http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/c5e75af89f3e20442172ef661d967f2b.pdf 285eeef9a1268b255fa559d8fcde4bdc PDF Text Text This is Rose Hearn intervie w ing Mrs. Be atri ce Paint er in her home at 33 R i celand R oad, Fort Erie , Ont ario , and the date is July 8, ( 1985. R.H: Hello Mrs. Paint er. B.P: Hi. R.H: Could you tell me where you w ere born ? B.P: Where or when? R.H: Where ? B.P: Sarnia, Ont ario. R. H: When did you settle in Fort Erie ? B.P: 1941, i m mediatly follo w ing my m arriage. R. H: Do you re m e mber the first day when you got here , the first evening, where you staye d ? B.P: Well I came to Fort Erie about three w e eks be fore , and I came t o settle here t o vie w my future home and me asure w indo w s for curt ains and that sort a thing. We st ayed in the Fort Erie hotel, whi ch I believe w as then called the M ather Arm s down here on the corner o f Garrison and King, and I w as with my parents... my husbands , his parents. I don't re m e m ber t o o m u ch , it w as March and Fort Erie doesn't look at its best in M arch. It w as cold and it seemed very desolate around here be cause there w asn' t the buildings of course there is no w. It w as m o st ly just d e ad looking fields till you seen all the leaves, and that sort a thing. R.H: So this neighbourhood ... B.P: Well I w as st aying over here you see at the Mather Arm s , I w as two blocks a w ay from where I no w live. So when I came here t o live three w e eks later I... in an apart m ent o n Bertie Stre e t , and B ertie Street of course w as an older stre et and that w as set tled. I w as in the block be t w een D ouglas Stre et and the hospital, and you kno w the homes w ere longer established, and there w as m ore o f a sense of settling in the com munity there. Over here it w as just like living in a ...be ing in a field in this are a. R.H: What w as the house like ? B.P: Well it w as a ctually a flat. I came in w artimes you kno w being 1941, and the acco m m odation in Fort Erie w as a big proble m. All l the people w ere coming both men and w o m en t o w ork at Fle et for war work, and the acco m m odation in t o wn no w ay suited the number of people that w ere coming here. So anyone who had a (1) �home what they could convert in to t w o apartments w as very exciting ( you kno w , to m ake an inco me o f course. R.H: Was the rent expensive ? B.P: Well that m akes me laugh you kno w. We talked it over and we thought that w e could af ford thirty dollars a m onth rent. Now the general rule w as w e'd been told when you were planning to get m arried w as you shouldn't spend more than one w e eks pay on one m onths rent. Well Garnet w as w orking at Fle et , and he was going to m ake the unhe ard o f sum o f thirty dollars a w eek for a sixty hour w eek, fifty cent s an hour. We thought w e could af ford the thirty dollars a m onth. Well it w as a t w o-flat house , a small flat upst airs, and a little larger downstairs, and they had to pay thirty five .•• they h ad to pay five dollars m ore than me. R.H: Did it have ele ctri city? B.P: Oh ye ah , we had e verything. We had use of the drive w ay, double drive w ay, and we w ere re ally very com fort able. A c tually it w as a brand ne w place , and w e w ere the first people in i t , and it just had one bedroom upst airs, and when this need came for housing the lady that owned the house had dormers built on the room s. ( There w ere dormers built on each side upst airs, and that cre ated more space , and she was able t o put in two bedroom s, and a kit chen and a b athroom in addition t o the one bedroom which they changed to a living-room so other than the living-room which had been the original bedroom the rest of the place w as new. There w as all n e w cupboards , and all ne w wood w ork, and n e w t oile ts so it w as really a very attractive little pla c e , but it w as very hot I found. It had a nice backyard that w e w ere able to use, and the basem ent w as used by both tenants upst airs and down, and o f course it had a w asher and a laundry tub , and the whole bit , and clothe s dryers in the backyard so that w as where my daughter w as born, is w as when we lived down there. W e lived there five ye ars. R.H: Did you have a car ? B.P: Oh yes, we came down here in a model A Ford, and that did us for quit e a while and then w e had a succession of used cars, and finally ab out ••• ( we'd been m arried ne arly t w enty years before we ••• R.H: you don't re m e mber any of the nam es of any the cars, do you ? B.P: N o , we tried to think, but they w ere all old-fashioned type cars (2) �by t odays st andards. Each one seemed to a lit tle better than the one we had be fore. One or t w o of the m proved to be le m ons, but ( by and large we didn't have re ally any particular proble m with cars. We alw ays seemed to be paying on the car in those days like people do, and still. Now a d ays the price you pay for a car is the price we payed for a house in those days. R.H: So where did you do your shopping? B.P: Well because we lived on Bertie Stre et, we did most of our shopping on the Southend of t o w n. There w as Jamieson's Food Market, Jamies I think they called it •.• the man who ran it his name w as Jam ieson, and they called the st ore Jam ies, and there w as Thompson's on the corner of Bertie and N orth Street which is now where Be cker's is locat ed. W e used t o buy our m e at there. They alw ays had very good me at. Sometimes w e w ent up to Jarvis Street and shopped for our m e at at Grinham's But cher Shop ••• they had a very good shop there, and there w as another grocery st ore in the Southend ••• Hapgood's they had quite a ni ce line o f groceries. Y ou re ali ze o f course this is be fore we had any superm arke ts what so ever. Whe ther there w as superm arkets then in other places ( •.• you see this is going back over forty years, and m aybe supermarkets w eren't in anywhere, but they certainly w eren't in Fort Erie. You just w ent to a sm all st ore, and gave your order. The first time it w as suggested you pick your o w n things up o f f the shelf you kno w it was quite a big de al. Y ou'd been used t o j ust having a man behind the count er. But of course shopping in w ar days if anybody re m e mbers w asn't exactly a cup of t e a. We had ration coupons for things like sugar, and coffee, and butt er, but it w asn't the rationed things that w ere the proble m it w as the things that were in short supply that w ere not rationed. N o w soap w as very very hard to get, laundry soap e spe cially, and when my daughter was born, and after w e'd been m arried three years, and o f course there was no disposable diapers in those d ays, you washed everything and no detergents ... det ergent s hadn't come in. They didn't appear till after the w ar. We used to have t o go all over the area trying t o find soap, any kind of soap, and my moth er-in-la w who lived in Chatham , sh e started making soap. ( R.H: Do you kno w how she m ade It ? (3) �B.P: Oh lye and fat • •• she saved fat from m e at I suppose she had , though I don't kno w exactly where she got it fro m . She ac cumulated fat in tins and when she processed it with lye and other things she m ade ( soap. I still have a bar o f soap o f hers around here I found about a year ago . . . well I think I gave it t o somebody for some parti cular purpose . It was a yello w soap, a hard block yellow soap , and I used t o use a grater, a shredder, and I used t o shred it like this into my washing machine , and it wasn't exactly like Tide, but it did the tri ck, and if you rubbed it on dirty spots it re ally did the trick and that's really how I got by for a while , and then basic things worked . I found it very hard n o t t o have i n the house ••• like potatoes. One ye ar I can re m e mber it was practically impossible to buy a potatoe. I guess they'd all gone t o feed the armed services, and we were re ally going round to all the stores we kne w, and asking, but naturally in those days you were cust omers, you weren't j ust people who came in, and i f you shopped regularly at a st ore you had a bet ter chance be cause naturally the m an would see that his o wn cust o m ers got first chance at anything that came in. Another t i me onions we couldn't get anywh ere . Well these were things you kno w, le t ' s f a c e it you can l i v e without the m , but when you've always h a d them ( you re ally miss them . I can rem e mber little things like that . So shopping was a bi t i f fy. Y ou di d t end t o move a llttle a b i t from st ore t o st ore . The word would go around that Mr. so and so had just got in a lot o f something, and e verybody would converge on the st ore . One thing we were asked t o do in those days was to save all our waste fat in tins, and turn it into the stores, and I don't think you got anything for i t other than thanks, but it was a war e f fort . I don't kno w what they did, m aybe they m ade soap out of i t , but anyway we were asked to save any fat ••• not to throw any fat away but t o save it . You see it was a different picture from n o w a days when we didn't have short ages or anything, and the typi cal stat e ment in any st ore was war on ••• ••• well you kno w there ' s a i f you asked for anything, and it wasn't available , and that was the e xcuse in m any cases. You kno w they began t o use it as an excuse for things that the war couldn't possible have no e ffe ct on. ( R.H: B.P: Was there any war songs around ? Oh yes. R oll Out The B arrel, and I don't re m e mber the others too (4) •.