http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/96aabaece829924b50d0f723e1e4418d.pdf f26d86468ca6382daecf3c2dcfa6b9ae PDF Text Text This is R ose Hearn interviewing Mr. Sumner Beam in his h ome at 1 23 5 Ridge N orth , Ridgeway, Ontario, and the date is August 1 5 , 1'985. R.H: Good m orning . R.H: Could please give me the date of your birth? S.B: Obo;i t 's Oct ober the 9th , 1898. R.H: And where w ere you b orn? S.B: I w as born in m y grand father's, my grandm other's home on the N iagara Boulevard just above Black Creek, about 3 miles up Black Creek. R.H: And what w as your home like, could you take m e on a mem ory walk and des cribe what your home w as like? S.B: Well as far as I remember the first place m y father and m other rented was a farm on the Niagara Boulevard just north of my grandparents. We lived there, and w e used t o have w alk down the 25 foot bank in the wintert i m e , (and it w ould be m uddy, clay m ud) to g e t the water from the river, and when they'd bring a pail up , there'd b e ab out t w o inch es o f clay set t l e d i n t h e bot t om of t h e pail. R.H: What river w as that? S.B: N iagara River, and that river w as beauti ful at that t i m e . Th ere was no w ells to draw from you see. Th e w at er w e lls around that part w ould be sulphery and black. It w asn't good you see, it wasn't like the wat er here , and they used t o m e lt snow in the wintert i m e t o d o t h e washing. R.H: How did your m other d o the w ashing? S .B: Washboard and tub , and then they had a boiler that they put on the st ove. They put the soap in and boi led the clothes for a bit, the white clothes. R.H: Was it a c oal st ove, how did you heat . . . ? S.B: Well w ood and c oal. R.H: Wood and coal , that's h ow you got your heat , and that's how you heated your home t oo? S.B: Yeah , I w ould get up in the m orning and everything w ould be frozen. R.H: Where did you get the c oal from , did you get it delivered? S.B: I don't know just exactly where they did get it from , but I believe it w as Stevensville. They'd h ave to go to S t evensville for i t . Well then they moved from there to where the other side of w here my j (1) �grand father lived , and they lived there for a few years, and then they bought this farm on the town line from ••• oh what 's his name? I can't think of it right now. I w as j ust , w ell I guess I w as 5 years old then, and my brother was three. I remember them m oving in, and the mud w as 6 in ches deep coming through from the road , and the cooking st ove w as in three pieces you see. They t ook the feet off, and then the t op part of i t , the firebox, and then the other, and they slid that in on planks off the wagon and built the fire, and we kids roamed around the h ouse and we w ent up the back st airs and I got old-ti m e pen cils, wel l it w as a pen that you use ... well I still got it t oday ..• R . H: With an inkwell? S.B: Yeah , you take it and put it in a bot t le, ink i t , and you w rite for a bit and then you dip it again ... That 's where w e lived the rest of the ti me. R . H: That house now , did that have electri city? S.B: N o, It never had electri city. R . H: N ever had i t , so what did you use? S.B: The house was . .. w ell it w as like some of the h ouses here. They don't sit on the foundat ion, they sit off the foundat ion about 3 or 4 ft., and when the wind w ould b low you'd think you were on a boat rocking. Then my dad decided t hat he'd build i t , build over you see so the front part he turned it around , and m oved it back, and built on the fron t , and then he b uilt a small . .. he w as going to build a sm all piece on the back and then it ended up that he had a kit chen 12 by 24 for the kit chen. Then they had t w o bedrooms up above that. Well he never did get it finished as far as that goes. He had quite a time of it get ting the cement w all in. He dug i t out , (can you i m agine digging under the h ouse and throwing the ground out) and all that ground under the h ouse had t o be picked loose, and put on to a s c oop , (that's a metal thing that h orses w i ll pull) and one h orse w ould pull it out ,and t hey'd take it out and dump i t , and then he'd pull that back in, and p i ck it loose again. R.H: S.B: That's a lot of w ork. W ell then shortly after w e came there, (well they used w o od then not coal) they came through drilling gas-w ells you see, and there would be four people to each well. Two fello w s would w o rk in the ( 2) �daytime and t w o w ould w ork at night so they boarded at my dad's place but they w eren't drillling that w ell, they w ere drilling the w ell a half a mile w est o f us, and so when they struck gas why of course we had gas then in the h ouse. Gas for heating and everything. There w as no limit on the am ount of gas you could use, and of course a lot of it was w asted likely, ex cept there'd be no end to it. Well now t oday there's practi cally no gas there. Well there is a little, but nothing to speak of, but they never had electri city, no electri city at all. R.H: What about phones? S .B: Telephones? We had the old W elland C ounty Telephone, crank vacum . We were on the party line and there w as four or five in it, but before that the nearest phone was a m ile away and that was the Bell Telephone. R .H: Was that in a s t ore or som e thing? S .B: N o, in a farm home, and what 's his name? Glenny, he was the one that got it between him and ... R.H: Krieger? did you ever hear of a man called Krieger? S.B: Th ey had the telephone conne c t ed t o the fen ce, and they talked over the fence wire, one wire. R . H: That was Mr. Krieger I think, n o, it was Wrensch, somebody Wrens ch? S .B: N o. Wrens ch? Yeah they were further west then, Mrs. Wrens ch, and that road that ... R.H: Were you close neighbours t o Mrs. Wrensch? S .B: Oh i t w as just the ..• if you went by the road i t would be a m i le away that 's all. R.H: I see. N ow w as that near the Shipyards? S .B: Yeah , about a half a mile from t he Shipyards . That 's what they called the Sumner Road, and that should never have been Sumner R oad , it should have been Wrens ch R oad and kept as Wrensch R oad. It runs from Ridgem ount , no .•. N e therby R oad over t o C ollege S treet , and that's as far as the road goes. R.H: S.B: Oh yeah , we was only about 3 m i les or so. R.H: Thre e miles? The Glenny's w ere closer I believe ? S.B: I So you w ere pret ty close to the Shipyards then, your farm ? The Glenny's and ••. that's when my m e m ory slips me sometimes when l try t o think of a name , but anyway they used t o t alk over (3) �the telephone and then they got the telephone going. When they got i t going why they m oved i t to ( .•. the o f fi ce int o S t evensville whi ch is where Miller and what's that insuran ce company? Miller and •• • the insurance company in Stevensville right across ••. well there's a bank on one side, the Bank o f Com merce and then Miller's up there, you see ..• real estate or car insuran ce. Any w ay my aunt had the office there for t ransferring t o get on t o the Bell Telephone and dif ferent places for a number of years. R.H: S.B: She had the office, did she? The offi ce? yeah , and she w ould do her w ork and then the teleph one w ould ring and she'd have to run and grab the w i re and put it in the plug. R.H: Was she the operat or t oo? S.B: She was the operat or. R . H: What was her name? S.B: Grant, Mrs. Grant. R . H: Mrs. Grant? S.B: She was the operator, and I guess they operated it day and nigh t, but there wasn't the calls like there w ere now you see. { R . H: So do you know anything ab out the Shipyards? S.B: Well I kno w a lit tle ab out it. I worked there for a while there. R . H: D idn't they build a c ouple of boat s there? S.B: They built six b oat s I think. They built the N orth and S outh A m erica. They w ere small boats, and they built . . . the first b oat that they built w as the (I think it was the first one) the E . B . Osler. That 's the biggest boat that was sailing on the Great Lakes. R.H: D i d you w ork on that? S.B: I didn't w ork on that one, no. R.H: What did you do at the shipyards? S.B: Well I w as a mechani cs helper at the time that I w o rked there, but I w as w orking on the sm aller boats and I w as there when they launched the big boats you see , the E . B. Osler. R.H: Oh w ere you S.B: They had a big picnic that day when they launched it you kno w . R.H: And did they launch it with the champagne? S.B: Yeah they did that and they had a big ribbon on there , and some ••• ? of them w ere going t o cat ch som e of the champagne from it. (4) �It's quit e a thing to see them . . . they had them logs, them big heavy timbers and they were all greased w ith what they called so ft soap, ( and it is slippery. R.H: For it to slide d o w n? S.B: For it to slide down in, and they had great big t i mbers there and there was a rope arranged to h old it. They h old by block to h old it in place, and a feller w as standing there w ith a big broad-axe, (the axe w ould be about a foot across you know) and when they were get ting ready for t o laun ch why they blew the whistle and he came down with the axe, and cut the ropes, and the b oat kinda sat there for a sec ond , and then they had j acks and they kinda m oved a little bit, and she started to slide in. She slid in that, and she droppe d into the w ater, and she rolled over on her side like that and back up, and th ere w as a w ave there of about 2 feet of w ater that w e nt up on the land and there w as fish ... p e ople w ere racing all through the w ater to get the fish and stuff that w as w ashed up on sh ore, and then it s e t tled back, rocked back and forth, and they put a ladder to it and w ent up to see if there was any leaks or anything in it. That w as an ex citing tim e for us. R.H: Wh o w o uld laun ch it, w ould it be the Mayor or s o m e one ? S.B: N o,I think the com pany would. R.H: ( Yeah but didn't they have some i mportant person there to swing this bot t le? S .B: Oh they'd have som eone important, som e head ones from the company you see but that was the first boat. They had to dredge the slip out and they had to dredge the river out because the channel of the river w as on the A m eri can side and they had to dredge that out so that the boat could go out that w ay and then get into the channel , and turn and go up there. The reason they didn' t carry it on much longer w as because the sand w ould w ash in the pla ce, and then they'd have to dredge it out again and it cost so much t o dredge the canal. You see the river flo w s this w ay and the channel w ent right across. Well the sand w ould dri ft in and fill right in and level you see, so that's what stopped them Well then they kind of w ent broke I think on that. R.H: ( What kind of boat w as it ? S.B: Was it a passenger N o , no a big freighter. (5) • •• ? �R.H: Freighter? S.B: Y e s a big freighter. R.H: So it t ook a lot of goods and everything S.B: It took a good am ount o f steel. All that bending of the steel w as ••• ? all d one by hand you kno w , it w as not pressed out . They beat the plate and they'd ham m e r it till they swung it to the form that they h ad t o put it on you see, and when I w orked there they started the first electri c welding and they said " oh that w ouldn't stand up at all , it w ould break loose and that and the other thing " and they had a lot o f us scared t o go near it because there was so much electri c there. They had the generat or up there running, and t oday if they w ere building it they'd put it in a press and they'd bend i t . And even then when they had their big 6 or 8 inch pipes in there for circulat ion ( I don't what they w ere for) they'd bend them and they'd fill them with sand , and then they'd heat it till it was red h ot , and then they'd plug the end of the p ipe and lay it on a plat form and have stakes on here, and they'd bring it around and then i f they wanted t o turn it the other way they'd have a stake and they'd bend it that way. It was all d one by hand, and when they did get it d one ( it was perfect. It went ri ght int o place you see and the sand would keep it from bending in. It w ould h old i t . The sand had to be dry, i t c ouldn't have any water in it because if it did i t would create st eam you see, and when they g ot it bent to what they wanted ( the pattern ) well they'd li ft i t up , drop the sand out , and tap it out , and that w as i t . R.H: Do you kno w how much you got paid for doing all this? S.B: Oh the paym ent was nothing. I f orge t what w age it was, something like 35 cents or something like that . R.H: 3 5 cents an h our? S.B: 3 5 cents an h our or som e thing like that. The w ages w asn't nothing but then there w as no other w ork you se e. R.H: What about the hours, w ere they longer h ours then than they are no w ? S.B: h ours, ten hours. R.H: Ten h ours a day? S.B: ( Ten I worked on the railroad for a dollar an h our. R.H: You worked on the railroad? S.B: Oh fixing up their track, and putting ties What did you do on the (6) railroad ? in and stuff you kno w, �and changing the rails. Sometimes there 'd be a broken rail, and you ' d have to go to the ..• we used to h ave the st ore-clerk keep a rail or t w o on hand , and then w e 'd have to lift them up and that rail w ould be 3 2 feet long, and i t w ould be a lOOlbs to the yard you see, and three o f us would h ave t o lift that up and on to the handcar, and push it down t o where we w anted it and ••• R.H: Is that the lit tle hand car that you use t o go d o w n the tracks? S.B: Y eah , it w ould be up and down. R.H: I kno w there w as some kind of a strike on the railroad , do you kno w anything about i t ? S.B: N o there w as no strike that I kno w about . I w orked on the N iagara Branch and that .•. well they used to call t hat Paddy Miles, the train that run from Fort Erie to Niagara-On-The-lake you see. R.H: They called it the Paddy. . . ? S .B: The Paddy Miles Train. R.H: The Paddy Miles Train? Did you know any of the engineers at all ? S.B: N o,I never got t o know them . Black Creek then had a post-office there you see, and they used t o get the mail, they got the let ters that cam e in there, and they'd carry it from the post-office t o ( meet t h e train, and throw it on t h e train and i f they had any mail there they'd throw i t off, and bring it down to the post-offi ce. I got the post-offi ce box, that 's the one in the greenery. R.H: When you lived on the farm , did you get m ail delivery or did you have to go and pick it up ? S .B: Well we had .