were just a customer in the store those days that those things were happening

Unknown Speaker 30:36
to the library

Unknown Speaker 30:42
I have no idea

Unknown Speaker 30:50
was it a good person

Unknown Speaker 30:58
No, no No Well I was I was given responsibility so the relationship is possible I can even at university I

Unknown Speaker 31:13
think was no hard feelings after the

Unknown Speaker 31:17
no no that I'll just think

Unknown Speaker 31:19
about what the sort of the tempest in a teapot it was more of a humorous thing that went on because everybody could see the writing on the wall before

Unknown Speaker 31:31
it became sort of a local

Unknown Speaker 31:33
kind of humor story what happened

Unknown Speaker 31:44
I remember that story

Unknown Speaker 32:01
so you came back after

Unknown Speaker 32:08
I came back to work my summers and Christmas holidays

Unknown Speaker 32:18
probably because I was married in the 60s and that's the hospital I didn't work there so I worked up until 62 So I was 20

Unknown Speaker 32:45
changes

Unknown Speaker 32:53
during those years that was relatively the same

Unknown Speaker 32:57
the only major changes

Unknown Speaker 33:19
right they had they had helped

Unknown Speaker 33:32
someone that was in mapping a young man who lives here on one he used to come and work summers and his father was filming

Unknown Speaker 33:48
yesterday America's got a great sense of humor. The story says as a teenage university student working

Unknown Speaker 34:27
Oh try 5792 and see you're looking for

Unknown Speaker 34:47
the most going

Unknown Speaker 35:00
Give us they gave jobs to two kids that

Unknown Speaker 35:04
needed work after school and weekends. So that's how I work I work after school on weekends and then Christmas holidays and summer holidays makin usually summer holidays my kids

Unknown Speaker 35:30
my kids were in the store as well you know when they were 1617

Unknown Speaker 35:44
but you have to remember in my graduating class there were 24 so the unemployment you know, some of the kids went work for their gas logging or or on the farm and then there was a smattering of jobs and either the restaurant or the store

Unknown Speaker 36:04
it was at the clinic for

Unknown Speaker 36:08
people who might not have enough jobs out there

Unknown Speaker 36:18
everybody that was there was so permanent

Unknown Speaker 36:23
just the way it used to be used to go to restaurants and much older

Unknown Speaker 36:30
Well, you know, except for the people who work there were obviously hired for a reason yeah. And then we stayed till they retired

Unknown Speaker 36:48
people having a clear

Unknown Speaker 36:54
I think I think the women who worked in the store their families had grown up and maybe they were widowed and needed income or whatever the case may be and that's why they were working on a partnership

Unknown Speaker 37:19
to get the impression that it was a profitable business

Unknown Speaker 37:25
during those years

Unknown Speaker 37:27
it was a profitable business and it had real problems when trying

Unknown Speaker 37:37
to pull it out of the hole

Unknown Speaker 37:44
and it was an old style business you know, they really hadn't blasted into the 60s over

Unknown Speaker 37:49
still have the attitude in the service of the past so

Unknown Speaker 37:57
it made a difference.

Unknown Speaker 38:00
People are expected and in the 60s people were starting to travel more shopping and crossing the cities ferry have been established so he would get off on a much easier

Unknown Speaker 38:16
I don't think so there

Unknown Speaker 38:16
was a bit of a time

Unknown Speaker 38:32
was nothing

Unknown Speaker 38:40
wasn't

Unknown Speaker 38:49
the hardest

Unknown Speaker 38:59
and things that we do today, you have staff barbecues and picnics. We didn't have any of that because earlier because it was that sense of community during those years I don't recall anything going on. barbecues.

Unknown Speaker 39:25
Did they have anything like Christmas

Unknown Speaker 39:26
bonus? Yes. Christmas

Unknown Speaker 39:39
presume we all got a Christmas bonus?