• so �much , but I know w e had an a m at eur sho w just be fore I came t o Fort Erie, and that w as t he song t hat w as fe atured w as R oll Out The Barrel, and The White Cliffs Of Dover, and When The Ligh ts Go On Again All Over The World. I re m e m ber people singing that. I don't re m e m ber too m any of the other songs. I re m e m ber Bing Cro sby singing his Whit e Chris t m as , I'm Dreaming Of A Whit e Christ m as, and we w ere int o sno w up to our ne cks, and wishing he'd quit Dreaming of a Whit e Christm as. I do rem e m ber that part o f it. I don't rem ember any other national songs. R.H: Do you re m e m ber the Post Office that w as down in the Southend ? B.P: Y e s. We had no m ail delivery till after the w ar. We used to have t o go down everyday and pick up our m ail. The Post Office was in the Southend o f t o w n just around the corner from where the Bank Of M ontre al now is. I don't kno w wh at's in there right no w ••• I intended t o go down to look but I forgot, but it had been a be auty shop, and various other things in the building then since it w as the Post Office. You had t o go up a couple o f steps t o go in, and the Postmistres s a t t h e tim e . . . o r the girl w h o w orked in t h e Post Office w as M arion Le arn. She later m arried a m an by the name of Yarrow, so she's ( Mrs. Yarrow now, but she was Marion Le arn when I first m e t her. Well just next door t o that or alm ost next door w as a dry goods st ore •.. Charles, and almost everybody w ent for m at erial, and yarn, and thread, and that later changed hands and becam e Y oungs, and I think now it ' s an antique or fle a m arke t type st ore or some thing. Y ou see in those days t oo, the w ay to get to the N orthend of town w as w alking around by the Blvd. The Central Ave. Bridge o f course w asn't there, so you t ended to sh op m ore in your own end of t o w n, and o f course gasoline was rationed t oo. You only had a certain am ount of gasoline, so that put a lit tle bit of a car proble m on your m o toring. But when the bridge w as put in, and you could just sail up Central Avenue and around t o Jarvis Street, I think that's w hen the Southend re ally began t o g o d o wnhill. R.H: Did you w alk m ost of the tim e ? B.P: Well w e used t o w alk t o the Southend a lot� or w e drove down, but it w as no big deal to go to the S outhend of town. I've never done a gre at deal o f w alking around t o w n, not as much as I should sometim e s; { R.H: Did you w alk when you went to colle ct your mail? (5) �B.P: Well I used to w alk down for my m ail, be cause the Post Office w as only open at c:ert ain h ours, and by the time my husband came home ( with the car I'd never driven •.• mysel f or had a c ar, the Post O f fice w as closed, so w e had t o go down in the dayt i me t o get it or we didn't get the m ail you see, so I h ad t o walk do wn, and I had a bicycle too after a while. R.H: B.P: How often was the m ail delivery ? Just once every day, I used to go down every d ay, and for a long t i m e I had the paper from home, since Sarnia sent everyday, so that w as one thing I kne w w ould be there. Well I'd post a lot o f let t ers so I used t o g o d o w n everyday, and they start ed mail delivery just after the w ar, and of course w e had it t wi c e a day, m orning . and afternoon. Why we really needed it t wice a day I. . I kno w people complain now, but other than business people perhaps that have got important documents they have to have, i f they don't get them in the m orning they don't like w aiting the full 24 hours. I think most of us are quit e happy if we get m ail once a day. You kno w i f they started it again, I w ould really consider it a w ast e o f m oney, but I don't think we need mail t w i ce a day. But that w as the norm ( at that t i m e aparently. Well then of course you h ad lots of people coming to the house in those days. You had the baker come around, and R.H: B.P: • •• D o you re m e mber the nam e o f this baker or the bakery? I'm trying t o re m e mber what bakery it w as, Wonder Bread I gues s w as t h e bakery. R.H: What about milk delivery? B.P: Oh yes w e had milk delivery. The Fort Erie dairy used to go around, and we used to get our milk everyday, and I w as just thinking the other d ay w e 'd put a dollar out, and get ten ticke t s for t en quarts of milk. R.H: B.P: Y ou'd get ticke t s ? Oh ye s you got m ilk tickets in those days. They considered it was safer. Y ou see a lot af people didn't like to put money out in milk bottles even as much as a dime or a quarter, cause in those days a d i m e or a quarter was a lot m ore than it is now, so you tried t o s e e your m ilkman every little while, but you'd buy a f e w strips o f ( tickets you see, then you just put a ticket i n the bottle. (6) �R.H: B.P: ( Each ticke t was w orth a quart ? It w as like ten tickets for a dollar, and for one ticket ten cents, and you had a quart o f milk, and those o f course w ere bottles in those days, and they had the cream on the top, and i f you w anted to have cream on your cereal, and didn't w ant to buy any, you sneaked a bit off the t op of the m ilk be fore you m ixed it. Then-your husband complained because the milk w asn't as rich as it should be. That w as the one thing I do re m e m ber the cost of, I don't rem e m ber the cost of groceries as a whole too much. Y ou bough t what you needed and you paid for it. But I do re m e m ber bread and milk ••• bre ad w as about ten cents a loaf, and milk w as about ten cents a quart and they w ere both delivered to the house which w as nice. One thing I re m e mber about living on Bertie Stre e t you might find interesting, When the races w ere on, and they seemed t o be on during the w ar just as much as they w ere any other time ... I don't re member there not being races, and of course we lived on Bertie S treet from forty one to forty six which w as the last years of the w ar plus another year, and so it had to be during the w ar when the races w ere on, and people had no transport ation. There w ere no t axis, m o st of ( them didn't have the gasoline, and so one or two farmers had w agons, flat w agons, and they used t o go down with horses and m e e t the ferry...you came home on the ferry then (a lot o f people) unle ss you ha d a car o f c ourse , and you w eren't going t o w alk over the Peace Bridge. So they came over on the ferry which docked at the end o f Bertie S tre e t there , and then they'd be met by these fell o w s w ith their w agons, and there w as a lot o f seats put on them ... benches or something, and they'd go galloping up Bertie Street past our house till they got t o the race track. R.H: So these w ere like taxis then, t axis service but only with h orses ? B.P: A t axi-service with a h orse and w agon. We used t o get quite a kick out of seeing the p e ople going t o the races. R.H: Did you ever go on the ferry-boats? B.P: A few t i m e s , not too often. They used t o go across and dock at the ...I'm trying t o re m e mber the name o f the stree t. Almost everybody that w ent over there , you didn't get downtown Buf falo, you just pre tty w ell w alked from the ferry up the hill, and w ent two or three ( blocks, and shoppe d on the strre t s that w ere over there. People 77) �w ent m ore often and would be far m ore familiar with it than I would but I didn't go over too often. Y ou see once the children were born ( it w as a quite a responsibility trying to take t w o children over there� R.H: Where they com fort able, the ferry-boats? B.P: Oh yes I guess so, you w ere only on them for a m atter of five or ten minut es. R.H: Did they have benches? B.P: They probably did, yes. My biggest w orry was alw ays that my son who w as the adventurous type w ould climb up on the railj and look over, and I'd be afraid that ... I r e m e mber once his grandparents were visiting us, and grand father ne arly had a he art-attack on the way over. Worried about Rick clim bing up on the rail, and he couldn't ke ep his eye on him e very m inute. But the ferries were rather nice, and I've al w ays liked boats anyw ay ••• I'm a boat person, and I1d rather liked the ferries. I've never been t o Buffalo a great deal though at any time. My husband w orked over there for so long he saw all he w anted o f Buf falo in the daytime, and w e've never been ones to go back and forth to Buf falo very much. But I rather did miss the ferries after they discontinued them, Where w e took the ferries ( of course w as Livingstone's drugstore. Everybody who's lived in Fort Erie re m e mbers that. R.H: Was that in the S outhend ? B.P: Yeah that w as on the corner. R.H: Is that where Louis Zi f f is now ? B.P: Well it's right on the corner ••• Gray Insurance or re al estate was in there for a while. I do reme mber se eing Ziff's sign th ere,..I go t o the S outhend so rarely any m ore in fact I rarely go anywhere in Fort Erie but the M all. I don't re ally kno w� it was right on the corner at Livingst one's drugst ore, and you went right down on the side of the drugst ore to get int o the ferry, The customs were right in there behind. That's another int eresting thing about Fort Erie during the w ar.,. when w e first cam e here it seems everybody we kne w either w orked at the railw ay, the customs or immigration; or Horton Steel, or Fle et not, of course the pe ople who came to Fle et, but the long est abllished pe ople. Oh ever so m any people, all our neighbours nearly w orked at the railw ay, and now of course ( very fe w people (8) �do w ork on the railw ay, and oh ••• a lot o f p eople w orked on the railw ay you kno w . ( R.H: Did you ever get t o Cryst al B e ach ? B.P: Y e s a few times, but it really w asn't our cup of t e a. We took the children because naturally they'd come home fro m school, and they'd hear the children t alk about Cryst al B each so you had t o go and t ake your children. For t w o or thre e ye ars they had the company picnic from Buf falo ••• General Electric where my husband w orked .: had the company picnic at Crystal Beach , and I w ent there then, but we tended more R.H: B.P: ••• Do you re m e mber anything about it, what it w as like ? I don't kno w if there still is, but at that t i m e there was a childrens section for sm aller children at Crystal B e ach in the amuse m ent park, and there w as a sign over the gate that said " Through these p ortals go the happiest children in the w orld " or some thing like that. I don't kno w whe ther it's still there or not , but I can re m e m ber that being over the gat e , and of course the children naturally w anted t o go on everything. They never really coaxed particularly ••• they liked picnics, and w e used to go a w ay every year for a holiday, and ( t ake a cottage , and they liked the be ach , and things like that . We honestly m ade our own fun , and we didn't have too much m oney in those days, nobody did. You kno w the w ages w ere so lo w , and things w ere going up in price but the w ages at that time w eren't re ally ke eping up with the price of things, and our social life w as re ally very quie t , and home centered. R.H: B.P: So what about the w inter-t i m e , what did the kids do like for recre ation ? Well there w as no t elevision. It's hard t o believe now that people had no t elevision, but they had their own friends and they visited back and forth , and we had a record-player w e used earlier on when they w ere young, and they w ere in Brownies and Scouts, and ch oir. Both my children w ere in the choir at S t . Paul's for a while and you kno w they seemed to be ••• I don't rem e mber what they did. I think they played games s .mP.times in the evening, and my d a.Jghter has alw ays been a gre at reader ••• as long as she had a book she w as quit e cont ent. I mean they visited back and forth at e ach others homes, and they had friends the same age. We w ere fortunate (9) �cause when we moved down to Catherine Street, it was a street