•• the m ail came in at Black Creek, and w e'd get the Welland paper once a week, and w e'd h ave to w alk to Black Creek. It'd be oh about a mile and a hal f from S i x Mile Creek to Black Creek, and oh it w as years before the m ail • •. w e ll the m ail i f I remember right ly, it w as j ust shortly be fore the w ar st art ed that they s t art ed the m ail rout e through. R.H: Where did you st art school? S.B: Black C re e k S chool on the Niagara Boulevard . It's torn a w ay no w . It w as just a one room schoolhouse , and w h e n I st art ed (I think I w as eight before I st art ed school) my c ousin ••• m y dad o w ned a farm , and m y uncle had a farm above hi m , and m y other uncle farmed belo w him , and the one belo w him (my cousins) they had a pie ce o f prop e rt y up about a mile from their uncles, and they used t o (7) _ �t ake the cattle up that w ay and then they'd w alk across and go to school and that's w ere they used t o pasture the cattle in the sum m e rtim e , and they w e re the first ones that took m e t o school. ( R.H: Was that quit e a w ays t o go for you, m aybe? S.B: Oh what w ould it be? Oh we'd w alk about 3 m iles that w ay. It w as 2 m iles t o the schoolhouse and the roads w e ren't opened in the w intert i m e and w e 'd have snow up to our w aist. R . H: Y ou w alked in the wint e rtime? S.B: Oh yeah , w e w alked t o school . W e w alked down the road , and the snowbanks. . . w e 'd have t o craw l through the snowbanks, and g e t t o the railroad track where it w ould b e b e t t e r w alking , and w alk down the railroad 'til we got t o the back to where the sch ool was and then era w 1 through the wire fences, and w alk back t o the school. R . H: And when you got in the school , w e ren't you c old or w e t or. . . ? S.B: N o, of course they had a big st ove there i f you .. . no w e w e ren ' t w e t , w e al w ays w ore good cloth es t o k e e p the w e t off. R.H: But they had a st ove in the classroom? S.B: Oh right in the one big room . Y ou w ent in the doorway, and there w as the entran c e w ay, and on one sid e they had a pile of w ood , and on the oth er side they had a pail of water the children could ( get a drink if they wan t e d it. On the other sid e of that was the cloakroom where the girls staye d , and on the oth e r side was the cloakroom where the boys stayed , and then the classes and stove in the middle. If it got t oo cold f or the ones on the outsi d e , why the t e a cher w ould bring them in and l e t th e m stand by the st ove 'til they got w arm , and then they'd go b a c k. Oh , we didn't m ind it. D o you rem e m b e r your t e a chers? R.H: Well som e of them. My first t e a<;::h er w as a Miss D ell from Chipp a w a. S.B: Well, there w as a t i m e when it w as dif fi cult to get teachers t o c o m e there b e c ause they w eren't paying t h e w ages that they are t oday. Six hundred dollars a year for t e a ching, and they had t o i stand their o w n boarding. They boarded w i th t h e schoolhouses you se e and them being in the c ountry t o o you see , it w as hard to get them . In the wintert i m e there'd be about forty in the school, and then in the sum mert i m e there 'd be t w enty five m aybe . . . m aybe fourteen fi fteen, depends you see . Some of them w ere the Bernardo \ boys that came from . . . (8) �R.H: D o you kno w anything about the Bernardo boys? S.B: Oh, I don't kno w , I just know there w as so m e Bernardo's but there ( w as . . . well the ones I kne w ••• the last one that I think that I kno w o f just passed a w ay about a ye ar ago, Freddy Fear. R.H: And they were brough t over from England and . . . ? S.B: England. R.H: And they were adopted? S.B: Well they just . . . they weren't adopted, they w ere taken in t o the homes and they w ere clothed and sent to school , but they were only sent to school in the wintertime, and in the sum mert i m e they kept them on the farm . R . H: They w orked the farm ? S .B: W orking on the farm, you see. They w orked them too, and their legi ti mate boys t ook it easy all the time. R.H: And the lit tle Bernardo boys ..• I've heard about them and that 's an interesting subj ect, isn't it? S .B: I don't know all of them , but i f m y sister was here she could name some of them ri gh t off. I don' t rem ember. R . H: ( So that was your s chool then and it w as only a one room s choohouse. . . ? S.B: Eight years is all I went t o s ch ool. I never went t o hi gh sch ool to get my diploma. R . H: Y ou didn't? S.B: Some of them did, and some of them didn ' t . D ella you know, she did and she was . . . well I d on't know how she ever got t o the ••. R .H: That don't mean anything, does it? Did you do a lot of chores then? S.B: Oh , not too much . I had calves and pi gs t o f e e d , a little like that. There w as haying, and t aking care of the crops in the sum mert i m e . It i s f a r dif ferent t oday than it w as then. It w as all hand w ork you se e . R.H: You didn't have the m a chines then at all S.B: They didn't have no combines, no balers, and nothing like that. ••• ? They had their balers t o bale up c o m m ercial, but t o t ake them in the fields, they didn't. All the farm ers h ad w as a •• • they had a plough , and a disc and harro w , and probably a cultivat or, and a m o w er, and a w agon, and a binder, that's all the m a chines they had. That's if they had the full equipment. Some o f them didn't l have all that , and they'd get their neighbour to come and do the w ork. Well, they w ere neighbours at that tim e , b e c ause i f they (Bl ·� �w ere stuck w i th the w ork, and the other neighbour w as ahe ad , he'd come over and he'd help you, and i f you offered t o pay him you'd o f fend h i m . They didn't w ant any pay at all, not like t oday, you can't hardly hire them to com e , you se e . R . H: What did . you have, m aybe t w o horses, w as that a t e a m ? S.B: A t eam o f h orses. R . H: And w ould that be t w o, a team w ould be like t w o? S.B: Two, a t eam of h orses w ould be t w o, but somet i m es they w ould be three. One w ould be the driving h orse f or the .•. to go to the st ore somet i m es, you see. Well the team h orses w ould be the heavy t ype, real heavy, but the driving h orses w ould be what you have t oday, like the riding horses you see. D ad had the three h orses, he had the . . . the t eam w as •.. well t w o mat ched , but one w as a lit tle heavier than the other, and the one had been a riding h orse, and she w as kinda tri cky t o handle. You never knew when she w as going to jump aside of one or the other, and the old h orse, he w as j ust like an old o xen. You would take him up the road, and he had flat feet , great big . . . flat footed you kno w and if there w as a stone in .. ' ( the road he'd step onto it, and then he'd inj ure his foot, and then he'd be li mping. Many a time he got a piece o f gravel on the bot t o m o f h i s foot , and w e got t o dig it out because h i s foot w as get ting sore, and m other and dad w ould go up to see their . . . my dad's brother and sist er-in-law and they'd dri ve like from 2 m i les below S t evensville up to Welland. They'd go up there and they'd si t around 'til maybe 10 oclock, and then they'd come h om e and they'd put us kids in front of the buggy, and the robe w as ove r t op of it· (there w as j ust the t w o of us) and the lantern sat d o w n bet w een them , and that would thro w a little bit of heat you se e , and if they needed any light they'd c ould lift it up and se e , and they'd get in that buggy, and then they st art for h o m e , and then both o f them w ould drop asleep , and the old horse w ould just plug right along and he'd hit the culve rts w h i ch would be boards, and they'd w ake up and se e w here they w e re , and he'd be in the centre o f the road. He w ouldn't get o f f the road , h e 'd j ust plug right along the centre o f the road , and one t i m e h e came in, and w ent in the drive w ay, and w ent right out to the barn, and both of the m w e re asle ep, the whole four o f ( u s w e re asleep and t h e y w ondered w h y t h e h orse w asn't going any (9) �further, and here w e w e re st anding at the barn door. But then the roads w e re all m ud, there w as no st one on t op, n o roads at all. Well, the first st one road that w as through w as the .•• they had the Bowen R oad, and then the Garrison R o ad w as st oned a little, that w as all. R . H: Did you have a blacksmith then t o o? S .B: Yes, we used t o go t o • .• he w as the bla cksm ith in N e w Germ any about thre e miles up and he'd sh oe the horses. In the wintertime he used to have to put the c orks sharp you see, so that i f the horse stepped on the i ce it w ould chisel in you see, , and I think the last time I rem em ber dad going, he w as gro w ling about the pri ce of get ting on the shoes. They would charge a dollar a shoe then t o put new corks on. They're w elded on you see, and they buy these little short corks, and there 's a lit tle prong on it, and he'd get that , and that w ould st i c k int o it, then he'd heat the m et al 'til it w as spit ting, and then he'd t ap that, and it w ould w eld ri ght to the shoe you see. He w ent and t ook a load of hay out t o Fort Erie that year, and he had sharp shod on the h orses, and every time they'd st art to chisel int o the i ce. You know, by the time they got back from Fort Erie, they were dull, no good at all. The horses couldn't st and, they'd ( slip and slide all over. He said "That's t errible, that w as those bad roads". R . H: S o did you t ake your farm produce t o sell in Fort Erie? S.B: Oh, m other used t o , in the sum mert i m e. We used t o raise garden st u f f , and t ake it int o Fort Eri e . Well, there used to be a . . . C ozy D ell w as a set tlement of A m eri cans, and they had six or eight cust o m ers that w as buying what they w ant, and they w ould come in there with their w agon full of radishes, and carrots, and b e e ts, and corn , and p e as, and be ans. Why , they'd clam mer all over for i t , and then they'd w ant but ter and e ggs, h o m e m ade but t er, they didn't w ant the fact ory but ter, not on a b e t . One w o m an, she t alked to m other and she w as •• • II?-other j ust m ade the but ter in pound rolls you se e . . . there was a press that you c ould put the but t e r in, and press it out into one pound pie ces, you see. Well, this w om an, she w anted a m old that w ould have a sheaf of wheat on it or something to make it fancy, and mother said She was growling "I haven't got time to bother with that". at father, so mother reached over and took the butter, and put it in the basket and says "you'll have to get somebody else". (10) �Well then they'd go t o the st ore , and drive into Fort Erie. R.H: ( To the South End or the N orth End? S.B: To the N orth End , Bridgeburg was the N orth End. It w as changed •.• w e ll, in my time it w as called Vi ct oria, but they soon changed it to Bridgeburg. They'd com e up Jarvi s Street , the R oyal H ot e l w as there then, and a lot of the st ores along there w ere all vacan t , and then where that? .• . what's Well, where that big fire was here a c ouple of years ago. It b urned som e of it down. R.H: R ossman's? S.B: R ossman's. That was a big pond of wat e r w i th gre en scum over i t . In the sum m e rti m e i t w as t e rrible, and up a little bit further w as a w ooden structure , and the Chinese had a restaurant there. Y ou used t o walk up four or five st eps ont o this plat form , they made it level, and go into the restaurant and get a cup of coffee or som e thing. Th e grocery st ore was C . W. Ve Hey, he had a general store there, and it wasn't a sel f-serv i c e . You b ought t h e stu f f b y asking h i m for i t , and he w ent and got i t . R.H: S .B: ( Did they have sid e w alks? N o side walks. R.H: W ere they w ooden or... ? S.B: Well, it w ould be cinders or gravel. Som e places had t o have w ood but . . . and then they had hit ching posts where they could tie the h orse s up. B u t m ost o f t h e m used t o t ake t h e horses t o t h e livery stable at the hotels. R.H: Was there one behind t h e King E d w ard H ot e l? S .B: The one that m other used t o go t o w as the one facing the railroad tracks. I forgot what they called that now , but any w ay this had the stable there, and f or 25 cents the feller w ould put the horse in, t i e it up , and it would be under shelter from the rain or cold or anything like that. When they w e re ready t o go home she 'd go over, and he'd back the horse up , and ... R.H: Did they water and feed them? S.B: S o m e did, but som e ti m e s they'd t ake a little pan o f oats along so the horse would h ave som e thing t o e at. There w as big potholes on J arvis Stre e t full of w at er, and you'd rack into that , and back into the other side . ( R.H: Was there ever a t ype of quarry on Jarvis S tree t ? (11) �S.B: Well, that might have been where the pond w as. R.H: (Wh ere 's the place w e re they used t o smuggle Chinese people ?) ( [The question was asked by Mr. Beams daught e r-in-la w ] D o you know anything about the Chinese smuggling ? S.B: N o, I d on't know . I d on't know t oo m u ch about that . There w as a st ory about that . They had m aple trees set out along the street, you see, and then the clothing st ores, they had their • •. w ell, their gingham and cot t on was all in big b olts, and you'd go in and get so m any yard s of this, and so m any yards of that , and he'd m easure it out on the c ounter for you. R.H: Wh o w as the guy that ow ned this st ore, do you know? S.B: I was just trying t o think of what his nam e w as . . . i t ' s on the end of the tip of my t ongue .• . I'll think of i t later. R.H: What about Erie Beach, do you know anything on Erie Beach? S.B: Well, n ot t oo m u ch, but Erie Beach w as bigger t han Crystal Beach at one time, and they had a train that ran from the ferry dock at Fort Erie, at the south part of F ort Erie ri ght by . . . R.H: A gret te's? Is that the one that ran from A gret te's? S.B: R ight from the ( ..