Unknown Speaker 39:43
Yes. Over Christmas

Unknown Speaker 39:50
video represents as well as

Unknown Speaker 39:52
Saturday

Unknown Speaker 39:58
and even more You know,

Unknown Speaker 40:00
university getting some of the benefits along

Unknown Speaker 40:23
because I mean I work I guess an hour and a half or two hours a day after school during the busy times because I work with 530 You know, I can't imagine today looking back on what good it was but on the other hand it enables Isabelle to leave early from the store you know and she could go home an hour earlier

Unknown Speaker 40:55
interested in how well keeping up with

Unknown Speaker 41:06
my daughter was on the

Unknown Speaker 41:13
road

Unknown Speaker 41:21
she sent me

Unknown Speaker 41:39
they have pretty much code and they have a knack

Unknown Speaker 41:46
for being different than other clothing stores. They're good at what they put on the market they cater to want something different than they really are in each market. And they're not they're not competing with the workwear or anything like that or feel. You know, they've got their niche and they do as well. And I know my daughter comes over here and they have friends that are booking clothing bags, wandering back down to the dog, they find things that they can find in Victoria

Unknown Speaker 42:34
today, they didn't sell

Unknown Speaker 42:41
because

Unknown Speaker 42:44
my father used to carry us to truck feed from Duncan over here is tricky. And he Chuck and Duncan decided that they really wanted to store here and at that point they no longer for some reason needed the lumbar area down in the warehouse down in the dark shed area. And so Butterfield's lease from and it became a feed store and my father managed theories 60s what is now the mall was a huge shift

Unknown Speaker 43:45
don't want to go too close

Unknown Speaker 43:51
because there was a period where farming just petered right over

Unknown Speaker 44:02
comes down to talk stuff

Unknown Speaker 44:30
because I went to work in 7776

Unknown Speaker 44:49
and Tom happy trucking and semi semi semi proud A one year down the market

Unknown Speaker 45:10
so that would have been 75 guys doing that so that's when farming started again and 76 it was a grocery modern farming the starting in the 60s was going down and then there was a period where there was virtually nothing I can honestly say I'm trying to think what stores we've got in gangs so they certainly still work boots and brushes and kids shoes and all that in the men's wear those jeans and they were dress pants and sweaters and map jackets and flannel shirts. So I knew that there was fabric because I used to buy a couple of yards of fabric on at the time or something like that if I can remember that when I was talking I was given the responsibility to do anything like that

Unknown Speaker 46:31
and it was a nightmare because you had to get in the water and you had to stand up

Unknown Speaker 46:38
and those are the days no one no one works

Unknown Speaker 46:45
I can't even recall anyway

Unknown Speaker 47:17
dealt with

Unknown Speaker 47:20
groceries and answered a lot of basic supplies

Unknown Speaker 47:27
get a lot of people

Unknown Speaker 47:36
I think people still can't sit down at the store was in the house on the right at the very

Unknown Speaker 47:52
beginning

Unknown Speaker 48:16
I know I don't have any my albums whether there's any boxes in the next few months of political field

Unknown Speaker 48:40
little brownie.

Unknown Speaker 49:21
Louis another good one to use. Marilee was always she was the party I think a lot of

Unknown Speaker 49:42
it's all under the same umbrella. I used to be here in the corner. Talking to her

Unknown Speaker 49:56
she was always surprised

Unknown Speaker 50:05
I started

Unknown Speaker 50:07
November of 87 and I guess I started with the hardware one day

Unknown Speaker 50:26
oh upstairs was the choice voting voting voting

Unknown Speaker 50:52
he was up there video will come back to me that was that was the clothing all of that was printed stuff in the downstairs of course shops in the mall so I came here

Unknown Speaker 51:26
because yeah it was yeah no because it was in a nine floating over to that building I was pregnant

Unknown Speaker 51:49
with were the

Unknown Speaker 52:01
people that

Unknown Speaker 52:04
were very similar a lot of almost retired people

Unknown Speaker 52:13
because when I came here there was myself, Sidney Sturgis. She was working here at that time and then after I came in there was probably only one or two other young girls that may have worked on the weekends otherwise it was it was a lot of older

Unknown Speaker 52:33
was

Unknown Speaker 52:39
there wasn't a clothing store

Unknown Speaker 53:03
you the album most of the pictures that probably that we have are just evolved a little stack get togethers and things like that

Unknown Speaker 53:09
right yeah, I don't know how much I'm gonna find out the outside of how it was but I will have a look I might I might have a couple you must have been one of the

Unknown Speaker 53:29
diagnosis data as well on Saturdays or something like that

Unknown Speaker 53:47
because it was still open six days a week at that time right

Unknown Speaker 54:18
people didn't go off the shelf at all

Unknown Speaker 54:29
are there other things that we're here that are

Unknown Speaker 54:37
probably the biggest

Unknown Speaker 54:47
because nobody nobody else's

Unknown Speaker 54:54
but other than that, you know, a lot of stuff you know coming back around the

Unknown Speaker 55:09
world it's just more and more of a comeback instead of only having one or two choices now you have