with families with children about the same age as ours. ( R.H: Did you have your own house then? B.P: Yes, well we bought our first house after we'd been married five years. I'd had always thought that when I came to Fort Erie, (I was very homesick cause I'd never been away from home) and I told myself ... well this is just for during the war, and as soon as the wars over we'll go back you know where I belong. Erie from the time he came: Well my husband, he liked Fort I didn't dislike it, but to me it was still a long way from home, and he decided that eh ... before he was even laid off at Fleet he felt he would some how find employment in this area. I don't think he really ever felt that he would be kept on at Fleet permantly because the story about Fleet was that most of those people were strictly there for war work, and probably at the end of the war they'd go back to a very very small work force again so I don't really think he counted on being at Fleet for ever. But somehow or another he felt that Fort Erie was the place he wanted to live, and he felt quite confident he would find employment somewhere here you see, well as it happened he did get laid off, but he worked ( for a full year after the war: He was kept on at Fleet, and in 1946 in the summer he was in one of the big layoffs and by then they were getting down to you know, very few compared to what they'd had during the war, and he was off work for several...he helped put the roof on the arena, the arena that was just taken down here about four or five years ago. R.H: B.P: When was that? 19 47. It was two years after the war, I made a mistake. My son was just being born, in fact I was in the hospital and Dick was just a few days old when my husband got his layoff notice, and we had bought the house two years before or one year before rather with the idea that ... R.H: That was the house on Catherine Street? B.P: No, we bought a very small house on Stanton Street. R.H: On Stanton? B.P: Stanton Street between Bertie and Murray so it was just a small house ... two small bedrooms, living room, dining room, and kitchen, but it was our first effort, and I think we paid ( 10 ) $4,0 00 for it. �course w e 're not social people anyw ay, and our social life w as rather quiet m ostly just evenings with friends from the church, and w e ( attended anything .•• w e 've alw ays attended anything at church ••. took part in some plays anything that w as going on at the church. R.H: Could you t ell m e about the booklets that you did for the church ? B.P: Well at the time o f Canada's cent ennial in 1967 it w as suggest ed that as our church of St. Paul's w as one o f the oldest churches ••• well I guess it is the oldest church in Fort Erie, but it w as also one of the oldest public buildings you might say in Fort Erie, that it w ould be nice if w e could sho w a link be t w een the establish m ent of a parish, and the est ablishment o f the town and eh so I w as asked •• if I could trace back in the history of the t o wn, and the history of the church and sho w how the t w o sorta gre w up toge ther. Y ou see the church w as originally established by the Rect or, by the Chaplain of the garrison at the Old Fort when the garrison w as stationed at the Old Fort in the early eigh t e en hundreds. They had a Chaplain there of course and ••• R.H: Do you kno w his nam e ? B.P: Y es ( ••• oh d e ar isn't that stupid, I kno w it as w ell as I kno w my own. Well it w ill come to m e in a minut e . Any w ay he w as the Chaplain at the Old Fort, and o f course he began visit ing people in their hom es, and t aking services and things like that, and eventually they ended up having a building t o have the services. That became our first church in 1821. The church was alw ays basically in the same location as it is now on the hill. It w as a w ooden structure for a while and then in the eighteen eighties it w as replaced by a stone church which burned down in 1892, and w as replaced by our present church. R.H: That w as an e xplosion apparently, w as'nt i t ? B.P: That w as an e xplosion yes, they said it w as an explosion of natural gas. N o w one R ector we had here a fe w years ago said that he had the sneaking feeling that the Rector at that time w as burning the palms from the ye ar be fore t o cre ate the ashes for Ash Wednesday, and that he set the place on fire . It w as a gas e xplosion I' m quit e sure because it happened I think during the night, and there's no w ay the R ector w ould've been there burning palms. It w as just a celebrated j oke I think. ( R.H: Do you kno w anything about the Cro wn The atre, tell us som e thing about that ? (12) �B.P: Well the Crow n The atre used to be do wn on Dufferin S treet, and there w as the theatre at this end of t o w n, " Bellard ". ( R.H: Didn't St. Paul's use that ? B.P: Yes St. Paul's had the Cro wn Theatre. The Cro w n Th eatre w as on Dufferin Stre e t , and then it became an e xtension, be fore w e had our N orthend hall. W e don't h ave that o f course now, but I think it w as just after the w ar they bought the Crow n Theatre, som e t i m e around that era. I don't have t h e dates at my fingertips a t t h e m o m ent, but they t ook over the property, and est ablished the N orthend sunday school there , and someone gave them this land at the c orner of E m erick and Central A ve. where St. M ary's Hall is ••• it's still there I guess as far as I kno w. That w as going to be another Anglican Church you see. That w as the original idea that this w as going t o b e another Angli can Church i n the N orthend o f t o wn. Some o f the people apparently thought that w e could support t w o Anglican Churches in this are a which didn't m ake too much sense, but then possibly at that t i m e some of them didn't like the w ay this church w as w orking, the R e c t or or some thing. There's alw ays people who aren't satisfied as you kno w in a church but anyw ay for som e reason or another ( they st arted this fund t o est ablish another Anglican Church down in the N orthend o f t o w n , so they bought this pie ce o f property, and they built the basem ent on it and then they ran out of m oney you see , and they never did build the church so they e ventually roofed the basem ent and m ade it into a base m ent hall, but they had sunday school, and scouts, and ladies guild there for many ye ars. We still o wned the hall for church until 1960,197 0 ••• some where around 1969, 197 0 w e still o w ne d St. M ary's and by then it w as being a liability m ore than it w as an asset t o the parish re ally. It continually needed repairs and the little bit w e got for renting it no w ay support ed it and the sunday school had gone do wn. R ight after the w ar there w as a baby boom, and there w ere children all over the place, and that's when we built all these schools of course that are now closing, publi c schools, and the same w ith sunday schools. Every parish w as building on to try and accom m odate our own children that w ere turning up on sundays. Then once the baby boom died down, and the pill had came into use there w as no longer any need for this ( a c c o m m odation. St. M ary's sunday school began going downhill, and it w as de cided now too with the ease of getting around with (13) �fast cars, and the Central Ave. bridge there w as no proble m for anybody living d o w n on Highland or Emerick or Dufferin to put ( their children in the car, and drive them to St. Paul's sunday school. You re ally didn't need two sunday schools. When you w alked, it w as nice t o have sunday school w ithin w alking distance so they amalgamated the St. Paul's sunday school, and o f course w e no w only have the one. Then w e sold the hall t o the prebyt erians, and no w I understand it's supposed to be going to be dem olished, but I haven't heard anym ore about it , but I did hear about it about a m onth ago which is why I said "I presume it's still there ". I have 'nt re ally gone up there to se e , but I think it undoubtedly is. R.H: D o you re m e m ber who the organist w as when you came here ? B.P: The organist w as Mrs . M ont ello . . . ! think it w as Mrs. M ont ello ••• she w as here , then Mrs. Arde lla, then Mrs. Ardella's husband w as in the choir, and the Rector o f course w as Archde acon Burt . . . he w asn't Archdeacon I don't think when w e came here , I think he w as Canon Burt , and then he became Archdeacon. He baptized both my children, and he w as here for the first eight ye ars that we w ere. We came in forty one, and in forty nine Archdeacon Burt retired , and then ( Canon M urray and his w i fe cam e to town and they w ere the ones that m arried our daugh ter, and had m ost t o do w ith our childrens grow ing up . They served ninet een years in the parish so they w ere the ones that I re m e mber m ost . I still rem e mber Archdeacon Burt , but I'd only been in t o w n a very little while , a f e w m onths, when the w ord got around that I'd w orked in the sunday school back home so of course I w as visited and asked i f I w ould be interest ed in w orking in the sunday school here , and I alw ays find it hard to say no t o people . S o I d i d go d o wn t o t he sunday school, and I worked i n i t and on t i l l t w o ye ars a go I retired. O n and o f f I took a brief bre ak when my children w ere sm all, but basically other than that j ust a short bre ak . . . R.H: So how m any ye ars w ould you say then . . . ? B.P: Well I think they figured that when I retired I'd been about thirty six ye ars. I became superintendent eventually in 1955, and that's . the job I held there unt il I retired in 82 w as it . . 83 ... 82 I think I retired. You kno w the ye ars go by so fast it's hard to re m e mber. I think they thought I'd been t w enty seven ye ars, estimated I'd been t w enty seven ye ars as superint endent , but I'd taught be fore that. Of course (14) �w e only had the s m all hall when w e came here. It w as the original hall, and it had been built in 1911. The hall, the rectory on the ( hill behind you w ere built at the same time, and that w as when Archdeacon M ackintosh w as here . He w as Rector o f the church . The hall and the rectory w ere built together, and the hall served until 1957 and by that t i m e all these children that had been born after the w ar w ere going to sunday school and we had classes on the st airs , and up in the church , and we had some of the classes down the street in the church in the p e w s , and it w as very unhandy so we had a building campaign, and added that big wing on also and that served us until last year of course when we opened the centre , so the native pe ople are ..