• well, there was a grocery st ore now on the river side, but the boat used t o pull in, and then the current w ould back i t down t o where they could unload the wagons and stuff. They'd take hay over across to Buf falo, and well, somet i m es they'd get their coal and st u f f and bring it across from over there. R.H: But Erie Beach w as quite S.B: Erie Beach was, but I was only on ce to Erie Beach so I don't know a big thing then, right? t oo much about i t . I don't know what w ent w rong with it but it j ust petered ri ght out in no time at all , and C rystal B e a ch w ent ahe ad and it t ook all the trade from i t . R.H: There w as the Bertie Fair, do you know anything about that ? S.B: The Bertie Fair? Well, that ran ••• the Farmers Associati on, agri cultural , used to have fairs up at Guelph , and they used t o go up there and they'd get spe cial rat es t o go t o the fair on the t rain up t o Gue lph . There 'd be an excursion in the m orning that w ould t ake people up , and then at six or seven o' clock, why-they'd c o m e back down, and people w ould com e back on i t . Th e y had the Fair at the Race track up until ••• ( there ••• but I don't re member too much about that , as I w as never well, I guess it w as once that I was there. (12) �I know I got questi ons t oo over the racing. I used t o like t o wat ch the h orses you kno w , racing. My folks said " That's enough of that, ( you don't wanna get m i xed up in that " . R.H: It's nice i f you just g o and wat ch and not spend your m oney, righ t ? S.B: Well, we never had any m oney t o spend as far a s that g oes. R.H: Do you know anything about the fire in Ridgew ay ? S.B: N o, but I remember someone telling m e about i t , but I don't remember the fire. R.H: Do you know anything about the Fire D epart m ent itsel f , h ow it start ed ? S.B: Well, let's see, I w as 1 6 years old when my dad h ad t o go t o Ridgeway to where the cem etary is and get gravel , get a yard of gravel , and w e' d drive up in the m orning, in the wintert i m e, and they'd have t o pick the gravel loose. It w ould freeze along the side of the bank, they'd load it on t o the sleigh , and then they had t o come up a hill t o get to the road, and some of the h orses wasn ' t able to pull a yard of gravel up there, and the dif ferent teams w ould unhook and they'd put a chain on and help each one up 'til they got out, you see. They'd say " Well , you help me and I'll help you " . A ft er we got out then we'd come h ome. We'd come down through here, [Mr. Beam means the area of Ridge R oad N orth where he lives] and the road w ould ( have four or five feet of snow, and then there'd be places where you'd dip in and out , and places where you'd slide sideways over on up. There is no c omparison t o what the roads are t oday. Y ou'd slide back and forth with the team , and in some places you'd go over t op of the fences with the snowbank, int o the field. Then of course you'd turn and come back out again, maybe at the gat e, at the other end of the field on t o the road , and go down t o the road . We'd leave down home there at . . . well, it w as about seven o' clock, and we w ouldn't get back 'til five that evening . It w ould be bit t er cold , and som eti mes it w ould be starting t o snow and blow you kno w . We'd think it w as going t o be a nice day and we'd get started early, and then it'd come up blowing snow . It's about all you could do to get through with a team of h orses, and then that gravel had to b e unloaded that nigh t , because if it didn ' t , it w ould a l l freeze solid, and you c ouldn't p i c k it loose. So aft er w e 'd get i n , w e generally h a d t o get o ur supper, and go out and unlo ad that load of gravel. ( R.H: (Do you re m ember anything about the first Fire Depart m ent ? ) The question w as asked b y Mr. B e am 's daughter-in-l a w . (13) �S.B: R.H: ( The first one ? N o. I guess it was all volunteer then, w as it ? S.B: Oh , I think likely it w as all volun t e er. It could be all volunt eers. R .H: I was j ust w ondering how they put out fires b e f ore they had all their fan cy equipment. I've heard about the bucket brigad e , have you? S.B: They had pails, and then they had t anks of water that they put up . R.H: D i d they keep tanks of water ready for . . . ? S.B: N o, they'd have th ose tanks that they could fill up w ith water you see, and I know some of them used t o have . . . on the threshing out fits they used t o have a pump that w ould pump w ater pret ty fast you see , t o fill up a tank of w ater f or the threshing industry, and they'd get a pump like that, and they'd fill up the tanks and they'd get them over t o the fire and . . . R.H: I guess everybody w ould help one another, right? S.B: Th ey w ere careful of fire s, m ore s o then than they are t oday. R.H: Did your fam ily have an i cebox? S.B: N o. R.H: Oh! How did you preserve your f ood? S.B: Some of them did, some of them didn't. They used t o put up a building of about 14 feet square, something like that, and line it with sawdust, ( and the boards on the out side w ould make it airtight, and then they'd go to the river in the w intertime when the i ce w ould be ei ght in ches and just clear, and they'd saw these chunks of i ce out, and flow them over t o sh ore, and then had the horse with a grapple that w ould grapple it and pull it up on the sh ore, and then they'd pi ck them cakes up . They'd be t w o feet square, and eight in ches thi ck, you had t o be care ful, and you had t o wat ch your fingers because m any of them got their fingers smashed b e t w e en the i ce you se e, and they'd bring them h om e , and then log them int o the i cehouse, pack them as tight as you could pack them t ogether, and then put saw dust on t op of i t , and the ne xt day go back, and get a c ouple of m ore loads, and bring it and pack that in. In the sum m erti m e you just brushed your saw dust a w ay and got your chunks of i c e out , put it in a ••• R.H: S.B: It w ould last all sum m e r, last all summer. R.H: ( Oh! it last ed for quite a while, did i t ? That's amazing isn't S.B: Down at the townline at Netherby Road at the Black Creek, my it? (14) �aunt h ad a hired hand as my uncle w as w orking in Buffalo. They had a hired m an t o do the chores, and they had an i cehouse , and they w e re filling i c e , they were cutting i t , and they had som ething ( like a cultivator that had teeth in it, and you'd draw it along and it w ould cut so deep , and then you'd keep on cut ting you see. Y ou'd do it that w ay with the h orse, and then the other w ay, you'd use it to saw , and it looked like a big cross-cut saw , and saw i t . Then this feller step s on the i ce, and he w ent down int o the, under the i ce, in the cakes, and he struck the bot t om of the creek, and he gave h i m self a boost, and he came up . The grabbed him and pulled him out of the w ater, and laid h i m in the w agon, and covered him over with the blanket s that they put on the h orses when they were loading the i c e wh ile they were waiting. Took him h ome, and they had to saw the clothes off of him as they w ere froze by the time they got hom e, you know . He didn't have any ill ef fec t of it at all. R.H: They didn't have the h ospital then, did they? S.B: N o, no. R.H: So what did they do, did they get the doct or? S.B: N o, t hey didn't bother w ith the doctor at all, he come out without any t rouble at all , you know. He just went down, and he boun ced ( right up, and they grabbed him qui c k you see. They had it as a joke for while. Bet ty said he took an early spring bath. But the ice will stay w ay 'til O c t ober i f it's all packed in there t i ght. They used to do that on the railroads at the big i ceh ouses . R.H: What did they use the i cehouses f or? S.B: Well, for their cars that ... the c old st orage cars which they have now , there's a unit in there which keeps it cold, but then they used to have i ce in it you see, for peri shable produce that they had . They didn't know , but w h e n you built a n i c ehouse , i n thre e o r four ye ars, you'd have to build it over again b e cause the ice w ould rot the building you se e , but those w h o sold milk, and dairy produce , and cream , and stuff like that , they needed t o have i c e t o keep the stu f f cold. R.H: Did you have your own milk on the farm ? Did you know any of the dairi e s ? S.B: ( No. We generally kept Jersey c o w s because they give rich milk you see , but w e did put ice in one year, but it w as too much bother. (15) �R.H: Have you ever he ard of a medicine m an that travelled around here ? S.B: There used to be a lot of peddlars c om e through , but I d on't re m e mber any m edicine m an . I know some of them w ould carry a lot of novelty ( things, and then they w ould have cert ain antique bottles that w as supposed t o be good stu f f . R.H: C ures, like the eli xer of life? S.B: Wel l , it w asn't exactly a cure, and it w asn't . . . but there w as a lot of. Polish, I believe they were P olish , or Hungarians that used t o •. come through with b i g bolts o f cloth , and s o on, cutting through the m ud and .• . R.H: D i d you have any Gyp sies ? S.B: Gyp sies ? Oh yeah . R.H: Did they tell your fortune? S.B: Oh they w ould, but w e never w anted them near the place. R.H: But there w as qui te a few Gyp sies around ? S.B: Oh yes, there w as Gyp sies. They w ere raised on trading h orses , and you never knew when they'd c ome through. They'd s t op on a side road you see, and they'd camp for the night. Well, the people around w ould generally have som eone s t ay up, because they'd go int o the barn and they'd steal oat s, or the w ater for the horses you ( know. They'd w ant t o trade h orses you know , and you'd trade w i t h them , a n d they'd get t h e best o f you ' cause they h a d their h orse doct ored up to be number one, and when all the dope and stuff had w orn off of it, why, he w as j ust nothing but an old plug , he was no good at all. Then they sold tinw are, . plat es, and cups, and things like that . R.H: What about the D epression, how did that affect Bertie Tow nship ? S.B: O h , I can't say that it •• . it did a little. R eally, I w asn' t here at the t i m e of the D epression. R.H: Y ou were a missionary I believe , w as that during the First W orld W ar, or before the w ar? S.B: That w as after the w ar. In the D epression . . . w e ll, there w as no w ork, there w as no w ork around here at all t o d o, and I w ent down in the States t o w ork on a farm there . I w orked on a farm here, one year. Well anyw ay, that w as after the railroad qui t , se e , and you got $40 ••• no, w e 'd get $10, $10 a m onth and your board , and what's $10 a m onth? (16) �R.H: This was the farm here? S.B: On the farm here. I went down to the States, and got and my board, and I worked there for a c oup le ( Dep res sion hit I w a s $40 a month, of years. When the down in S outh America th en . R . H: S o you w ere a missionary then ? S.B: Yeah . R . H: You w eren't here during the war then either? S.B: Well, during the w ar I w as h om e. I was in the draft in the First World War, the 19 year old draft you see. My un cle was an offi cer in the 44th Regi ment, and he wanted me to get in the arm y, and the arm y didn't appeal to m e, not one bit . I didn't w ant any part, nor lot with it, and when the war w as on they used t o have s oldiers riding along the N iagara B oulevard, but on bicy cles you see. There'd be t w o and three g o along at night you kno w , day and night they pat rolled along there. We used t o go d o w n t o the camp, and they had a st ockade place at Chippawa, and w e used t o go d o w n there and listen t o them talk, and one thing and another. S om e o f the b oys w ere just as s cared as they c ould be you kno w . Well, you never knew i f someone m ight be laying for them or s o m ething. When I turned 19 years old, I had t o report then t o the go vernm ent you see, to register for the 19 year old draft . I registered, and then I got notice I had t o carry this paper on me at all t i m es because I c ould be picked up any time, and you w eren't free to go any place much then. You had to be careful where you w ent, and of c ourse that w as in O ct ober, and in N ovember the Armist i ce was si gned . It was only about t w o or three w eeks after that, that they cancelled everything. Well, then you had m ore libert y then. R.H: So then you w ent overseas? S.B: N o, I never got in the army . R.H: N o, I'm t alk ing about the missionary field, did you go overseas? S.B: Oh yeah, I was I was 19 or 20 in missionary w ork . in New York State, and Michigan State, and then I went down to South America. what years old when I was I went down there, and that's were you learn you never knew before . R.H: S.B: ( What was it like down there? The country is beautiful, beautiful, but boy oh boy, the people R.H: Are they very poor? S.B: Oh, it's poor as poor as Jerbs turkeys, they say you know. ••• (17) ••• They're �and they' re backwards, qu ite a bit backwards ... oh they're kind as can be. They' r e the essence of k indne s s , and then there's others that w ill rob you sooner than look at you, but I never had any trou ble . ( R.H: H o w long were you there ? S.B: A bout five years, and then I c a m e back and got married and settled down. That w as the end of my travelling days . R.H: Y ou d idn' t s tay a m is s ionary then, you got out of that? S.B: No, I didn't do any more m iss ionary w o r k . R.H: S o what d i d y o u do t h e n , did y o u get anothe r j o b? S.B: W ell, I started in far m ing. I should never have done it , I should have left the far m ing alon e. I far m e d 200 a c r e s , I rented the far m and it only cost m e $ 2 0 0 . 