Unknown Speaker 55:31
the biggest differences probably

Unknown Speaker 55:46
that was the bulk of the gas station was over here

Unknown Speaker 56:02
what we have seen is one of the first people will

Unknown Speaker 56:12
see what we have some old photos

Unknown Speaker 56:19
and where

Unknown Speaker 56:25
GDM was the restaurant nope nope that was right in the lower right where the the rock wall is

Unknown Speaker 56:38
the chamber of commerce within the parking lot but it was also it was download walk down into Oh you didn't get to walk down

Unknown Speaker 57:07
pretty much it's pretty much the same you go through that cycle of knowing everyone and then now this takes a little while to come up you find that

Unknown Speaker 57:41
you always there was always that cutoff point though seems September but it's quiet it's not that way it's a longer come now the doubling

Unknown Speaker 57:58
Is there a big difference

Unknown Speaker 58:08
because this is more to do in the summertime

Unknown Speaker 58:12
and you have the people that come now with the college and stuff like that we didn't have as much as that before.

Unknown Speaker 58:18
I think you had some people that can

Unknown Speaker 58:21
work with him work now there's almost a second home probably better stuff in the cottage

Unknown Speaker 58:40
they were always standing with health care at the store up until my first year here I didn't do that. That was my second one because I was pregnant

Unknown Speaker 58:56
always always at the store and then in 89 Then we went then we had to go out of the building

Unknown Speaker 59:13
in my head it wasn't for sale house, and Margaret Oldfield would be another one to talk to.

Unknown Speaker 59:46
What's up me

Unknown Speaker 59:59
on Okay he's gonna be doing now counseling like most customers

Unknown Speaker 1:00:08
so who does I have

Unknown Speaker 1:00:26
girl's daughter wanted just left when I came here a little while

Unknown Speaker 1:00:39
probably 11 or 12

Unknown Speaker 1:00:44
and then now today on a daily basis

Unknown Speaker 1:00:58
we probably have

Unknown Speaker 1:01:01
to get depending on the day 15 to 18 people per day

Unknown Speaker 1:01:34
together

Unknown Speaker 1:01:42
we have summer picnics because margaritas

Unknown Speaker 1:01:52
know that because

Unknown Speaker 1:01:57
between the snapshots in our photographs

Unknown Speaker 1:02:08
working at that time yeah because they just oh for quite a while

Unknown Speaker 1:02:17
sometimes they go to someone's house looking back at the pictures there they will always

Unknown Speaker 1:02:28
probably oldest

Unknown Speaker 1:02:50
always

Unknown Speaker 1:03:19
thanks

Unknown Speaker 1:03:29
oh yes

Unknown Speaker 1:04:01
know you know you're always so busy and we just sort of what really happened to me anything that was funded or whatever it

Unknown Speaker 1:04:12
was always do with each other and those are things you know because it's funny you know, I guess we talked about flooding down

Unknown Speaker 1:04:33
the basement is still flooded

Unknown Speaker 1:04:37
with the watch

Unknown Speaker 1:04:43
and if the winds blowing the right way in it comes in over of last week, we flooded

Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
Good morning remember that was it oh

Unknown Speaker 1:05:27
yes it's always been

Unknown Speaker 1:05:38
but you know all the use of that that was only the second one of the time I can remember bending down stairs and you stepped down and flooded so that's not too bad

Unknown Speaker 1:06:13
festival

Unknown Speaker 1:06:44
just quickly have a quick look at the worst and

Unknown Speaker 1:06:59
we have one of I know this one of standing at the bottom yeah okay quickly look at that but that's think that we have

Unknown Speaker 1:07:17
Emporium with that kind of retro

Unknown Speaker 1:07:47
the computer you know that's probably our biggest thing you know support can vote all your orders and everything and now everything the click of a button was there

Unknown Speaker 1:08:35
but you know this is probably one of the

Unknown Speaker 1:08:43
least on this island

Unknown Speaker 1:09:11
What about Harvard

Unknown Speaker 1:09:17
back 6367

Unknown Speaker 1:09:49
everybody And that's okay I've never been in

Unknown Speaker 1:10:37
staff

Unknown Speaker 1:10:44
we had to do was

Unknown Speaker 1:10:55
to do enough

Unknown Speaker 1:11:08
arrive yes going to work for myself

Unknown Speaker 1:11:40
my job

Unknown Speaker 1:12:18
I'll see when I can find some photos