• opened the ne w St. Paul's Centre . So I've seen progres s through the thre e halls. The church re ally hasn't changed basically too much . The building itself h asn't changed though there w as some changes in the inside o f the church when we joined the centre on. R.H: They did get a new organ I believe is that righ t ? B.P: Well w e've had different organs over the years, but I can't re m e m ber how long we've h ad this one . We didn't get one when we put the ( ne w centre on. We t alked about i t , but it was beyond our financial capabilities so w e m ade do w ith the one w e have which is a fine organ. Our present organist is Bob Mcintyre of course, and he w as organist once before a fe w ye ars ago , and le ft, and no w he's back with us again. R.H: What other changes are there inside since you cam e ? B.P: Well of course the services are quite different . Like all the churches all the dmominations, it's undergone changes. Most o f us have accepted it a little w arily should I say. We like things the w ay they w ere . When you're an Anglican you have your prayer book, you're used t o your prayer book, and you like t o go in any Anglican Church anywhere , and kno w exactly what they're going to do. It's been quite a shock sometimes to go int o the church and find things quit e different di fferent that you have to t ell yourself you kno w this is R.H: B.P: ••• so ••• You don't use the prayer book anym ore then ? Oh yes, we still use the prayer book. In fact the R ector we have no w , Canon Russell, he's quite underst anding o f this proble m that ( older people hav e , and their liking for original prayer book so w e have the service s alt ernate . In the sum m ertime when w e only have (15) �t w o services a sunday. The first service , the early service is alw ays the prayer book and the 9:30 or 10 oclock service alters. One is w ith the prayer book and the ne xt is going to be the new rit e , and ( in the w inter-ti m e when w e have three service s every sunday at 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 the 9:30 service is alw ays the ne w rit e . The 11:00 is alw ays the prayer book so you see you've got a choice . N o w when I say it's the prayer book that's bending it a little . N o longer does any church o r very very fe w churches follow t h e prayer book e xactly the w ay it used to b e . They've gradually introduced changes , but you're still going back to basics. The prayers in the prayer book are used pre tty w e ll e xactly as they are , but they m ay be pushed around a lit tle differently, and other things in services , but w e've grow n u s e d t o i t . The first fe w times you go to church and you come home and you think, m y goodness what am I going t o d o next ? Suddenly you re alize you're used t o it and you like it. We had a hum ourous thing here about a year ago. We w ent t o a church in Chatham with my m o ther-in-la w , and the service w as e xactly as it is in the prayer book, and we didn't like it. We couldn't believe it, we said " w e're right back to square one and ( you kno w it's funny we don't like it . " We w ere used to the changes that had gradually been w orked into the service here . It's the same in anything, not just in churches but I think in any w ay o f life . Anyti m e anything n e w is introduced into your life at first, you don't like it too m uch as a rule then after a while you get used to it ••. new foods ••• new ways o f dress •• • Y ou kno w I never can get used t o the ne w m orality, but then that ' s an accepted thing too. R.H: Do you know anything about the Erie Be ach Com munity Hall? B.P: A s a m a t t er of fact that's our gre at love , because my husband and I attend e vensong there every sunday nigh t . It's a chapel connected w ith our church. It w as originally started as a com munity centre sunday school and no deno m ination particularly, and we used to ask different Ministers, Rectors, Priests, what have you, different denom inations t o go there on a sunday and t ake a service . R.H: B.P: Do you kno w when it w as starte d ? I think it w as 1926 or some thing like that . It w as in the t w enties. It w as in Archdeacon Burt 's t i m e . I don't rem e mber ••. ( ! should have had my bookle t , but it w as in the nineteen t w enties it w as start ed, and that stayed as a com munity church then up unt il the nineteen (16) �fifties, and then when Canon Irwin w as here he felt it should become stri ctly Angli can. Now it had been Angli can in everything but name for years, and all the p eople that w orked in it w ere Angli cans and the land that it sat on had been donated by Anglicans, and it , w as large ly the Angli can ••• the R e ctor from the church here that w ent out there t o t ake the servi ces. I don't think it had be en in operation very long be fore it w as solely Anglican as far as the M inisters w ent. We might've o ccasionally had one from another denomination, but it w as practically alw ays entirely Angli can, and he w as behind the curri culum, £or the teaching in the sunday s chool, and everything like that . So Canon Irw in suggest ed that, why not approach the Bishop and see i f it couldn't be m ade a chapel of St. Paul's, and m aybe dedicate i t , consecrate: it as stri ctly Anglic an, so that's what they did. For a long t i me it w as a real going concern, but like so m any places, pe ople move a w ay and a lot of people quit going to sunday school and i t 's still by now just a fe w faith ful people keeping it open, largely fam ilies. R.H: B.P: Where it is ? it's on D o m inion Road. R.H: On Dominion R o ad ? B.P: ( Where exactly is it ? On Dominion Road just w est of Albert, where Albert Street comes out onto D o m inion R oad. It's j ust w est o f that. It's within w alking distance from here. I«have w alked it it's about the same distance ••• for us as it is t o St. Paul's. For ye ars once a m onth the R e c t or from S t . Paul's w ould go out and have com munion there on a sunday night, then that gradually disappeared , but they had evensong, then that fell by the w ayside for a m a t t er o f thre e or four years. I don't think it w as used at all e xcept for sunday school. Th ey still maintained the sunday school for the children o f the people who had alw ays been there . Y ou see it w as handy ••• Then Canon A nthony was here, and he w as the R e c t or be fore Canon Russe ll ... when he w as here in the nineteen seventies he t ook a gre at int erest in the place. He w ent out and t alked to the people , and he w as a gre at m an for history and anything old appe aled t o him you know, anything that had been around a long time. He got very int erest ed in the place, ( and he started t o have an evensong every sunday, then it persisted no w we've had evensong every sunday I suppose for nearly t en ye ars. It's been very ni ce , and i t 's m ostly the pe ople around there, a fe w (17 ) �o f us got out from St. Paul's, of course it's all one parish you understand. They contribute to St. Paul's, and the R ector of St. Paul's goes ( out and gives com munion once in a while and things like that but it's actually the people who live around there • •• the Allisons, and the Gri f fins, and the Le arns, and people from that area that keep the church alive but the rest of us w ent to support when we can. My husband and I like it because w e are very fond of a lot of people who support it, and w e kno w it's very dear to them because they're dear to us, and we w ant to do all we can to keep the church .•• the chapel functioning. We've been as a family, in fact my husband was the pe oples warden out there at St. James. When they made it a chapel of St. Paul's, they changed the nam e to St. Jam es chapel. For a long time up in till St. James chapel was form ed the church at St. John's Ridgemount up on R idgem ount R oad w as part o f our parish. The R ector here had a two parish circuit, he had our church in Fort Erie, and he had to go out on a sunday afternoon and have services at St. John's but it becam e incre asingly difficult for the R ector to do what •.. the town expanded so much, e xpanded both north and south, and it w as a lot o f travelling around t o get out ( t o Ridgemount too you know. R.H: Where exactly is Ridgem ount ? B.P: Y ou don't kno w where it is? Y ou go out B o w en R oad and •.• I don't kno w ho w far he said .. . about four or five miles out, and you come to the junction o f Ridgem ount � oad,(it's w ell m arked) and you turn right there, north, turn right, and it's just around th ere. Y ou can see it from Ridgem ount Road, from B o w en R oad looking down Ridgem ount R o ad. They call it St. John's Ridgem ount and it's alm ost as old . a parish as ours. Ours w as established in 1821. . by the way the first R ector w as Anderson ••• and it w as est ablished about t w enty ye ars later in 1840. It's an old parish, and it's an old style church, and that church out there is almost a replica of our original w o oden church. Back when I first saw a picture o f our original church I thought it w as a picture o f St. John's, and I suppose like nowadays they t end to build a lot of the sam e type of buildings. Schools all look alike that w ere built in the sam e era, and the sam e as churches. That 's why the t w o church es look so much alike, but anyway that's { when they decided t o put R idgem ount with Ridge w ay, and now that's (18) �a t w o parish circuit. The R ector who has All Saints Anglican Church in Ridge w ay also has Ridgemount ( ••. St. John's, and that fre ed our Rector to give m ore t i m e here and he could concentrate on St. Jam es chapel, and St. M ary's hall which is a going concern. R.H: B.P: Which school did your children go t o ? They w ent to Douglas school which is now gone t o o of course. It w as w ithin e asy w alking dist ance, and of course in those days they didn't have school busses. I don't re me mber just how long it is since they had school busses, I w as thinking about that the other day. Did anybody bring that point out in the conversation to when school busses st art ed ? I kno w they didn't have them when our children w ent t o school. You w alked to publlic school, and you w ent to high school, and by the t i me they w ent to high school w e w ere on Catherine S treet but it w asn't re ally all that far, and I don't think anybody thought anything o f w alking. Y ou didn't, you w alked to school. Everybody w alked t o school, you j ust didn't give it a thought. I can see when they started getting a lot of traffic, and the Que en Elizabeth w ay, and now we've got the o verpass it's not so bad, but I can see when children have t o cross m aj or highw ays, that's a w orry. That's another ( big change re ally in Fort Erie since w e came. The Que en Elizabe th W ay only w ent as far as St. Catherine's of course, St •• Catherine's t o Toronto, and from Fort Erie you had t o go on secondary roads of course like going on N o . 