0 0 a y e a r t o rent t h e fa r m w ith a house t o live in . Th e last year that I far m e d I had a good crop of oats and e veryth ing , and I wanted to sell them be cause I had a note c o m ing due for the t rac t o r , and one th ing and another, and I wanted 1 5 cents a bushel for th em. Imag ine 1 5 cen t s a bushel, wh ich is three dollars a bushel now , or better . . .I wanted 1 8 cents and I had to take 1 5 cent s . When I got everyth ing s t r a igh tened up that I wanted that year , I had about 1 5 cents left to myself for the w in t e r . We h a d co w s and w e had ch ickens . W e had bunch of P lylT'outh R o c k , ( and Wh ite Rock chickens , a n d t h e y w e re jus t co m ing nice i n t o lay ing when s o m ebody came in and stole th e m all. They took them all a w ay. I had a few L eghorns , and they d idn't want the L eghorns . . . they wanted the White Rock and they took the m . They went to Niagara F alls , New Y o r k , and w e r e sold on the market . They stole them at n igh t , and by the next morning they w e r e o n t h e marke t . R.H: D id you ever find out who d id it? S.B: Never found out . R.H: Who enforced the law then, I mean who did you call when th is happene d ? S.B: Well, w e could call the police you know, you could call the m , but what could they do ? R.H: There was a police force here ? S.B: Oh yeah , there was police around. R.H: I i m ag ine there wasn't too many though , was there ? S.B: Well, they didn't pat rol the country then like they do now , and I got a chance then to get a job in F o r t E r ie w ith a plu m be r . I wo rked there for 10 years, and that's when I though t , when I go into far m ing (18) �again, I'll get a better pr ice for my stuff. I worked there for 10 years, and I s t ill held the far m , because it was cheap rent . I had another feller that was living in town, and h e couldn't stay away ( from the booze , so he said "I'll go out to your plac e , and I'll do the ch ores in the m orning". A t that time I had 2 1 pigs that I was fattening and six cows , and ch ickens. Then you' d get up in the morning and get the chores done , and get into work for 7 o'clock. You had to get up early, and I said, "It's the sa me th ing when you co m e home at night". So h e said , "He liked t o c o m e out to the country and get away from that" so h e said, "I'd work prac tically for nothing . You g ive me t en dollars a week and that'll be fine , " so I d i d . In the m eantime I sokd the pigs, and made a lit tle out of the pigs, and I wanted t o sell the cattle , but the moochers could c o m e in and they' d say , " D o you want to sell t h e m" and I ' d say"Y eah , but I don't w ant t o give t h e m away " . Finally , the landlord says "I' m making s ome changes now , and you'll have to t r y and look for another plac e " . "Well " , I said "I can' t do it now because I can't turn the s t ock o u t , I got to keep the m in for the winter". I had hay and stuff in t h e r e , and that w e nt on for a few weeks, and my uncle was the assessor ( h e r e for B e r t ie To w nship , and he says . . . R.H: H e was w hat ? S.B: H e was the assessor and he says . . . m y aunt and uncle had bought t h is plac e , ( Mr. Beam means the home h e is living in now ) and they had a place down on the Bowen Road were the highway tracks is , and t h ey had a brand new house and every t h ing, and the railroad was going to e xpand, and they had to sell it to the railroad . H e didn' t want t o sell under any consideration, b u t h e h a d t o , a n d h e ca m e up h ere and h e bough t this plac e . W ell, part of the house was never finished. They lived in these three roo m s , and the roo m u pstair s . There was only the four o f the m , then my aunt died , and my cousin, she was a school t eacher, and the boy, he didn't do anything much . . . Well, he did most of the work around the house. He was a good baker, and h e could bake pies , and cake s , professionally . My uncle , he got s ick and died, and m y cousin h e married, anda h is w ife took him u p to Delhi. That only left m y one cous in here w ith the place, and she didn't want it , so she w anted to sell it. M y other uncle told me, and I w e n t u p to s e e her a n d we made a deal, and I bought it . That was in 1949. (19) �R.H: S.B: Eveley, James Eveley . R. H: E veley ? H e w as the tax assessor then ? S.B: ( What was your uncles name ? Yeah, and he d idn't get nowheres near t h e wages that they get now . A fter he quit it , they pretty near t r ipled the w ages . H e had everyth ing in nu m ber one shape and he had a typewriter. . .I've got the typew riter in the bedroom now, that he used, that h e typed everything out on s o there' d be no iffs or ands about it . Anyway, we bough t the plac e , and the w ife was k ind of anx ious to get a place so we'd have it when w e got older. We bought this plac e , and that's as far as w e move d . W h e n I m o v e d u p here y o u couldn't h ire anybody to h e l p y o u . You couldn't get any help lugging stuff s ix m iles through mud road s , so m e o f the mud roads and stuff. I s a i d " N e v e r again, that's it , when I m ove f r o m h e r e they're gonna carry me away 'cause that ' ll be the end of it " . R.H: W h er e d id you do your shopping, d i d you go to downtown R idgeway ? S.B: O h , F o rt E r ie w as mostly . . . ! never l iked R idgeway , and I'll tell you the r eason why . I got a 1 9 1 4 car, and you know what you do when you get a car, you get buy ing gas . I was runn ing low on gas, and ( I stopped at s e veral places in R idgeway, and they said "Don't you know that this is Sunday , and there ' s no gas sold on Sunday " . Well, I said "They do it in other places " . " W ell, they don't do it h e r e " t h e y s a i d . I th ough t , that's it , enough of R idgeway . I d o n ' t re m e m ber now the places I stopped at , but they gave m e a lecture because it was Sunday afternoon. Most everybody that had a car would go for rides up to the W elland C anal, turn around, and c o m e back , and they' d had a n ice afternoon, you see. Well, I had a 1 9 1 9 . . . and I got home on the gas I had anyway . R.H: What kind of car was it ? S.B: A F o r d , a Ford Roads t e r . Of course there was no roads , you know , and if you lived in the country where my dad w as . . . he bough t . . . ! don't know what it w as , 28 . . . I th ink in 1 9 28 he bought the first F ord tour ing car , s ide curtains on it , $ 8 0 0 . 0 0 h e paid for the car. He ca m e up near the raceway to F retz's I think it was , the man that sold it, and he never d rove a car in h is l ife, gets int o it, and drives it home. ( R.H: He didn't need a license ? (20 ) �S.B: No l ice ns e , and when he went to stop it h e said " W hoa" and it wouldn' t stop, and then he r e m e m bered. H e d rove that for . . . well, that was the only car that he ever bought . R.H: D o you know anything about the S t evensville Hotel ? S.B: No, I don't know too much about that. R.H: You don't know too m uch about S tevensville ? S.B: Oh , I knew the general store was owned by Pat R o bins on. H e had a ge neral store there and h e sold e verything . It didn't make any difference what it w as you wanted, if it was available , he got it for you. R.H: Now , w a s that on Main S treet ? S.B: Y e ah , W e s t Main. Well, it' s the first s tree t up on the corner wh ere his store was . The mill was th ere . R.H: The Cider Mill , o r the P laning Mill ? S.B: The P laning Mill, it w as there , and th ere also was a Gris t Mill there for grinding grains . Well, Wilfred House's father was the one ru n it then, you s e e . Then there was t h e Cider Mill that Ch arlie Wale operated, and then th ere was . . . R.H: The S t evens ville G a rage ? S.B: P ardon ? Y eah , there was a garage there . . . The C h e vrolet feller. . . ! can't think of his n a m e , h e ran the Chevrolet place , sold C h evrolets . . . l can't think of it now . Th ere was two or three i m ple m ent dealers th ere selling im ple m e n t s , and where Wale is th ere now , Phil Lich t enberg e r s o l d m achinery . H e w a s kind of a slippery feller t h a t would s ell things , and there was a joke about him at one time . . . h e had a rhy m e t h a t m eant . . . b u t any way , i t didn' t a mount to anything y o u s e e . The b earing on this part was supposed to be good, but it had collected dus t , and dirt , and greas e , and everything all mixed up and it was no goo d , and you had t o watch h i m when you we re dealing with him . Then they had a barrel factory ther e , where they made barrels . That was P irson's, John P irson's . They had a bar rel factory there, wooden bar rels , cider barrels , and w h iskey barrels , and stuff l ike that. They'd buy the lu m be r , the trees from the far m e r s you know , and they' d cut the m out, and they' d haul t h e m u p , and cut them out , and make the barrels . That only las t e d for a few years. Well, then they had a saw m ill, they had a saw m ill there that used to saw logs, and stuff. That was Ben D ean, and h is brother had a saw m ill (21) �u p towards We lland . I r e me m be r dad tak ing a shellbar ch icory tree, .. and h e cut it , and h e bought it from J don' t kno w , but I th ink he ( only paid $ 1 0 .0 0 o r $ 1 5 . 0 0 for th is tree, and he wanted t o fix h i m t w o pieces o n each e n d o f t h e barn. He needed s o m e t i m be r s 3 6 f e e t long, a n d h e got t h is shellbar ch icory t ree, a n d h e t ook i t up t o B e n D ea n ' s M il l , and t h ey were j u s t abl e t o cut t h at length on the saw there, and they said the sparks was c o m ing off of t h e saw j u s t l ike it would come off a g r indstone. Oh was that h a r d . R.H: W as S tevens v ille's M a in S t reet just a mud road.? S.B: It w as much the same as it is now , it hasn't g r own much . R.H: B u t was it m u d roads then ? S.B: N o , they had no houses on the east s i de of the rail r oa d t racks . There w as noth ing t h er e, you s e e . R.H : W h er e was t h e r a ilroad station ? S.B: W ell, there was a post s t a t ion on t h e C . N . R. , and one on the M ichigan . T h e C, N . R t rack s , that's the one . . . t h e first one you go into when you hit . . . the station was j u s t u p a little bit. R.H: A n d they had a t icket agent there, d i dn't they ? S.B: Y eah , they had t icket agents there. Th e dou ble t rack s , that's the ( other t rack at the other s ide when you go through S t e v e n s v ille . Th ere was a double track in there, and they had the stat ion agent there. R.H: D o you r e m e m be r who that was, the station agent ? S.B: Oh , B ak e r . R.H : Bake r ? S.B: Baker I th ink h is n a m e was . I don't r e m e m be r the ones in the C ; N ; R . M y m e m o ry o n names don't hold s o good . R.H: D i d S t e vensville have s idewalks ? S.B: Oh . . . well, I . . . s o m e had s idewalks, but there was no s idewalks that there is now . R.H: D id they have the h itch ing posts too, and everything ? S.B: Y eah , they had the h itch ing posts . They had three o r four h itch ing posts across in front of the store, and a double plank across , and you could dr ive your horses up, and put the halt e r on him and t ie h i m up to this pos t , so he couldn't slide back and forth. You'd try to keep them apart from the other horses that were there , you see: R.H: Why, would that caus e trouble ? (22) �S.B: Well, the horses m ight kick one anoth e r , you see. That was the only way to watch the m . My aunt and uncle were funeral d irectors there for wh ile . R.H: W as that the C limenhage's ? S.B: The C l i menhag e ' s , n o t Bert C l i menhag e , but it w as h is fath e r C h r i s , C h r is C l i menhag e . R.H: H e had a h o r s e - d r a w n hearse, r igh t ? S.B: Y eah , and h e l ived o n the first house just aft e r you cross t h e railroad tracks. That would be the C . N . R . , and h is stable w as on t h e s ide of t h e h ill fac ing the rail r oad t racks , and you could go down and around t o the stable o r you could . . . h e had s t a irs planked u p , that the horses could come u p when they got ready t o take the hearse out. They'd take th e m u p there, and hook them o n t o the hearse, and d r ive them out. When h e s tarted in the bus iness , h e couldn't w r it e h is own name. M y aunt taught him what h e knew as far as that goes . She had the educat ion , h e didn't have it . R.H : What about taking care of the deceas e d , d i d h e know how to do that ? S.B: Y e ah , they used to make the caskets and l ine t h e m w ith cloth, they were l ined w ith cloth at that time, you see. My uncle and . . . they h a d b ig bolts of cloth that used, you kno w , the d ifferent colours ( that they put on. If there w as a death in t h e plac e , they ' d sell the cas k e t , and then they ' d take it and line it , and fix it up ready for t o put the person in it . There wasn't too much enbalm ing at that time. I guess they used mostly fo r m aldehyde at that time t o k inda hold the body for . . . they only kept the body fo r two or three days . I don't know too much about it . R.H: That was your uncle that had t h e funeral h o m e ? S.B: That was my uncle , y eah , m y fathe r ' s s ister and brother- in-la w . R.H: You s a i d y o u worked f o r a plu m be r , do y o u re m e m be r the na m e of that plu m ber ? S.B: Barnhart, Lou Barnhar t . R.H: W h e r e was he situat e d , w a s he on Jarvis S t reet ? S.B: N o , he was on G il more Road at that t i m e . H e lived on G il more Road. It was during the war time, the S econd World War. H e couldn't get any help at all, and there was only the two plu m bers in F ort E r ie th e n. T h e re w a s the Barnhart ' s , and the n the re was the ... oh , I can't think of it . . . he w as almost in the place that called A m igari, (23 ) �and the other was in the port ion of F o rt E r ie, the north part of what , is F o r t E r ie now . I did all the plu m b ing I d id everyth ing in the plu m b ing. Well, I spent better than 10 years there, you s e e . H is boy was called into the a r m y , and when he came out of the a r m y he wanted to d o heating, hot air . Well, Lou Barnhart didn't l ike that , h e liked the plu m b ing, t h e p ipe-fit t ing, and stuff like that , h e d idn't care for the oth e r , but h e d i d a cert ain amount of it . I didn't l ik e t o start at the top, and work down. If I had started at the bot t o m , and w o rked m y way up, it would have been alrigh t . I could do the stuff, but I just didn't like it . I ' d s ooner do the plum bing part o f it, you see. S o when the boy c a m e h o m e h e . . . w e l l , h e got $ 5 0 . 0 0 per p e r s o n t o hire s o m e o f t h e . . . well, m ostly F r ench people , and they brough t t h e m in, and h i r e d the m , a n d then let the C anad ians sh ift for t h e m selves . H e lay e d m e off, a n d he h ired these fellows because h e got $ 5 0 . 0 0 cash from the govern m e nt t o t r y and t each t h e m how t o plu m b , how t o w o r k at the trade, and they couldn't hardly understand the m , and they h a d to go there and show them what they wanted don e . They all h a d t o be s h o w e d . He c a m e b a c k a f t e r four or five month s , and wanted m e to c o m e b a c k , b u t I got plu m b ing jobs along the N iagara R iv e r , water a n d p i p e s , a n d ( stuff l i k e that . I had a l l the work I c o u l d do, and it d i d n ' t make any d ifference to me, so I said "No, I can' t , I pro m ised these customers t o fin ish their j o b s , s o I have to do that " . R.H: S o you went on your o wn t h en ? S.B: I w as on my o w n . R.H: And d i d you st ay that w ay ? S.B: I stayed that w ay as long as I was plu m b ing along the r ive r . Well, then when I came up here, I d i d a little b it more, but noth ing m u c h , I d idn't bother too m u c h . R.H: D o you r e m e m be r when the P eace B r idge opene d ? S.B: Y eah , I r e m e m be r but I didn't have to o much interest in polit ics R.H: N o , I just wondered if you went to se e the open ing ? S.B: I don't know , I never was intereste d - in a whole lot of that stuff you . know . I never was in polit ics or publ ic wo rks , o r anyth ing l ike that . I w as m ostly on the quiet end of the s t ick, I guess. That's the reason why I've lived so long I gues s . When we m o ved here, we figured we w ould have a h o m e when we got old, you s e e . Well, the p r ice wasn't nothing , w e rented the farm , and w e got $60 .00 . . . (24) �R.H: S.B: ( D i d you say this was the Baxter place at one t i m e ? I think it was the Baxter place , from the government . R.H: Was this C rown Land at all ? S.B: Well, my uncle bough t it from Baxter's you see, but Baxter was the one I th ink that got it from the C rown if I re m e m be r rightly , but m y uncle bought it from Baxte r . When I ca me in here that wallpaper in the d ining room there was hang ing in shreds, r ight al most down t o the floo r you know . They had a furnace, a floor furnac e , and the pipe went up and crossed, and then up into the bedroo m , and round into the chimney . You stood and looked at the fire when they had it in there, and you could see the fla m e s at the bottom of the fireplace . I said " That's enough of that" s o the next year I got the h o t water rad iators in, and did away w ith the furnace . R.H: D i d you go on the ferry boats at all ? S.B: F ro m F ort E r ie ? Well , we used t o go on the ferry go ing across to Buffalo . O h , I've crossed that many a t i m e . R .H: What was it like ? S.B: O h , it was only a short trip. Th ey used t o take the cars across to go over to B u ffalo , and come back . I don't know what the price was, 15 or 2 0 cents . ( R.H: You caught it r ight at the South End, di d you ? S.B: Well, it was at the S outh End and it run pretty near st raight across� In the wint e r t i m e if you'd go when the ice was c o m ing down the r iv e r , s o m e t i m e s the ferryboat would have t o go way down pretty near to the Internat ional B r idge , and then come u p on the other side to get across. This was on account of t h e flow of ice . It was a s idewheeler too at that t i m e . R.H: They were s idewheelers ? There was quite a few of the m , wasn't there ? S.B: I think there was four or five different ones that they run in there . Well, then of course they put the br idge th rough , and that was the fin ish . They did run the fe rries in the s u m mer for a l it tle while, but everbody took to the Peace B r idge you see. Then the cars ca me , and the roads a nd . . . w e l l , the re was a Beam that l iv e d down near the townline , or Netherby Road, near Black C reek, on Black C reek and Netherby Road, and he was advocating good roads . He could ( see ahead, that the country would be into good roads . Well, I said (25) �" Y o u ' d look around the far m s and see lots of woods and t i m be r " . They'd have ti m b e r o n t h e trees a n d stuff on there. N o w you'd have a job t o find a tree that you could get a 30 foot piece o f t i m be r ( o u t o f . You can hardly f i n d i t any m o r e . Well, they've been cutt ing the m all down you kno w , and all for firewood. The only one was down here on what was the R e inhart place , and there's s o m e lovely t r ees in there, but they' re tak ing out the dead trees and as a result of tak ing out the dead t rees they' t e destroying the places where the ' c oons and stuff stay in t h e fo r e s t , and they're c o m ing out into c ivilizat ion . R.H: Have you ever heard of a place called Kern's Boarding House ? It was in the South E n d . S.B: N o . I don't know too much about t h e South E n d . In F or t E r ie ? No, C . W . VaHey was t h e g r o c e r , h e was the main one and that's t h e one mother used t o t rade w ith , and then there was Y e o . Yeo was the grocery, and then there was a couple others that came there, fly-by- nigh t s , and you had t o be careful if you bought anyth ing . They'd want to gyp you on what you were getting. Then there was a drugstore that was run by M r . Land, and then there w as a j e welle rs store by . . . H ouse had a j e wellers store in . . . ( R.H: The South End ? S.B: In the South End. Well it would be on Jarvis S t r e e t . There was se veral others there but . . . I don't . . . ! know the R oyal Hotel was there the s a m e as it is n o w . R.H: The Queen's Hotel has been there a long t i m e , hasn' t it ? S.B: Yeah , the Queen's Hotel has been there . . . the Queen's is in the S outh End. Then there was the A nglo A m e r ican Hotel wh ich has been burned now for a little bit . The Barnea House , the Barnea House is what I was telling you about , where my mother used t o . . . That was on the st reet r ight next t o the ra ilroad t racks , and that's where she used to d r ive the horse in the d r iveway, and they used t o have a b ig open shed, and they' d d r ive the buggy and everything in there. They' d t ie the horses up, and there was a place in the feedbox where you put the oats in there . You'd du m p the oats in, and let the horses eat , and throw a l ight blanket over them . R.H: Do you know who owned the Barnea House at that t i me ? S.B: No, I wouldn't know . Then there was the G rand Trunk Hotel. That (26) �That was on G ilmore Road. The Racetrack was nothing like it is now you kno w . It was all le vel, and they filled it up you see because people used t o stand there on the street and see the races go on, ( you see. That's why they built it u p so you couldn't see it . All the cus t o m ers at the G rank Trunk used to enjoy the races and not pay for it at all . They went up and planted the trees around and that stopped the view . R.H: It w a s n ' t v e r y big at t h a t t i m e , w a s it ? S .B : N o , not too b ig then. It was only a s m all place . R.H: W a s t h e r e a lot of races at t h a t t i m e ? S .B: Well, I don' t r e m e m be r too m uch about the race s . Th ey used t o h a ve the F a r m ers P icnic there, and s o m e of the far m e r s t h at had d r iving horses used to figure that their horses was better than so and so' s . They'd take them t o the races and t ry them out. S o m e t i m e s t h e y u s e d t o hook wheels a n d lose a w h e e l or s o m eth ing . That used t o be the draw ing card for it . R . H: Have you ever heard that on V ict o ria Day, May 2 4 th, there was a c o m pe t i t ion between R idgeway , and S t e vensville ? S.B: { No. R.H� It w a s a s p o r t s compe t i t ion, do y o u k n o w anyth ing about that ? S.B: N o , I don' t . R.H: D o you know i f there w a s a movie theatre i n R idgeway ? S.B: I couldn't tell you. R.H: I know there was one on Dufferin S t r e e t , the Bella r d . S.B: T h e y were j u s t beginning to go to t h o s e mo v ie places y o u s e e . The old t i m e r s used to get together you know and . . . R.H: Yeah, what d id you d o for entertain m e n t , d i d you s quare dance ? S.B: I dance d a little. at one t i m e . Well, they used t o have the dances , in the p r ivate homes. Well, it was only one w inter I guess they had it and that kind of petered out . You couldn't get them to hold togeth e r on anyth ing . There was a fam ily down along the N iagara Boulevar d that . . . Edwardson, they had a big hous e . Well, the room would be longe r than this room across h e r e , and it would b e as w ide as this ; It was a lovely old place for danc ing. It was all hardwood floors and everything. They used to l ike to get the young folks to c o m e there , and s h e was a lovely cook. She could cook l ike nobody's business ; They'd have a n oyster supper after the dance, and one th ing and another: (27) �They' d take up a collection a mong the fellers that was there and hand it over t o them to help to pay for the evening. R.H: [ Have you heard anything about the F enien R a id ? ] S.B: Well, there was gunfire at . . . R.H: What was h is name ? S.B: ( A thoe's, I don't know whether Athoe lived there o r not, I don' t th ink so. R.H: A n d t h is A thoe's h o u s e on R idge R oad was h it by this gunfir e ? S.B: It was h it by musket balls. The marks are in t h e b r ick walls today, you can s ee it . There was an orchard j u s t up f r o m t h e barn and there was an orchard across the road and that's where t h e soldiers w h er e h i d ing behind the trees and stuff when t h e F eniens . . . the F enien Raid of 1 8 1 2 you see. The first soldier that was shot d ie d under a thorn t r e e up here on . . . near the . . . what do you call that ? The park r ight in there, s o m ewhere's in t h e r e , but I forget just where that tree was. There was shoot ing h ere, and that's w e r e they got behind the trees for protect ion and some of the bullets h it the br ick house of M r. A thoe's up here on R idge R oa d . There was a M r s . Roadhouse . who was in 8 6 . . just up the other s i d e , , that new brick house j ust u p here a little ways beyond the white house, that was her house, ( and that was the hospital for s o m e o f the soldiers at the time of the F e nien Raid. R.H: Was that house r ight on R idge Road ? S.B: They m o ved it u p t o the . . . R.H: The G a r r ison Road ? Is that the one they mo ved t o the Gar rison Road and they call it the R idgeway House ? S.B: Yeah, that was right down here you s e e . R.H: Y eah , w it h the brass plaque. S o that w as a hospital ? S.B: That was a hospital fo r the soldiers at that t i m e o f 1 8 1 2 . R.H: For the soldiers, and it was right on t h is road at one t i m e ? S.B: R ight on th is road, r ight up there . . . R.H: And they were taken care of in there ? S.B: They were taken care of. It wasn't too . . . I don't th ink there was too much o f a battle , because they were overpowered and it was . . . It wasn't like it is today w ith those machine guns and stuff. I t would have been slaughter. R.H: So that was the F e n ien Raid then ? (28) �S.B: That was the F e nian Raid. What I was saying was , the o rchards was what gave the m protection, and the trees. You see, they gathered in behind the trees for protect io n . S o m e of the bulle t marks are ( in the wall yet. You can see the m . When M illigans fixed it over, they left that part there. They changed the inside o f the house a little b it from what it used t o b e . R.H: That was really interesting, but g e t t ing back t o far m ing can you r e m e m be r what your parents would pay for a team of horses ? S.B: I don't really know but I think it was somewhere's around $ 1 0 0 . 0 0 a piec e . They had t h e team a s far back a s I can r e m e m b e r . R.H: Where d i d they buy them ? S.B: That I couldn't say. There was a t e a m they called Jack and J ill, but w h o they bought them fro m , I don't r e m e m b e r . M y g randfather took the one, and m y fath er t ook the other . M y grandfather took Jack and my dad t ook J ill. H e got another one but she was ligh t e r , not quite as h e a v y a horse . R .H : Was t h e d r iver horse the ligh ter horse ? S.B: W e l l , they used t h e m f o r both , far m ing a n d d r iv ing . Y o u see t h e machinery w a s n ' t heavy at t h o s e t i m e s . The heaviest o n e w a s p r obably ( the binde r . That was the heavie s t . R.H: When they needed shoe ing you took t h e m t o the blacks m ith, can you r e m e m be r who the blac k s m it h w as t h at they went t o ? S.B: Oh , Pat R yan in New G e r many . H e was the shoe mak e r . A ft e r h e quit they went to Howard Be rtran in S t e vensville for t h e shoe ing . When it got t o be a dollar a shoe, at that t i m e they figured it was too much money. Now, my dad used t o supply some people in F ort E r ie w ith hay. They' d call up a nd they' d want a l oa d of hay an d it w o ul d m a yb e be i cy so he'd h av e t o t a k e the h orse s up t o the blacks m ith and have the corks sharpened . Then they'd go on the N iagara Bouleva r d , a n d by t h e ti m e they'd c o m e home they w e r e dull again. T h e horses were sliding all ove r . H e said, "Oh those roads are no good for the horses at all" . . One year he took a log u p to the m ill, B e n Dean's Saw m ill, that was just east of S tevensville, and he had quite a b it of t rouble getting over the railroad t racks on account of the snow being plowed off. He said "It's no good fo r the far mers now any m o re . T h ey c an' t get o v er the r oads, those cars and t rucks k eep al l the snow off the roads. So he came home and I think he sold h is sleigh (29 ) �and he had a pair of bobsleighs that he made hi mself. He sold the m , and I don't r e m e m be r who h e s old t h e m t o . I know they d isappeare d , ( a n d that' s all I know . R.H: If any of the animals got sick, was h e r e a veter inar ian you'd call ? S.B: Oh yeah , but s o m e o f the local far me r s w e r e pretty well good at doctor ing the s t ock them selves . There was a vet in S t e vensville I think, but I forget what his name was . M ost o f t h e m , if they had any experience at all in far m ing would know what to do. Th is one horse that dad o w n e d , h e had quite a habit of g e t t ing colic so he used t o keep s o m e ginger , and give him a quart or so of g inge r . To g ive h i m t h e ginger w e had t o hold h is head up and pour i t in h is mouth so h e ' d dr ink it . That u s e d to work for the colic . R.H: D o you know anyth ing about the races ? S.B: N o , I was only there once when · t h e B e r t ie F air was at the R acetrack . R.H: Was that the only time you were at the Racetrack ? S .B: I was never intereste d . It was a wast e of money t o . . . R.H: Yeah , but I was j u s t talking about watch ing the rac ing . S .B : Well, a ne igh bour by the name of R ussell M ille r , h e used t o run these horses at the races. ( R.H: H e owned horses , did h e ? S.B: Yeah, h e did. E verybody had horses . They had one horse for d r iving , and then a team for w o rking. The far m e r s had three horses you see. One they'd use for just dr iving into town and stuff, and s o m e t i m e s . . . well, m y mother used t o d r ive the horse w e h a d . She'd d r ive it to F o r t Er ie , and then if they went t o S t e vensville . The m u d would be six inches deep, the wheels would cut in o n the roads , and in the w in t e r t i m e it wasn't no fun on it. They d idn't go where there w as a stone road , they didn't like t h e s t one road because it was cob blestone l ik e , and it was so rough w ith the wagons and s tuff u ntil they got it s m oothed down w it h the asphalt . R.H: Talking about your mother going t o F ort E r ie , she went t o that l ive r y stable beside t h e Barnea, d idn't she ? S.B: The Barnea House , yeah. It cost 25 o r 3 0 cents to stable the horse in there, and if it was near noon they'd g ive it a bundle of hay to eat . Well, if it was we t o r snowy they' d go in there, and if it was sunny she would just t ie the horse up outs ide at the store. She generally went to VaHeys Store and did her shopping in there. It was n' t a self-serv ice, (3 0) �you would ask for everything and they knew r ight where it was and go and get it , and give it out to you. ( R.H: Was the Barnea H ouse like a board ing house at that t i m e ? S.B: Oh it was a low slung . . . I don't kno w , I neve r was in there. Most of t h e shed w as low, low enough just so that t h e buggy , the top of the buggy could go in there . It was about 7 o r 8 feet h igh or so , maybe 1 0 feet for clearances . Just enough so that you'd d r ive the h o rses in, and t ie t he m , and there was a m anger in t h e front where they could put the hay , and something for the m . They used t o back them out , turn then around, and have them ready t o go for home then. There was two or three places in F ort E r ie where they could put the horses in. R.H: I kno w , but I was just trying to get s o m e info r m at ion on the Barnea, what it looked lik e . S.B: To m y recollection it w a s a l o w s l u n g building. It w a s n ' t h igh . . . well, if it had t w o stories that was all it had. The sh ed was at tached right on the back of the Barnea H ouse and went far back as the . . . Well, the town had those, I don't know what they call t h e m now . F ro m J a r vis S t reet over , there had t o be a d i v is ion you see, there was a street through the alleyway . . . the alley w ay s they used to ( call the m . They all had the alleyways to drive th rough , you see, and s o m e of t h e m w er e j ust w ide enough to d r ive through w it h the wagon and hay on it . I've seen my dad go t h rough s o m e of t h e m , rubbing on the build ing on one side, and r u b b ing on t h e build ing on the other, and h e said, "He didn't know whether he'd g e t thr ough o r not " . A nyway it was low slung with a kind of a flat roof, and a lit tle short roof on the s ide, but it was longer on t h e other side . I th ink there was a box stall there they ' d take and put the horses in. Some horses wouldn' t stand very good when they' re hitched up to a buggy so they had t o take them out of the buggy and put the m in a box stall, and then they'd be alright then. R.H: S o that was on Courtwright , wasn ' t it ? ' S.B: Yeah , Courtw r ight. R.H: I i magine that street wasn't too built up, was it ? S.B: Well, it was the same as Jarvis S t r e e t , it was m u d d y . There was mud holes in the street, and you ' d be down this way and that way ( ,-- going down the street . (3 1) �R.H: Do you re m e mber anything about the rati oning during the w ar, the S e c ond W orld War? S.B: What w as rationed ? We h ad ration books for gasolin e , and for sugar and m e at , and things like that . We w ere never rationed too strong. Well, gasoline w as 50 cents a gallon then and that w as pret ty high at that t i m e . R.H: Did you h ave c oupons for the gasoline? S.B: Oh, the m ain things you could al w ays get . When you w ere a farm er you h ad your wheat and stuf f like that you kno w , and you h ad your but t er and you h ad your milk, so you didn't w orry t oo much about it. R.H: W asn't there w ays of get ting it through the black m arket , like gasoline? S .B: Yeah , but they all frowned on the black m arket . They said, " Well, the c ountry's fighting and there' s no use in going on the black m arket " . I know l o t s o f t i m e s w e'd g o i n for gasoline and you'd give him your card and he'd com e back and h and it to you, and when you got home you'd look and find he never t o ok any coupons out . But they frowned on i t . R.H: S .B: ( I t still w ent on though , didn't it? Y eah . R.H� Did you e ver hear of M ayor Guess or Herb Guess? He w as the M ayor of F ort Erie at one t i me. S .B: Oh , yeah he w as the M ayor o f Fort Erie. R.H: Before he w as the M ayor, didn't he run some boxing m at ches? S.B: I don ' t know t oo m u ch about that . R.H: What ab out illegal gambling, did you hear anything about that? S.B: Oh , they did a little but I didn't bother m u ch w ith that. R.H: Did you kno w the legend of A m i gari , did you ever h e ar that st ory ? S.B: N o, the only one I kno w o f . there w as Abe B e am who used t o live .• in A m igari. He w as the only person I kne w that lived in A m igari . R.H: Y ou w ere going t o t e ll me som ething about when your d ad helped pull the bootlegger out o f the mud , tell m e about that ? S.B: Oh , that w as one Sunday m orning, a feller c a m e t o the door, and he asked "If dad had a tractor or a t e am of h orse s ? " Dad said " H e did " , and he said " He w as stuck i n t h e mud and h e 'd like t o g e t out " . Well, dad says " A s a rule I don't m ake it a practice t o work on Sundays , but I'll t ake the t e am down t o help " . S o ( • • • I think he only t ook the one horse, one horse down there , got down t o it, and pulled him out (3 2) �pulled him off the road , and then h e w ent on. I don't kno w , he paid him $10 or $15, something like that. You kno w that w as a big sum of m oney. The bootleggers had the m oney then you see. S o afterwards they t old him that he had pulled out a bootle gger. My dad was . . • what do you call i t ? . He didn't like anybody that did a lot of drinking , and stuff like that . He was a t eet otaler. He didn't like any of that . The same as when the Provincial Gas put the gas w ells down there they w anted him to go up to the h otel and . . . see the h ot els w ere about every four m iles apart . There w as one up here on Bowen R oad at Ridgem ount , and then there w as another one on N igh R oad , and of course there w as one in S tevensville, one in N e w Germany, and there w as one down in Black Creek. They all sold beer in there, in the kegs, and they wanted dad to go and buy a keg of beer t o celebrate, you see. H e says " I d on't drink mysel f , and I ' m not buying it for anybody else" . So he didn't buy any. R.H: So that was the ProvinGial Gas C ompany that w as di gging those gas wells? S .B: R.H: ( That was the Provincial Gas C ompany. I see, so it w asn't a privately owned com pany that was digging the gas wells? S.B: No it w asn 't private. They leased the land and all around it, and they gave them so much . I think they gave them $ 50 a year and free gas if they drilled the w ells on the farm . Dad never got , he never got $ 50 , and he had to go to court in order t o get gas, because they w ouldn't put the pipe up for the w ell so he c ould tap int o i t , you see. R.H: When you got i t , it w as free then? S.B: Oh yes, it was fre e and we had all the gas we needed in the h ouse . I think they figured 250,000 feet o f gas a year w ould supply a farmhouse , but they wasted it like just let i t go regardless of whe ther. . . They ••• thought there w as never an ending t o it, you see. That's why they got rid o f practi cally all the gas h ere . R.H: So there w as no gas bills then? S.B: N o . Well, then afterw ards they cut them out and they charged them so much for gas then. That w as in the later ye ars, about 10 or 15 years after that. ( R.H: Y ou don't re member the names of any of those hotels, do you, like (3 3) �the one on Bo w en R oad ? S.B: I can't re call it right now .•• The one on the B o w en R oad w as quite a prominent one . It had m ore a c c o m odations for travellers than ( the others. R.H: Was that like a h al f w ay h ouse ? S.B: Yeah , they used t o call it a hal f w ay h ouse . R.H: I think there w as four of them I believe , w asn't there ? S.B: Well, there w as quite a number of them around. R.H: Weren't they m ore for boarding, and sleeping overnight? S.B: Y e ah , they w ould keep travellers at night . They w ould take them in f or the night and stable the h orses . . . Well, there w as all those country roads you know and there w asn't st one roads, and there w asn' t the busses or nothin g . They either had t o w alk . . . There w as travellers w h o use d t o c o m e through selling clothing, cot t on and gingham , and stuff like that . R.H: Travelling salesm en? S.B: Travelling salesmen , but they walked through , w alked and carried it on their backs. R . H: ( Did they carry it in sui t cases? S .B: S o m e o f them had it in a suit case, others had it wrapped up in oil-cloth when they came through . R.H: O kay, you said that you never had electri city, what about indo or plumbing? S.B: N o indoor plumbing. We had a cistern. Well, aft er my dad rem odelled the h ouse we put a cistern in and we had a place for a bathroom , but w e didn't have running water. We only had a cist ern w ith soft w ater. The first cist ern w as just a dug w ell with timbers across, and it w as boarded over, and then sodded on t op of that. It w ould give w ay som e t i m e s you know , and then you'd h ave to clean out the cist ern and go d o w n in there with a ladder and a lantern , and scrub the ••• cle an it out , and let it fill up again w i th som e eavestrough in. R.H: S o h o w did you g e t the w at er, w as there a pump you use d ? S.B: N o , w e used to get the w at e r with a pail and a branch o f f a tre e , w i t h a limb out about 6 or 8 f e e t long. W e ' d h o o k t h e pail o n it and swit ch it back and forth to. . . The re w o uld b e a cert ain am ount ( of s cum over the t op , and you'd brush that back and forth and dip (3 4) �your water out , and t ake it in the house and have a good drink of w at er. W e 'd never t hink anything about i t . ( R.H: S o h ow did your m other do the w ashing ? S .B: She'd have to dip the w at er. Sh e had a w ashing m a chin e , but she h ad t o turn it by han d . Then they h ad copper boilers that they used t o put the clothes in and set it on the st ove, and boil them : It did som e clean w ashing. R . H: I guess they didn't w ash t oo often then? S.B: Every week, but they never w ashed every day. R.H: What about baths? S .B: Th.a t w as on ce a w eek. I t old N an cy here, "I t ook t w o baths a year, one in the Spring and one in the Autumt{. ( N ancy is Mr. Bea m 's daughter-in-law ) N o, that used t o be a Saturday night session that they used to use the w ashtub . I had three sisters and t w o broth ers . . . W ell , m y younger brother w as 1 6 years, 1 7 years younger than I w as but my m other used t o say " Well , the girls first and the boys come after w ards " . W e ' d get a scrubbing in the w ash tub in the kit ch en. We never had running water at any time, but in the later years they had a w ell drilled hal f w ay bet ween the h ouse and barn. It w as real good drinking water, but i t w as hard w at er. It w as inclined t o be ( sulpured , limey. M y aunt w as down to see m y dad one day, and m other was up at her sisters, and she w an t e d t o bake som e baked beans, so she asked me t o go out t o the b arn and get som e beans so that she could cook them . I did , and she put them in the water and she boiled and c ooked , and c ooked for h ours, and they didn't get soft. She said t o m y dad " I think som eone must have got som e old beans that you've b e en keepin g " . Well, he says "I'll get som e good beans for you " . S o he got som e good beans and he brought them in, and she put them on , and she cooke d , and cooked , and cooke d , and c ooked , and t h e y never d i d get sof t . S o d a d says a ft erw ards, " I kno w what's the m at t e r " . H e says t o me, " Go d o w n t o Uncle J o e ' s and get a pail o f w at e r from the cistern " . I w ent d o w n and brought a pail up and he put them on, and they cooked right soft in no time. With the soft w at e r they'd soften right up but they w ouldn't with the hard w a t er. R.H: ( So it w as the w at er ? SeB: It w as the w ater that ••• it w as hard water. Other than that , the (3 5) �w ater w as good . You had t o kno w what you w ere cooking with it. R.H: I guess it w ould b e hard t o w ash w ith that w at e r t oo , w ouldn't it? S.B: Well, they had soap •. • A lot of them m ade their o w n soap . It w as h omem ade soap in those d ays. R.H: Yeah , I've heard of that , w asn't it a w ashsoap m ade w ith lye? S.B: Yeah it w as lye. Y ou t ook t allow , and beef-fat , and you rended it out , then you w armed it up , and you poured the • . . you t ook a can of lye, and you h ad t o use a granite c ontainer f or it , and you'd put the lye in the w ater and that w ould al m ost boil the w at er, and then you'd pour the t allow , the beef-fat in that , and then stir i t . Y ou'd stir it all up , and it w ould congeal so that you hardly t urn it, and you'd have to p our it out int o a lit t le box, and put a paper on the bot t om s o it w ouldn't run out i f there w as any h oles in i t . R.H : Was that like a m old? S.B: A m old for i t . Then before it got hard , you'd t ake the kni fe and draw it through the centre, and t ake it , and m ake cakes of soap . By the next m orning you'd could break the cakes off, and it w as ready t o use in the w ash . It used t o whiten the clothes good . ( R.H: Yeah , it w as good for w ashing, but it w as hard I imagine on the skin, wasn't it? S.B: O h , it w asn ' t t oo bad . R.H: The lye used t o burn , didn't i t ? S.B: Y ou w ouldn't not i ce t oo m uch of it . It w as the grease that cut the lye t oo, you see. R.H: D idn't the lye burn you? S.B: Oh, it w ouldn't burn you, it w ouldn't burn you at all. R.H: But the lye itsel f , i f i t w asn't m ixed , w ould burn you, right? S.B: Oh yeah, lye itself w ould , but the grease cuts the p o w e r of the lye , and the lye cuts the grease for w ashing. It goes 5 0/ 5 0 so ••. It m ade gre at soap for w ashing, and t h e y use d t o have the o l d s crub-board . I have t w o of the m d o w n the c ellar. When my m o ther and father w ere first m arried , they lived down on the N i ag ara Boulevard and they w ere hal f w ay b e t w e en Black C re e k and Chippaw a . There w as a high b ank there about 2 5 fee t , and the road then, at that t i m e w as • • • well, the one w agon-wheel w ould drive over the edge o f the bank, and the other w ould b e rubbing the fence 'til they (3 6) �m ore land from the farm ers you see to widen the land up . Well, then aft erw ards the park com issioners came along , and they stoned along the w aterfront to keep the w at e r from w ashing the bank ( a w ay. R.H: Was that in the 20's they did that ? S .B: That w ould be before the 2 0 's. They put the st one all the way along later, the big rough st one, and that kep t the bank from breaking away. R.H: So they st oned the riverbank S.B: Y eah , the riverbank. Well, in the sum m ert i m e, there used t o be •.