3 high w ay, and along the river. I can re m e mber when the four lane high w ay came in. I can re m e mber the w ork being done on it, and how everybody w as speculating it w ould cut the town in half solely because you lived north of the Queen E, or south o f the Queen E, and one thing that w e did notice • .. said it w as quite com m on at the time, I don't kno w whether it's true or not, but they clai med the tele vision reception w as different this side of the Queen E to the other side. N o w when we moved from Catherine St. I don't reme m ber whether w e noticed any big difference in the tele vision or not, but I know be fore that, several people who lived over here w ere saying " w e can't get Toronto the w ay you can " and I couldn't see what difference it m ade, whether it w as the p o w er lines you know at the Queen E there that m ade a dif ference or what . ( R.H: H o w long have you lived in this house ? (19) they �B.P: Tw enty t w o years. We moved here in June o f 1963 so w e have been in this house for t w enty t w o ye ars. ( R.H: And what w as it like around here ? B.P: Well the basic houses w ere here, the ones that w ere built during the time o f the opening o f the Pe ace Bridge . There w ere five or six houses on the other side o f the stre et, on the north side o f Riceland, and the homes back on Que ensbury w ere basically the same but we w ere the only house on this side of the stree t . There w ere no other houses up until Y oung's. R ay young and his w i fe lived on the corner house on M ather, the corner o f Mather, and there w as nothing in b e t w een. See, all these lots around here w ere the backyards of the people on Que ensbury. They lived on Queensbury but their lots w ent right to Rice land, and they nearly all had gardens, and it just happened that the m an who had o w ned the house on Queensbury imm ediately behind us, he didn't w ant such a big backyard so he sold the back end o f it and that's how this house happens t o be built here you see. Since we m oved here, ne arly e very year or t w o there's been another house put up around here . And now it's houses all ( the w ay along. R.H: Were the m o t els around here when you cam e here ? B.P: Y es. R.H: S o they've been there a long tim e ? B.P: Y e s quite a while, quite a while . O f course w e had n o stores here or anything, not in this are a. When I first moved over here the closest st ore w as Thompson's on Bertie S tre e t . R.H: The butcher? B.P: Well he carried a fe w groceries as well, but w e though t of him largely as a butcher, but he h ad a general st ore, a family st ore, and it w as annoying i f you w ere m aking a cake or some thing and you ran out of something, and you had to go all the w ay to Thompson's. It w asn't the distance, it w as the time it t ook, i f you didn't have a car and you had to w alk all the w ay to Thompson's. It seems farther now that they've got the overpass in. Be fore they had the o verpass and it w as just the lights at the junction of Central Ave. and the Queen E, it didn't seem as far, but now you have t o climb over that w ay, ( and down the other side, and it just se e ms further for some reason. R.H: Were you able t o cut through a bit be fore ? (20) �B.P: ( You could cut through a bit, yes I could cut through be fore, but you can't do that anym ore. R.H: Was that dairy there, The Fort Erie dairy? B.P: Over here on Walde n ? R.H: Walden A ve . ? B.P: R.H: B.;P: Oh yes it w as there, I suppose the dairy was. Who owned that dairy, do you kno w ? It w as Holmes, the Holmes people, the Holm es family. Vivian Holmes and E verett Holmes what ever his name is. He w orks up here on M adison. I think it w as their family that ran it, that w as the nam e I heard connected w ith the dairy. N o w whether they just w orked in it I don't kno w, but that w as the name in my own mind that I connected w ith the dairy. R.H: And the vetinarian hospital, w as that alw ays there ? B.P: Of course there w ere no vet erinarians when I cam e here, and Dr. Bill Reid had just com e to t o w n, and he was doing vet erinary work in a home d o w n in Cozy D ell and not long after w e 'd been here he m arried the daught er of Archdeacon Burt, and not too long after that ( ••• it w as when the Queen Elizabeth Way w as put through ••• The Irish brothers Jack and D oug. Irish had a gas st ation right at the end where the Queen E com e s out on t o Goderich Street, w ell that gas st ation had t o go t o m ake w ay for the entrance t o Queen Elizabeth Way so Bill Reid bought it, and he m oved it up here to W alden and turned it int o a vet erinary hospit al, and the Irish brothers built a ne w gas station right across the road right next to where the hard ware st ore now is, and so after a fe w ye ars they sold the gas st ation and w ent int o the hardw are business inst ead, and of course the hard w are business is st ill there . Bill Reid made living quart ers in part o f t h e g a s st ation, and he had h i s v e t hospit al, and he gradually added on to both sides. R.H: B.P: So he w as the first vet erinarian here ? He w as the first vet erinarian I re m e m ber being here in t o w n, and of course he died m any years ago now. I guess it was Dr. St one that succe eded him, and then we had that other m an who w as only here a little while . We've had very nice vets I think. All the vets ( we've had have been very good. We only had one ve t at that time for m any m any ye ars, and now in recent years a couple (21) �m ore have start ed. R.H: Was there a lot of houses there t o o ? B.P: On Walden? I don't think there w as hardly any houses on Walden. I don't think there w as anything from D ouglas Street on the north side right up to the dairy. I think there was nothing but the dairy then the vets hospit al, and they lived there . N o w on this side • •• I don't re ally re m e mber . . . at the time w e moved up here (tw enty t w o ye ars ago) int o this are a I didn't pay that much att ention t o what w as at this side o f the Queen E you see. We lived on the other side so we didn't pay that much attention. R.H: Did you ever hear of Pong's laundry ? B.P: Whose laundry? R.H: Pong's Chine se laundry. B.P: Well I kne w there w as a Chinese laundry, but I couldn't have t old you what the name w as. R.H: On Jarvis Stre e t ? B.P: Y e s on Jarvis S tre e t . We used to go do wn on Jarvis S treet fairly often . . . we didn't go d o w n the w ay we do now because it w as less acessable till they put the bridge over Central A venue you see. ( We had t o go down by the river. It w as handier t o shop in your own end o f town but I basi cally rem e m ber Grinham's, and I re m em ber Cornell's Drugst ore . That hasn't been gone too m any ye ars, and that's where the t o w n t ax o f fices are no w . That w as Cornell's Drugst ore, and I think Stedman's w as here . It was here for quite a long time. It m ight not have been h ere when I cam e here, but it's one o f the earliest store s I re m e mber. Dut ch Jackson had a men's clothing st ore that w as very very popular w ith pe ople. R.H: B.P: Was it called Jackson's? I gue ss it probably w as, but he w as re ferred to as Dut ch, Dut ch Jackson, and he had a m en's clothing st ore and Kirkland's (whose son is now a fam ous photographer) . . . he had a very nice men's clothing st ore, very high class men's clothing st ore d o w n on Jarvis, then Yeo's w as a drygoods store for many many years. Nearly e verybody shoppe d at Yeo's drygoods st ore, and there w ere no chain stores here at all though I gue s s Stedman's is a chain aft er a fashion, but I can re member how excited we w ere when Woolw orth's opened, and that's the bingo hall no w o f course on .jf arvis S treet, but that w as Woolworth's. (22) �It opened and Loblaws, and the A &P, and oh we w ere re ally living then. Loblaw 's and the A &P w ere right next door which w as sorta ( silly re ally. I could ne ver see any sense in that . I don't kno w what their thinking w as t o put t w o chain st ores ••• We al w ays shopped ourselves in Loblaw 's, w e never shopped in A & P. We shopped in Loblaw 's. I guess our parents had shopped in Loblaw's back home so w e shopped in Loblaw 's after they opened it. Well then I think Loblaw 's closed be fore A &P did if I re m e m ber corre ctly so we had to shop at A & P, and by then everybody was shopping in chain stores. Y ou didn't go to these s m all stores any m ore because it w as cheaper and e asier t o pick your own things off the shelf you kno w and super -markets w ere corning in, so w e shopped at A &P , and then A & P m oved from Jarvis Street down to the Mall, and that w as lovely for us cause by then w e lived down here and it w as just up the street. R.H: B.P: So everything followed you around, did i t ? Everything follo w e d us around, but Jarvis Street w as a busy street in those days. Y ou'd have t o re ally look for a place to park. N o t like it i s no w . R.H: { Where the banks there t o o ? B.P: Well som e of the banks. We alw ays did our banking w ith the Bank o f M ontreal. It w as in the Southend. It w asn' t exactly where it is now, it w as along a bit, but it's alw ays been in the S outhend and we didn't have much to do w ith banks in those days. Mrs. Lawson ran a se cond-hand thri ft shop or some thing there on Jarvis Stre e t . I re m e mber that . R.H: D o you re m e mber when the Peace Bridge opened ? B.P: Oh no, that w as in the t w enties. R.H: Oh yeah that's right, I'm sorry. B.P: That w as t w enty seven, but I rem e mber when the Central A venue Bridge opened . In fact my father who w as a gre at w alker, w alked over the Central A venue Bridge when it w as being constructed. My parents w ould come and visit m e when w e lived on Catherine Stre e t , and my dad used t o go out for w alks, and they w ere building this bridge over the railw ay track, and one day he went out for a w alk and came back, and he had w alked o ver the bridge, and it wasn't opened yet. They just h ad the girders and that , but the ( (23) �w orkmen w ere w orking on it, and I guess they didn't say anything to him I guess he looked like he could t ake care of himself, but ( he w alked over the bridge, and he w as quite pleased cause he w as one o f the first people to w alk over the bridge . R.H: B.P: R.H: B.P: What w as your father's nam e ? Pardon ? What w as your father's nam e ? Tom Molyneux, Molyneux that w as my m aiden name. He w alked over the Central A venue Bridge, but the w ay that you m ostly w ent ••• we w ent t o the N orthend o f t o w n i f w e w alke d . We used t o w alk across the tracks you kno w . They established a sort of a path, and foot passengers ••• foot pe ople ••• pedestrians