• ? a t eam and carriage, they used t o call it the Tally-Ho • .• R.H: The Tally-H o? S.B: The Tally-Ho, and they had stables at . . . where w ould it be? Where the M c A fee Cem etery is you know , on the N iagara B oulevard . D o you know where that is? R.H: I've heard of it but . . . S.B: Well, there used to be a st able there, and then there w as stables at B lack Creek, and they had stables at Chippawa. They'd have six h orses, four to six h orses, and they w ould si t up on the t op and drive them , and the people w ould ride in the back t o see the scenery ( along the N iagara R iver. The daughter of the man that had the h orses, she said , "I'd drive them t eam at full gallop all the way down that road " . They used t o go on a gallop w i th the team of h orses and that one wheel som eti m es w ould be over the edge of the bank, and she had nerve enough to drive it through . They'd st op at the ••. up there at the M c A fee Cem et ery where there w as a farmhouse that had stables, and they'd stable the horses there. trhey'd have another m an there and he'd h ave the si x h orses ready, and they'd t ake the other horses in that had c o m e from Fort Eri e , and put the new h orses o n , and they'd g o d o w n t o Black C reek, and they'd change again , and then they'd go on down t o ••• from Black C reek they'd go to Chippaw a. They changed teams thre e t i m e s going through b e c ause t h e y used t o m ake the h orses go right through on a gallop. R.H: Where they changed them , w as that just livery stables or w as that spe c i al place s ? S.B: Spe ci al places. Stables where they kept the horses in , you see. They'd t ake the four o f them off and put them in a box st all and (37) �t ake the others out . They'd have a m an there who had them all ready harnesse d , ready to bring out and hook them on. There 'd b e only a f e w m inut es delay, and a w ay they'd go again down the road. It w as oft entimes that the wheel w ould •• • one side w ould be over the riverbank. I don't know whether you are a quainted with Black C reek, but you know were the Creek c om es out int o the river? There used to be a great big cherry orchard w ay out where the w ater is now , it w ashed all a w ay. That used to be all a big cherry orchard out there. Then the park, they didn't know anything about it and they . . . only they knew some of the farm ers had a chance to haul st one from up here at R idgem oun t , and they'd g o and take a l oad a d ay, take it down and dump i t , and then som ebody w ould b e there to throw the st ones over on the edge of the riverbank, and that 's the w ay they h auled them along. They didn't know what they were doing 'til afterw ards they f ound it w as the p ark com m issi oner f i xing the road t o st art buying the property. They came through and bought the property and some people sold i m m edi ately , and others didn't w ant their farm s and h ouses m oved back, but that w as progress I guess. They had t o yield t o it. I know my grand father w as w illing t o sell but he didn't like the. . . ( He had a ro w of pine trees set up for w indbreak , and the young feller came t o him and sai d , " Well , I understand your condition but lo ok, those pine trees w on't last over five or six years m aybe ten years at the longest , because i t ' s on a clay ground, and pine w on't grow on clay ground any length of time" . It w as true enough and he sold out to them , but he didn't have t o m ove the h ouse . Well, h e had t o t ake the veranda off the h ouse as the park propert y came right up to the edge of the house . They paid him a fairly good pri c e for the land, but they didn't like t o yield t o change. It's like i f you go a w ay up t o N orthern Ontario and see the people there c ont ented and happy. Th ey don't w ant m odern convenienc e s . Any w ay , they s t arted building the road through there and they had big ro cks about six inches square pretty w ell, and they laid them all d o w n in the road , and then took the st e am-roller and rolled them down. R.H: So what road is that ? S.B: That's the Niagara Parkway. Well the oldtim ers said, " that road w ould never give w ay " . (3 8 ) �R.H: S.B: It R.H: S o it w as 1 9 1 0 or 1 9 1 3 , som ething like that , about 1 9 1 3 ? S.B: ( That must have been a long t i m e ago ? S o m ething like that , and o f c ourse so m e o f the farmers had the w as, i t w as ••• I w ould h ave been about 1 5 years old. opportunity to w ork on the roads you know , and that gave them spending money then. They used t o grab every chance they'd get for w orking, even to fixing the roads in the spring. Th ey had a s craper for going through , and four h orses, f our t o six h orses , and they pulled that , and that scraped the road level you see, the clay road . They didn't have the graders and stuff like they have t oday. R.H: D idn't they have those steam-rollers , did they use steam-rollers? S.B: St eam-rollers w as for rolling, packing it d o w n , but this w as like a grading that they'd go through and . . • you see them here w i th their power . . . but this w as a log w ith a s t eel blade across the bot t o m , and a t ongue on to i t . Then they'd put the t w o h orses . . . the t w o team s on each side and one ahead , and then they'd roll it over. You got owed so much for the team on your taxes f or doing road w ork, and then the single pe ople, if they needed help they got them to c o m e out and . . . They got paid their share of the t a xes t oo you ( see, for the road w ork they did. Of c ourse when they started s t oning the road s , that got done away with. That ' s progress . R.H: S o did it las t , that road w ork ? S.B: Oh , it lasted for a number of years . They'd fix the road up and the farmers w ould say " Oh , that ' s lovely, now we can go through the road " . Well, you had plowed through m ud roads in the w intert i m e, and they knew what it w ould be like in the Spring. My cousin, she w as going with a feller from Fort Erie. and he had the old M odel T and he came down the N i agara B oulevard and the road w as st oned then , and then he'd come up the t o w nline or the Netherby R oad, and he'd leave a rut so deep , all the w ay through up to where his girlfriend lived , and he'd turn in there. Anybody that got into that rut had t o st ay in it 'til they got to my aunt's place. O f course when the Spring come they'd put their scraper on and scrape that road, fill up the ruts, and everything w ould b e smooth again. sure there must have been a lot o f c ars getting stuck then, right? R.H: I'm S.B: Well, there wasn't too many cars then. That was the time when some of them had cars and they used t o t ake a team o f h orses and (3 9) �pull it out . . . the car out to the N iagara Boulevard, the N iagara Parkway . . . I f it was only a l ittle ways , why-they'd put the chains on, they had chains on the tires, on the rear wheels , and go out . If the mud was ( too deep then, they'd wait ' t il it froze u p and they' d go then, you s e e . M y dad had a 1 9 1 4 F or d h e bought from F r itz Bros . in R idgeway, and h e was u p there one day and got the car and drove it home. He never took a lesson or anyth ing in d r i v ing at all , and when he got into the yard he said " Whoa" , and the car never stopped. R.H: S o you never had any lessons , you j ust learned on your o wn, did you ? S.B: That's all he did, he showed him what t o do , h o w to start it and everything. R.H: They showed you the r e , when you bought the car ? S.B: They showed h i m how to crank i t , to start i� up, h e was used to m o to r s anyway, and w e used t o have a gasoline motor on the far m . R.H: What about this fence you and your dad b u ilt along the Pa rkway ? S.B: A fence ? Oh they put the s t on e along the wat e r ' s edge and then of course they bought the land back, and s o m e places they'd buy m o r e than others , you see. On t h e h igh bank where my dad used t o l ive, why-they had t o go back quite a ways to get m o r e roo m , ( y o u s e e . The bank i n t h e w intert i m e would be soft, a n d going down there s o m e t i m e s , you'd go over your shoe tops t o get a pail of water. You'd d ip it out of the rive r , and c o m e u p and let it set a while, and you'd have about two inches of m u d on the bottom of the pail from the water. When it was clear, the water was j ust as clear and n ice as could be then. When we went to school, we had all the water we had to d r ink. W e used t o get pe r m iss ion to run down to the rive r , and d ip a cup of water and have a drink, and we all had our own cups you know , and r inse it back and forth and dip . . . R.H: But you built a fence along the Parkway w ith your dad, didn't you ? S .B: Oh yeah . We built it down between Chippawa and F alls V ie w . R.H: What w as th is fence for ? S.B: Just to . . . to fence the Park C o m m is ion e r ' s property, and the far m land . They had agreed to fence it s o that the far m e r s could put cattle in, you see. They j us t had t o . . . We used t o take the d riving horse and d rive down to Ch ippawa. Well, it was ten m iles, and we'd get ( a shade tree where we could t ie the horse up and then walk over (40) �to the Park way and bore 8 inch holes w ith a posthole d igge r , and turn it around and you'd be d r illing, and the g round would be hard { and you could hardly get a handful of g roun d . We 'd have to go to the r iver and and get a pa il of water and put that into t o it . We'd leave it s i t t ing w ith a pail of water in the ground for .. . ' t il the next m o r n ing, and then we could go down that much furth e r . It would soften you see. That was slavery work, that . R.H: Yeah , and even w ith that posthole d igge r , was it a posthole d igger you used ? S.B: Yeah , but it w as all by han d . You had t o put your weight on to i t , and turn it. R.H: S o how long d i d it take you t o build that ? S .B : Well it took pretty well the whole su m me r . I forget how many rods of fences , but it was quite a bit t h e r e . M y dad, h e took the not ion to sell fences, b ig w ir e fence s , and he g o t the order there . W h en he got it d o wn, one felle r said " Well, you didn't g ive m e a gat e , I got to have a gat e " . H e says "I'll just c u t the w i re " . Well, m y dad say s , "I hope you don't cut it ' t il I get t h e okay f r o m the Park C o m m is ioner t o get the fence fixed " . W e s t retched the fence u p and w e had two rach ets that w e used t o use, that could take I 2 0 tons . W e used that t o t ighten the w ire up s o that you could stand down t o it , and you could s w ing on t o it . Dad say s , "If they ever cut that w ire w ith a pair of plie r s , they'll have a s u r p r ise of a life t i m e " . Well, you kno w , they stapled f ive o r si x posts back o n each s ide and then they went through cutting . When they cut that w ir e she j us t w ent back l ike that you know, and of course the fence went all t o pieces after that. Some of the fence is st ill . . . it s t ill stands there. R.H: And that was in the ' 2 0 s too, or was it the ' 3 0s ? S.B: Well, that w ould have been when I was about 1 6 years old. R.H: Have you ever heard of the M . T . G reen ? I t was a boat that was at the Shipya r d s . S.B: Well, they made several of them in there . I worked on the . . . I didn't work on the E . B . Osle r , but I worked on t w o boa t s , the North · A me r ican, and the South A me r ican, and then they had a couple of others they built too, but I d idn't ( R.H: . • . D o you know anything about the V illage of V ictoria ? Before it was (41) �called B r idgeburg. S.B: Not too much , j us t what I heard from my mother and them talking about it . It wasn't much d ifferent than when it was called B r idgebu r g : It was pract ically the same thing, it wasn't too much d ifferent. R.H: They m ore-or-less just changed the name, d id they ? S.B: They j us t changed the na m e , that's about all they d i d . They had pract ically the same stores . They had J a rv is S t reet and then they had the one over towards the railroad t racks . That's C ou r t w r ight, isn ' t it ? R.H: Y eah . S .B : There was a s t o re in there, s o m e stores along there, but mostly on Jarvis S t reet w as there a lot of s t o r e s . R .H : D id you ev er see t h e so l di ers t h at patrolled the N iagara Boulevard t o catch the r u m s m uggle r s ? D i d you ever see the soldiers, ' cause I know you went t o school along that way ? S.B: It was never done much , only at night time, but there was one time they had p e r m is s ion from the gove r n m e n t , t h e Ontar io Gove r n m e nt to ship liquor to C u ba . They used to c o m e in to t h e dock by the Royal H otel, and t h e t rucks w ould come there w ith the liquo r , and ( the y ' d shove them down the chute w ith the r olle r s , a n d they'd c o m e down t h er e, o n e r ight a f t e r anoth e r , and t h e y ' d l o a d the boats j u s t a b o u t t h a t f a r o u t of the water , a n d a w a y they'd g o for C u b a . T h e next m o r n ing t h e y ' d be bac k . T h e y never got to C u ba, b u t o n t o the l a k e and me t t h e i r o t h e r p a r t n e r there, t ransfer it, a n d t h e n c o m e o n back . T h a t w a s o n e w a y t h e y got around the A m e r ican Government . They granted t he m pe r m ission for C u ba and . . . If you had a rowboat, and you rowed that boat across, you didn't need to touch i t, all you needed t o do was t o go down there at a ce rtain time and row that boat across t o the other side, get out , and walk down the road about a quarter of a m ile, and come back and get into the boa t , pick u p the money , and