rather than go w ay round by the blvd . if they w anted to go to the N orthend of town, they took a chance , and looked both w ays for trains, and scurried across the tracks which w asn't too good an idea. I don't think anybody does it anym ore after they put the o verpass in. It doesn't se e m really that long, but I kno w t h e only w ay to go fro m the N orth to the S outhend o f town you had t o by the blvd. or go out t o Thompson Road, and go under the tunnel, and that w as the only w ay to get ( to the N orthend o f t o w n so it re ally did divide the town in half. You kno w when w e first came here w e w ere very used to the people re ferring t o the N orthend as Bridgeburg . You see it had been Bridgeburg up unt il then, and this had been Fort Erie , and they amalgamated which I think w as about ninet een thirty three or four or som e where along in there . It w asn' t too long before we came here , but it w as all Fort Erie o f course under one mayor. I think M ayor Hawley w as the m ayor when w e came , I'm not sure about that ••• I kno w he had been m ayor, and I think he w as the m ayor when w e came here, then it w as all one t o w n then but a lot of people going down to shop in Jarvis Stre e t said they w ere going to shop in Bridgeburg . Of course they had t w o of e verything in those days. They had t w o libraries and t w o . . . of course they've still got t w o post of fices. R.H: Where w as the other library ? B.P: Well when w e first came here , the library w as down at the foot o f Bertie S tre e t . I w as trying t o re m e mber the other night where it w as, and Garnet says that it's no longer there that it's an apart ment ( (24) �place . It 's in the last place be t w e en Waterloo, and the blvd . , and no w there 's a little store in there , and it's been there alw ays and ( it w as there when we came here ••• ! think some p eople by the name o f Hale ran that store . It was called Hale ' s store , and the library w as right in there some where , and Mrs. Cousins w as Librarian. She w as librarian for m any ye ars. I don't suppose she had any library training . In those d ays you didn' t , you j ust liked books and • • • you kno w . She w as very dependable , and she w as Librarian, and she w as very very nice . She made us very w e lcom e when w e came here . We had not m uch to do w ith our t i me in the evening so we used t o w alk down t o the library and get b ooks , and so w e becam e quite friendly with her, and she invited us to her house, and introduced us to some o f the old S t . Paul's people that she though t we should kno w if we w ere going to be established in the church. She lived in an apartm ent on Goderich Stre et and the building is long since gone , and she invited us to her house . Well the library was there for m any years, and that was in the days when libraries w ere shush, shush place s . You kno w if you brought your children in you had t o m ake sure they didn't say anything. They w ere very quiet you ( kno w . But then the library m oved t o the le gion h all on Queen Stre et, the Southend library. It w as alw ays the library in the N orth end . • • it w as i n t h e o l d t o w n h all. Upstairs i n t h e t o w n hall there w as a library there too for the N orthend people , but w e very rarely w ent to that. Once in a while when w e thought w e had re ad e verything int eresting this library had t o offer at this end, w e 'd say "let's go and see what's up in the N orthend library. " We'd go there very rarely. So it w as on Queen Street for a long t i m e , and Mrs. Cousins w as there for m any m any ye ars, and she finally w ent to live in a home in Toront o till eventually she die d . I don't re m e m ber who took over after her, but then o f course in sixty seven I guess it w as , your big library was built, and that took the place o f both libraries you see. They w ere amalgamated, and w e've only been in it half a dozen t i m e s believe or not , yet we w ere in the old library continually . Well in those days that w as che ap ent ert ainment, and now adays I buy books . Everything is coming out in paperback form, re ally good books .• . the good books that you used to have t o borro w from the library, you can now go and pay thre e or four dollars for, and (25) �re ad the m and keep the m on your shelf. R.H: ( S o you have your own library ? B.P: We have t w o bookcases do wnstairs full of books, as w ell as the ones in the front room . I t end to buy books rather than go to the library, and re ad the m . We're probably m issing som e thing, but R.H: B.P: • •• Well it's kind o f nice t o have your own books too. Well I follow a series, and I think if we ever w ere sno w e d in w e could read our w ay through all of the m . W e lend them t o all our friends and if anybody's sick I pack a bag full o f books and say " w ould you like to re ad som e of these . " I like books that are in a series. I've got several sets and I've got seventy authors nearly comple t e w i t h all their books. B u t i n those days t h e library w as re ally a year round int erest you see cause you couldn't afford babsitt ers, but you could t ake your children t o the library i f they w ere qui e t . They w orked such long hours too when we w ere first m arried. A m an that would w ork ten hours a day six days a w e e k doesn't feel like doing anything too e xcit ing in the evenings, you kno w. They w ere long hours. R . H: ( So you think the Central A venue Bridge did divide the north and the south ? B.P: Well this de finitely brought the t o w n toge ther m ore than it divided. R . H: It brought it together, rather than B.P: I think so. D e finit ely it w as separate be fore , but when they put • • • ? the bridge there people could go w ith such ease from one end of t o w n to another. I think it's been the death of Jarvis Street to a large extent. Well now the m all • •• as long as Jarvis Stree t w as there there w as no m all. It still o ffered m ore th an the business se ction in the Southend o f t own. N o w we did have Dick Wade's shoe store in the Southend of t o w n which w as qui t e well patronized and the same a ••. ••• we had Charles drygoods store, and Cam ms used to have Merv Cam m at one t i me h ad t w o drugstores, one on Jarvis Street , and o ne on Niagara Blvd . R.H: What do you find dif ferent about the drugstores then, and no w , d o you find there 's quite a bit o f difference ? B.P: Well I guess they've alw ays sold a variety of things, but I think th ey've gone a bit far out in the w ay they sell things. I don't re m e m ber ( being able to buy groceries, like no w adays you find so m any • • • e ven groceries . like they're selling groceries in drugstores, and at first •• (26) �I guess they w eren't self-serve I don't re ally re m e mber. I rem e m ber Caro m 's on Jarvis S tre et that lat er became Kib Billing. He w orked for Caro m 's , and then when Cam m died he took over the store and eventually it became Kib Billings. Then there w as one in the middle o f the S outhend of t own that was also Caro m 's and I don't kno w what it is no w , but it w as also Caro m 's store . But the Southend of t o w n h as never re ally been on a par w ith Jarvis Stre e t , but now Jarvis Stre e t isn't an aw ful lot better than the Southend of t o wn you se e since t he m all w as p ut i n. And t hen N iagara S quare has done an a w ful lot to kill business in Fort Erie. You kno w with the e ase you can get t o Niagara S quare , and having m ore to offer . . . m o st o f us w ould shop in t o w n i f w e could get the things here , but there's no dress place for w o men in Fort Erie other than Toni Spiers on Princess S treet, and she doesn't have too much o f what you want . Even a m en's st ore ... now we do have t w o m en's st ores • • • w e have the one, Exclusively M en's of Jarvis Street and the other one over here. R.H: So you feel you had a lot m ore stores then of course ? B.P: Well w ith the m all w e have m ore stores, but other than that w e ( don't have as many in t o wn I don't think like w e used t o have , but w e've got N i agara S quare. It's a pity, I feel sorry about it, I like small t o w ns stores, and I like going into st ores and people m e e ting you and gree t ing you by name and asking how the family is and . . . you kno w this sort of a • • . R.H: The personal t ouch. B.P: We had an a A von ladies shop here for ye ars down in the S outhend. D o wn where the D amar Craft Store is you kno w , and Erie Je wellers down in there . N o w it hasn't been gone too m any years but that w as a nice dress store . Halls Shoe S t ore really's about the longest that I can re m e mber being there . It's been there a long t i m e you kno w. I couldn't t ell you how long but I kno w we t ook our children there for shoes. It must have been there thirty ye ars or m ore but if it w as there any longer than that I couldn't tell you, but then A gnew Surpass came into t o wn you see and they probably .! imagine •• they m ade a little dent in Ken Halls business but basically Halls had a good solid follo w ing. People have bought shoes, and their ( parents, be fore th e m and the grandchildren and so on. (27 ) �R.H: D o you, like when w e were talking about the drugstores, d o you think like some of the cures . . . like the medications they have now and the medications they had then . . . do you remember any of the old-fashioned . . . . B.P : Well I'm the wrong one to ask about drugstores . . R.H: D o you remember any o f the old-fashioned cures? B.P: Yes, well, I've got a book down there that's full of old-fashioned cures. R.H: B.P: Like . . . what would you use o n your own . . . family? Yes that's basically . . . I'm still a do it yourself when it comes to drugs. I've never been one for taking prescriptions. Yes we used to . . . of course when I was a child naturally castor oil was the in thing. If you had anything wrong with you, you had castor oil, I can still taste it. If you went out in the evening and there was mosquitos you put citronella on and that was enough to keep everybody away, not only the bugs . . I don't remember . . . as I say I have never really used drug things to a great extent. If I have to take blood pressure pills I do, but other than that I've never been much for drugstores. ( It's hard to decide anymore. One time If you had a headache you took an aspirin, now you go and you look and there's aspirin, and anacin, and tylenols, and some other things that have just come out. It makes for a lot of decisions. Well it's like anything in life it's getting so complicated anymore . . . you know you have so many choices . . . you think it's easier with so many choices, but it isn't. It's the same as soap and anything else, you have so many soaps . . . so many different kinds of things to choose from, but I think that's largely . . . like drugsores to you know . . . you have band-aids, and iodine, and calamine lotion to put on anything that smarted and that was about it, but now they' have come out with all these scientific things, and these types of things. Some of the things, not necessarily drugstore things really have been a boon, and I wonder how we've lived without them are things like scotch-tape, aluminum foil, handy-wrap, and plastic bags. was nothing like that. As a child there Scotch-tape was just a . . . well you tied everything with string and you can imagine doing a parcel now with no scotch-tape you wouldn't know where to start. ( ( 28 ) You'd have to use mucilage, �and if you wanted something to stick you'd have to use mucilage. I think they've gone a bit too far though with some of the conveniences ( when they close holes in the can, and all you have to do is pull a label off to shake it and things like that. push a few holes in the top of a can. a little too easy. Now anybody can I think they've made life Of course one big change in drugstores now is the disposable diapers. I mean we had nothing like that. I mean we washed them and hung them on the line and put the m back on again, but it seems funny now that washing is so easy and they don't wash . We had to wash in cold basements, and laundry tubs, and we had to use cloth diapers. Of course that's progress. R.H: A s you said that's progress, but what other changes have you seen? B.P: Well i n the old days i t was hard when you were sick, but nowadays when you're ill you just treat it with sulphur or penicillin, and that's it. We wouldn't have our son if it wasn't for penicillin . When our son was down with a thing called septicaemia, and there was almost no hope for him they decided to try this experimental ( drug called penicillin that was just coming in . For it was during the war . . . it was just after the war and it had been developed during the war for infections and they started giving him massive doses of penicillin, and it saved his life . If there hadn't been penicillin I'm quite sure we wouldn't have Richard. R.H: Was h e i n the hospital? B.P: Yes, he'd just been born you see, he was just two days old . R.H: O h I see, was h e born i n Douglas? B.P : Oh yes but that's another thing about hospitals. U p until the last few years and OHIP and all this medical insurance . . . your children w eren't in the hospital . . . they could be very very sick and the doctor came to the house and gave them a shot. I mean our lad had Pneumonia several times when he was a small child and convulsions and the whole bit and you know, you phoned the doctor. any suggestion of taking him to the hospital. There was never I still can1t get used to the idea that you can have a tempreture of 104 degrees and you phone the doctor or the family phones the doctor, and the ( doctor says " well get them off to the hospital", and it could be ten below out, but thts the way you do now . step foot outside. To me . . . you didn't The doctor came to you, and you stayed in ( 29 ) �your own bed. But that's all gone . R.H: ( Who w as the doctors around then when your B.P: Well we had to go to Ridge w ay. There w as a Dr. Macey of Ridge way ••• ? and there was very fe w doctors in Fort Erie during the w ar, and ost of them of course w ere serving in the forces. Dr. Derbyshire w as down there on Austin j ust behind the p o wer company there at the botton of the hill on Queen Stre e t . Dr. D erbyshire w as j ust in that house behind the p o w er company. I think there w as a Dr. Street in the N orthend if I re m e m ber rightly, but there w asn't m any doctors around and when w e w ere exp e cting our first child the men that my husband w orked with at Fle et said therr was this very good doctor down in Ridge w ay (Macey) that had j ust come t o town, and that he w as doing very w ell w ith pre gnancies and babies and so forth, so we started t o go to him . I went t o him till my son w as sixt een ye ars old. He w as my doctor for m any m any years t ill he quit coming t o Fort Erie. H e started limiting his practice t o Ridge w ay, and Dr. Klisow sky had come to t o w n then, and I started to go to him , and I've been w ith Dr. Klisow sky e ver since. It's just like anything else during the w ar you w ere short of everything. They were short ( of nurses, and doctors, and you don't re ally re ali ze it till you start thinking back. Well e verybody said " w ell the army has to have the first d e m and on everything " which is qui t e true . N obody re ally complained about that , but it m ade life a little bit complicated at times, but I do kno w that p e ople didn't go t o the doctor then either, the w ay they do no w . I w ould never have thought o f going to the doctors with a cold a few years ago. I'd w ait until I was practi caly ready for the undert aker • .• but now I'm like everybody else i f I've got a bad chest cold and it doesn't seem t o be get ting any better I trot o f f to the doctor. I gue ss it's be cause it's fre e I gue ss. R.H: Get ting back t o S t . Pau'ls, did you have a lot of social gatherings? B.P: Som e . So m any o f them w ould come from other places, and we'd all been church w orkers where w e w ere R.H: ••• Was there a lot o f i m migrant s ? B.P: R.H: ( Pardon? Did you have any i m m igrants? B.P: N o t from other countries, largely j ust from other areas around. You see we just finished the gre at depression, and so m any had been out o f w ork, well when places like Fle et Aircraft be gan advertising (30) •• . �and were offering and paying them 50 cents an hour . . . which it was big pay, why people began coming in from all over you see to get ( the jobs at Fleet. My husband came of course from Chatham and I came from Sarnia cause that's where I lived, and others came from all other areas. some of them we had known back home but we were all in Fort Erie here and as I say our husbands worked long hours so we didn't have time nor energy for social life, or money. So we sorta banded together and in a way its nice, but in another ways it kept us from getting too well a quainted with local people. The local people were sort of here, and then those of us who came from out of town had our own little group. Well Archdeacon Burt wasn't very happpy about this, so he thought some of us were really lonely and limited in our social contact so he got us all together and formed a couples club, and that was a mixture of both. Some of them were local couples that had been in Fort Erie, and others were those of us who had come from other places, so we did get to know a lot of local people through that and we used to get together at the hall and play cards and put on little anatuer shows and charge admission and we gave the money to the services or something. { Mainly we used to meet in each others homes, play cards and have lunch, and we'd visit back and forth and invite our friends for dinner. R.H: D o you remember what was i n for clothes . . . were hats popular? B.P: No, not too much . . . of course you never went to church without a hat. I can remember how uncomfortable I felt when I finally went to church without a hat . Even yet I still get a feeling sometimes in church . . . ! still put my hand up and feel its wrong sitting there without a hat on because it's so ingrained in you. hardly wears a hat to church now . was married in 1 96 6 which isn't all Of course nobody And weddings, when my daughter that long ago (it will be 20 years next year) you know as the mother of the bride I had a hat and everyone else that had anything to do with it had a hat. Mow I don't think any of the people wear hats to weddings or very rarely. they've come back a bit the last few years. Though Dress was much more formal . You had sunday clothes and you put them on to go to church sunday. G loves we used to wear although . . . yes I guess I wore those to church a good deal though I haven't wore them now in many ( years. I still find this extremely unfrmal attire for church (3 1 ) a little �hard to get used to. You know kids coming in in ragged jeans, and if that's all they had. . . yes . . but it isn't. ( It' s just that they figure thats, .what they wear around so its good enough for church. We never could go out in the kind of things that people come to church in now and I don't suppose most people of my generation could. We had church clothes and school clothes and when I was a child we changed our clothes and my children when they came home from school. . . of course everything had to be starched with my children. A ll my daughter' s dresses were the kind that had to be starched and really ironed . They had to be damped, and ironed, and . . . One of the changes I really notice in clothes is the fact that people have so many for one thing, and another thing they never wear the same thing twice. Children going to school any more . . .you know they seem to come home and the thing isn't at all dirty, but they wear it to play in and they throw it in the wash, and the next day they have a completely different outfit on . Well it's largely the laundry facilities being so simple, so easy, that it' s created this. When you had to go down and scrub things on a board or boil them on the stove the way my mother did and things l ike that you were ( pretty careful about what kind of a washing hamper you filled, but nowadays when you just lift a lid and throw them in and push a button . . . mothers don't worry about how many clothes their children wear so I don't know whether it' s good or not. R.H: B.P: Was Easter Sunday a big event? Yes you dressed up . Oh Easter was very big . You didn't like to go to church unless you a had a new. . . something new anyway. You fussed over the children, and bought all new clothes if you could afford it or if not the older ones got fixed up as best you could and you had a new hat and gloves of course and the whole bit. You sat in church and noticed all the beautiful outfits on the other people but now nobody seems to put anything much different on for Easter than they do any other day. Of course I think the weather used to be a bit better at Easter at one time now it's almost like winter. If you had new clothes you wouldn't feel like you wanted to wear them anyway. Christmas has always been very nice at St. Paul's. I think for us when we were first here St . Paul's at Christmas. . . now, ( we were never right in town on Christmas day because we always (3 2) �went back to see our families at Christmas but just before Christmas they always had a candlelight carol service that was very very ( nice. Now to us that was Christmas when we were at that service. We came away and we really felt now