row across t o the C anad ian side . You weren't do ing anything. That's how people . . . some o f the m m a de th e i r fortune that way . I know one fam ily t hat , he use d to row the b o a t across, he ne v e r touched anything. H e j ust got int o the boat , rowed it across , and aske d no questions or anyth ing : He docked on the other side , . an d then came back and his w ife used to stand at the w indow and watch him. He used to go across when ( 4 2) �the w ind was blowing strong but he knew the part of the r iver where he was going , you see. She d idn't like him to do it , but he did it for the money. H e got $50 or $60 for taking the boat over and com ing ( bac k . R.H: T h a t w as g o o d m o n e y , wasn't it a n d I g u e s s it was t e m p t ing for some people . S.B: Oh it was . A lot of t h e m would do it and others wouldn' t . I know one feller that used t o . . . H e d idn't touch l i q u o r h i m self, and h e had noth ing t o do w ith it , but t h ey wanted t o s t o r e it in h is barn and h e said " Y e s , you can store it there " . They put it in there, and h e got quite a bit for just not saying anyth ing at all . There's a lot of people who never knew he even d id t h at . They found out aft e r w a r ds that h e stored it there for the m . R.H: S o you d idn't see a n y of t h e s e soldie r s b e c a u s e o f c o u r s e you went t o school in the day t i m e , didn't you ? S.B: Well, w e d idn't see s o m uch of that . I t was noth ing to row across the river. You could row across t o t h e A m e rican s ide and noth ing was ever said about it . When my uncle lived o u t on the N iagara Boulevard h e worked across on the island , and h e ' d row across and ( go t o w o rk at the island clu bhouse . . . R.H: What island was that ? S.B: G rand Islan d . H e worked at the clubhouse and if h e want ed t o go to Buffalo why-he'd walk on up across t h e Island t o the ferry on the east side, take the ferry across over t o t h e m a inland, and catch a N iagara S t r e e tcar up t o Buffalo and b u y what he want e d . If they needed kerosene, o r coal oil they'd go t o B u ffalo and float a 20 o r 30 gallon barrel d o wn w ith a . . . on the outside of the boat , th is kerosene . . . R.H: Did h e pay duty on it ? S.B: No duty , no duty o r noth ing on it . R.H: That was g reat , t imes have changed and not always for the bette r . D id y o u e v e r hear of t h e N e w Orleans , the fer r yboat that went into the Inte rnat ional B r idge ? S.B: Oh, the New Orleans . Yeah , I've run ac ross the ferry boat , the New Orleans. R.H: S.B: ( She was a sidewheele r , what do you mean by a s idewheele r ? They had kinda l ike water wheels on each side. One on one s ide and one on the other and that's where they'd steer it, you see. It ( 43 ) �would m ake the one wheel work more and the other one stop. It was quite a t r ick t o get through the r iver when the ice was com ing down. S o m e t im e s they ' d have to go way down from F ort E r ie , from ( the dock, pretty near down to the Inte rnat ional B r idge before they could get across t o the other s id e , and then they' d have to c o m e b a c k up again . It w o u l d m ake i t a l i t t l e longer ri de. It was 1 5 cents to cross over on it . R.H: I just heard that the New Orleans h i t the Inte rnat ional B r idge one t i m e , d id it ? S.B: Yeah . . . R.H: Well, w e were talk ing about the New O rleans , and you w e re saying how they used to have t o go towards the Inte rnat ional B r idge t o . . . S.B: Yeah, in t h e w in t e r when the ice was flo w ing. They put that cable across now o r that . . . not a cable , but logs that hold the ice back , and they don't have as many b ig cakes c o m ing d o w n . R .H: A n d they don't have the fe r ry boats e it h e r , do they ? S.B: No , they don' t . W e used t o have to w a it our chance t o d r ive into the fe r ry and we'd have our t icket, and we'd c r o w d in, and there was t w o ca r s on each s ide of t h e centre of the boat . T w o on the left s i d e , and t w o on the r igh t . They would dock on t h e other s i d e , ( and they'd m o t ion u s for t o c o m e , and w e ' d have t o run up the gangplank and out on t o the land again. We'd then run around t o where the custo m s people would be. Th e n , you had t o go up quite a s t e e p h ill t o N iagara S t reet from F e r ry S t re e t , the doc k . It was quite the grade up there . W e used t o go up there quite oft e n . R.H: Do you r e m e m be r when D ouglas Hospital was built ? S.B: I do, but I don't re m e m be r too much particulars about it. R.H: Where d id you go before that was built ? Where di d people go when they were really s ick ? S.B: A lot of them never w e nt to the hospital. R.H: S o the doctor would come to the house , would h e ? S . B: The doctor would c o m e to the house . M y sister had d iphth e r ia and she would have been about ten years old , and she was s ic k for . . . oh, I guess six w eeks . She developed an abcess on the s ide of her neck, and the doctor says "Oh, I'd like to lance i t , but I' m scared of the Jugular v e in " . H e said "If I'd ever m ake a m iss , that'd be the end ( of it " . They poult iced it and then finally it b r oke , and she got better. (4 4) �That was just at the start of when they were giving the antitoxin . If you'd seen the mach ines they had when they came to fu m igate ( the place . . . R.H : D i d they fu m igate because o f the d iphtheria ? S.B: Y e ah , and they sent m y brother and I, there was just the three of us then. . . They loade d us up one n igh t , it was t e n o'clock , and they got us out of bed, put us in t h e sleig h , and drove out to our grand mo t h e r' s . W h e n w e g o t out t o o u r g rand m oth er's they h a d t h e b e d fixed up for u s , but i magine this , it was a s t raw t ick and not a . . . R.H: A s t r aw t ick ? S.B: A s t raw t ick that they slept o n , and it was piled up in t h e cent r e . I c a n s ee my grand mother and grandfat h e r , o n e on each s ide trying to level it down so that we could sleep on it that nigh t . We s pent about three weeks out there . When my s ist er got better the doctor said " W ell, we're a little slow in g e t t ing the fu m igation done, but oh, it w ill be alright t o b r ing them h o m e " , and he says "If they should contact it , we w ill know what it is right away, and w e can t reat it " . S o my m other was anxious to see m y broth e r , 'cause h e was the baby then you kno w , and s o they brought us h o m e . W e weren't home more than t w o o r t h r e e weeks when we came down w ith a ( sore throat . Oh , it was t e r rible . R .H: Is that how it started, w ith a s o re throat ? S.B: A sore throat . The doctor says "That' s what they have , but we w ill be able to use the ant it o x in on t he m , and that'll check the whole th ing " . I r e m e m be r him c o m ing down one night and they took a wash d ish w it h war m wate r , and they washed m y brother's back off w ith warm water and soap, and then the doctor gave us the needle . M y brothe r , h e screamed and h oller e d and he said " When I get big, I'll st ick that needle in you " . " That doctor ! " he says . Then they came in to m e , and I re m e m be r the doctor says to me "Oh, you'r e a man now , you won't be hollering like your brother, who's a baby " . I r e me m be r m e g r it t ing m y teeth and . . . It was k ind of a c rude m e thod . They'd get r ight in the centr e of your back you kno w , and s t ick the needle in. We had the needles and everything for 1 5 or 20 years afterwards . Dad jus t saved the m 'cause they would throw them out after they used the m . We weren't. s ick long, ( only a week o r ten days and we were running around again , you see. 45 �R.H: S.B: Yeah , D r . Buell. R.H: H e was from R idgeway, wasn't he ? S.B: ( Do you know who the doctor was ? N o , he was from St evensville . H e was the fam ily doctor. He went to the F ort E r ie Racet rack . He used to like the horse racing and h e won enough to buy h i m self an old H u p m ob ile . R.H: A n old what ? S.B: A n old Hupmobile . R.H: What is that , a H u p m obile ? S.B: A car . Well, that was the make of the m , and h e used to d r ive that . H e had t w o horses , and t hen the neighbour feller had t w o oth e r h o r s e s , a n d h e h ired t h e m s o m e t i m e s i f h is h o r s e s g o t t i r e d . They'd come t h r ough the mud, h e h a d a big fur coat , a big bearskin coat and he'd w rap it around h is legs and s it in t h e r e , and hang on t o the r ein s and let the h o r s e g o . H e had a . . . h e w en t at a a gallop . . . a t w o - w h e e l ca r t . H is satchel was in bet ween h is feet s o h e wouldn' t lose tha t , and h e ' d c o m e d o w n and the m u d w ould be flying t h is way and that way fro m the wheel s , and h e ' d pull into the d r ive way and my dad would go out and take the h o r s e and walk h i m aroun d , ( w h ile h e c a m e i n t h e house to s e e t h e s i c k . W h e n h e g o t back into the buggy the horse wouldn't hardly stand, you know, and the m inu te that h e'd get in and sit d o w n and p ick u p t h e r e i n s , t h e horse wa s right off l ike a s h o t . H e h a d a l i t t l e w a t e r s p a n i e l t h a t used t o c o m e in and h e ' d get a b o u t f ive m inutes r e s t , and then h e ' d have t o take off after the doctor again . He'd go t he whole round w ith h i m . H e used to b e m uddy and wet and tired, and he'd make the rounds w ith the doct o r . R.H: Did h e charge a lot for h is visits ? S.B: Oh , he never charge d , h e never charged much m oney . I don't know what he would charge , maybe a dollar or s o mething like that on the trip, never was much. A n y t i m e , day or n igh t , it d idn't make any d ifference when you called him , anyt i m e . You can i magine , it wasn't getting into a car and turning the heat e r on, and driving down. Now they won't go a block away from h o m e . R.H: S.B: ( I kno w . Did he leave m e d ication or did you have to . . . ? Oh, h e had the m e d ic ine right there . He'd m ix u p some of the stuff that he'd made up h i m self, and if he didn't have any, why-he'd tell (46 ) �m y dad t o come up to the office and he'd have it ready for h i m . R.H: ( Oh , y o u d idn't g o to t h e drugstore then ? S.B: No. R.H: N o ! Just r ight from the the doctor ? . R H: Just r ight from the doc t o r . We very seldo m e ve r went to the drugstore for anything. That's mode rn . R.H: Have you ever heard of the P e g - L e g , or the D ummy or the S andfly ? S.B: Well, the Peg-Leg was running from R idgeway into C rystal Beach, but that d idn't pan out at all . The D u m my , I used to t ravel that a lot . R.H: D id you ? Why d id they call it the D u m m y ? S.B: Well, I don't kno w . It was l ik e an electric c a r , that's all it was , and that's the na m e they gave it . I don't k n ow whether it s e e m e d to b e a d u m b th ing to r ide on it, I don't k n ow . Well, any w ay i t would hold around 2 0 or 2 5 passenge r s . They w ould make regular c ross ings back and forth every 1 0 o r 15 m inutes or s o m e t h ing. R.H: W h e r e w a s that , on the Internat ional B r idge ? S.B: The Inte rnat ional B r idge, from Fort E r ie to B u ffalo and back , you see. If a freight t r a in came . . . well they had the m . . . it would take ( you longer to get across , but if the r e was no t r a i.n on the l ine , he got the o k a y to go acros s , wh y-h e'd be across to B u ffalo in no t i me at all. If y o u w a n t ed anyth ing , why-you could buy rubber boots, and cloth ing a lot cheaper o v e r the r e , and you never paid too much duty on it . S o m e o f the m would say " O h , that ' s j u s t for your own self, f o r get it " . Th e y done t h at then, and of course dur ing the wart i m e they h a d t h e soldiers stationed there a n d gua r d ing t h e B r idge . There was one part icular one had M . P . on h is shoulde r , letters on h is unifo r m , and there was a young gi rl w ith the passenge rs , going across . . .I forget what w e were going across fo r , but she says "I wonder what that M . P . stands for " , and he straightened up to attention and h e say s , " M other's P e t " , and wheeled around . Now , the P eg-Leg ran from R idgeway to C rystal Beach , but I don't know too much about it , but I know it d idn't pan out . It ran on one rail, and I don't know if it was balance d by a wheel, it was s p in n ing at pretty heavy rate and that would balance it . It would go down the rail that way, but I don't know much about it . The D u m m y , I was on that , and ( then I was on another t rain that ran from the dock there at F ort E rie (4 7) �where the boat docked to E r ie Beach . There used to b e a t rain that run there, and that didn't pan out too long. There was something happened , I don't know , it just see m s that the m anager didn't manage it r ight and C rystal Beach t ook ove r , and E r ie B each then folded right down. That's all I kno w . R.H: Well, that was int e r e s t ing. Thanks very m uch for the int erview again, thanks a lot M r . Bea m . ( (48 ) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Transcripts Subject The topic of the resource oral history, Fort Erie Description An account of the resource Transcriptions from interviews of various Fort Erie residents conducted in 1985 by the Fort Erie Public Library Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fort Erie Public Library Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived FEPL- LH - Oral History Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Rose Hearn Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Sumner Beam Location The location of the interview. Mr. Beam's home at 1235 Ridge Road North, Ridgeway Original Format If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Cassette Tape Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History - Beam, Sumner Description An account of the resource This is the transcript of Sumner Beam's interview. He discusses topics such as: Life in Fort Erie before electricity, phone, etc Postal delivery Life on the farm Medicine in Fort Erie The Great Depression Gypsies in Fort Erie The Barnea Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Fort Erie Public Library Local History Collection Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 15, 1985 1930s 1985 Barnea Fort Erie Oral history post office ridgeway technology transcripts