Christmas is officially started because we've had the carol service, and they used to sing all the old carols that everybody knew, and the church would be lit by candlelight and oh there was a real lot of feeling behind it, not that there isn't now, but it's just a little different. decided the candles were fire hazards over the years. The fire department and they were kind of dropped They've been reintroduced again recently in a limited degree, but not the way that we used to have them when we here. A nd then other churches in town started to have candlelight services but at that time ours was the only one that had a candlelight service . R.H: B.P: What time was the service? They usually were at 7 oclock in the evening, but of course to now with television, people don't want to come out on a sunday evening. You don't get the crowds you used to, not for anything. Before television, evensong was a regular thing people liked to go to church sunday evening, then they started having What' s My Line and Ed ( Sullivan for years was on television. There were some really good sunday evening television programs. I think thats really what got people away from church sunday evening. You know they were cozy and they had the television and why go out sorta thing . We still go to St. James chapel but it's not open in the summer, its only just from September to May, early June, and we enjoy that, but thats only an hour, you still got lots of time for your television. But I' m not hooked on television anyway as far as that goes. it but I can do other things. I like I don't have to watch television, but I think a lot of the changes have been good. R.H: S o Christmas was simpler? B.P: Yes I think so. Of course children got one or two nice things. I think the one thing that really strikes me about the way of living is the cost of everything . When I first saw a sign about two years ago that said special, stocking stuffers and they were things that cost $8.95 and $9.95. . . well now in my generation stocking stuffers were things like pencils, erasers, suckers, a few nuts, and an orange, ( and things like that and now you put calculators, and small cameras (33 ) �and theyre stocking stuffers. showers have snowballed. ( Another thing is the way wedding When I was getting married people would come to showers and they'd bring you a wooden spoon, a set of wooden spoons, or maybe a plastic mixing bowl or . . . oh not plastic, there was no plastic when I was getting married . . . you know a couple of dish-towels. Now they bring sheet sets and mixmasters, and things to showers. of thing. I find it rather hard to get used to this sort I think the world's gone rather mad when it comes to spending, but we all do it . I go in stores now and . . . of course I've got more money now, most of us have when you get to be our age, and our big expenses are behind us . We've got money to spend, and we spend it, and in a way thats good . . I think the old idea of never spending anything unless you absolutely had to isn't to healthy. In the first place you've kept the money out of circulation and in the second, what are you holding it for . . . you know you're just leaving it for somebody else to spend, and it really makes little sense to pass it down from generation to generation and nobody ever spending it . So I think that went a little bit overboard that way, but I think on the other hand the way children nowadays want such magnificent ( things . . . you know you ask your grandchildren what they want for their birthdays, and you wished you hadn't asked. R.H: I think television brought a lot o f things into the home . B.P: O h yes, you can't buy anything for ten dollars now. spending money is the same too. P robably the When my sister and I were children, If we ever got a di me to spend or fifteen cents, or unbelievely a quarter we just couldn't credit it. Nowadays a child comes to you for a quarter, you don't give him a quarter you give him five dollars, but then of course it takes that much . for 15 We could go and have a banana-split cents, but I've no idea what a banana-split costs nowadays, it must cost a couple of dollars. A nd milkshales, you could get a beautiful milkshake for a quarter, now I think they're about a dollar and a quarter so you see its a whole new world . I often think that if the the people that used to be here could rise up out of the ground, and come back they wouldn't know the place. I hate to see places come down, and I'm not much for progress, I know its good, but I hate it cause I had it happen in my own home because my own family's house was axed, and a shopping mall put there, and I liked (3 4) �it the way it was, and I feel sorry for these people . . . R.H: ( B.P: Wasn't the telephone a luxury? Well most people had phones before we did . Strangely enough neither my husband or I had phones at home before we were married, neither one of our parents . . . oh it was the common thing but for some reason or another we never had one. Now of course both our parents were English and they'd come out from England and they didn't have too many people to talk to on the phone so they didn't bother you see, they figured if anybody wanted them badly enough they'd come, so we didn't have phones and when we were first married we didn't have a phone in the apartment, and we didn't have a phone on Stanton Street. So I'd been married eight years before I'd moved on to Catherine Street, and there was a phone in the house, and I'd never in my life had a phone before so you see I was married eight years before I even got a phone. Now I've got five of them, so I really made up for it. R.H: So you did like that part o f progress? B.P: Well I will admit I enjoy my phones. hapened and the phones were out. ( I'd feel really lost if anything That bit of progress I like. Oh there are certainly things that are good I'd hate to go back to defrosting my refridgerator all the time, and leaning over a laundry tub rinsing my clothes, and things like that but I think we're lost in a way more than we've gained after all you don't miss what you have'nt had. I was raised in the country and I like the simple life and I don't really like all this hoopla, but thats the way it is of course, you recognize it as such. A nd I don't like to see the money wasted at all, the way it is. R.H: B.P: But this i s a nice area. I like it here. I like where we live it's quiet really. The arena across the road really doesn't bother us, and occasionally we have the excitement of something different over there, circuses, and horses, and things. I wouldn't want that all the time but every little while it's nice to have something break the monotony if you can call it that, though I don't consider it monotonous . just a little different. But the sameness makes something I like it over here yes, and now if I didn't have a car well I suppose I'm close to the mall, I could walk to the ( mall. It would be a little unhandy for church over here, but then (3 5 ) �nobody really lives nea r St. Paul's Church anyway cause where its located p ractically everybody comes by car . Its not like C ent ral United, and St. M ichaels, and some of these that are in residential areas. { Our church sorta sits by itself and very few people live within walking d istance of S t . Paul's and nearly everybody has to come by car . If I had no car I think I'd find it unhandy and of course the cost of cabs nowadays. I don't know what they used to cost as I have never taken cabs to an extent, but I know I took one the other day from Jarvis S treet, and it was fou r dollars, so you see if you wer e doing it as a regular thing you'd find pretty expensive to take cabs everywhere. I think the bus se rvice that we have , such as it is has been an improvement. I've nev e r taken it because i' ve never had need, and some of the people that use it say it isn' t too reliable but I don' t know that . They say you could wait on a corner f o r quit e a while before the bus comes along b u t I t hink we do need so m e sort of bus service . It isn ' t an easy t o wn ti g e t round i n if y o u don ' t have any kind of transportation, i t isn' t really . I t ' s very spread o u t . It seems a long way from Bowen R oad, t o Lakeshore R oad, o r what have you or D o m inion. close n ess. There ' s no real I su ppose if y o u look e d at it from u p in the a ir it would look l ike a long stre tched o u t . . . its not big . I mean its not as b i g ( a s Toronto or places like t hat , but i t s unhandy . R.H: B.P: You need a car? Yes you need a ca r , b u t I like F o r t Erie, I like small t owns where everybody knows everybody else . One of the things that f irst st ruck us was that eve rybody seemed to be related to everybody else in those days. Now t hat is n' t true now because there's so many people. But when we first came here you d idn' t dare say a thing about anybody because you might find out that they were a cousin, or niece, or aunt to the person you were speaking to . about it. Then you really felt embar rassed Now a lot of the people at the church are related, inter related, intermarriages, and things like that, but it's not nearly as prevalant as it was when we f irst came her e because there's s so many newcomers in town these days. But the original old clan that we r e he re when we first got here they all s eemed to be related. R.H: Well M rs. P ainter on behalf of the library I would l ike to think you fo r the inte rview. Thankyou so m uch. (36) � 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 Crystal Beach Subject The topic of the resource Crystal Beach, Ontario Description An account of the resource Select historical photos and documents digitized from the Fort Erie local history and Louis McDermott collections Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived FEPL -LH - Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library and Louis McDermott 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. Beatrice Painter Location The location of the interview. Mrs. Painter's home at 33 Riceland Avenue, Fort Erie 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 - Painter, Beatrice Description An account of the resource Provided here is Beatrice Painter's interview. She discusses such topics as: Hotels and taverns Stores Post Office Transportation Ferries South End Crystal Beach Amusement Park Recreation Churches St. Paul's Anglican Church Schools North End Peace Bridge Medicine Technology 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 July 8, 1985 1980s 1985 churches Crystal Beach amusement park ferries Fort Erie hotels and taverns north end Oral history peace bridge post office recreation restaurants and bars schools south end st. paul's anglican church technology transcripts transportation