https://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/505af6f128328d15dd9654f525740cc4.pdf 9817b777232f82991a88b399356f6d3b PDF Text Text Beverly Branton interviewing Mr. Percy Teal at his home at 1219 Ridge Road, Ridgeway, Ontario. The date if June 10, 1985. B.B.: Hello, Mr. Teal. P.T.: Hello. B.B.: Could you give me your date of birth please? P.T.: October the 9th, 1904. B.B.: And your place of birth? P.T.: Bertie Township. B.B.: And your occupation? P.T.: Carpenter. B.B.: Now you said your place of birth was Bertie Township. Where abouts in the "fownship? P.T.: Well, it would be onwhat they call the Teal Road now. B.B.: Was that named after your family? P.T.: Well, there was all Teals lived on that road so that's the reason they named it Teal Road, after I moved away. B.B.: Teal is quite a popular name in this area. P.T.: It sure is, there's a lot of Teals. B.B.: Do you come from a direct descendant of P.T.: ..• ? Right, right. B.B.: Could you explain that a bit? P.T.: Well, Zechariah Teal, I think he's the one that arrived here in Bertie Township and all the Teals originated from that tiine on. B.B.: I see. What time of year what year would that have been? .• P.T.: Oh, it must have been early 19, 18, 18 hundred anyway. B.B.: Do you know where he came from? P.T.: Well, they say they came from Pennsylvania but before that I don't know where they came from. But some says Holland, some Germany and some English so. B.B.: Do you know why they came to this area why he came to this area? •• P.T.: Well I imagine when, in Pennsylvania they kind of, I don't know, whether it was because of religion or what but they were persecuted there and they c�me over here to a new country I suppose. B.B.: So you are direct descendant of that Teal family? P.T.: Right;right. B.B.: How long did you live on Teal Road for? P.T.: Well I lived on Teal Roaduntil I was twenty-one and then I went on my own. B.B.: Did you live on a family farm? �P.T.: Farm, right, a hundred acre farm. B.B.: What type of farming did you do? P.T.: Oh, just the regular, mixed farming and .. mostly mixed. B.B.: Has it changed much out in that area? P.T.: Well it's sold to the quarry's now, Ridgemount Quarries, that whole block through there, about, I think about. five hundred acres. B.B.: That use to be farm land? P.T.: Ya. They still farm it,but the Q..tarry owns it,you see. B.B.: Is the Quarry using the property? P.T.: Well, they I imagine they lease it out to different farmers. You know they put in crops there but a lot of its bush too. B.B.: Do you remember when Ridgemount Quarry started or how it came about? P.T.: I can't tell you the exact date of that. It's been there quite awhile. B.B.: What do you remember as a child out in that area.. how, what was it like? P.T.: Well it was all farmland. B.B.: What were the roads like? P.T.: Mud roads. That Bertie Road was all mud and the Teal Road was all mud too. We use to get stuck in the spring. You know the frost would come out of the ground you'd sink right in. Lots of fun then. B.B.: How would you travel what mode of transportation? •• P.T.: Well, at first we use to drive a horse and wagon or buggy. And then in 19 16 we had a car and then in the summer time, that was about the only time you could drive because they didn't plough the roads then. B.B.: Where would you go shopping? P.T.: Mostly Ridgeway. We didn't go far. Just all local stores in Ridgeway. B.B.: Has that changed much? P.T.: I guess it has. B.B.: Tell us how? P.T.: Well it's all a big shopping plaza now, two this year. And one storekeeper will close up and then other people open up and There's pretty good shopping •. there now. It's coming back. B.B.: What type of shopping did they have, in the earlier days? P.T.: Oh, you could go in like a store and buy pretty near most anything, dry goods. A lot of the stores had groceries in bulk. Stevensville they had a big dry good store one time and a grocery store on the other side. B.B.: Do you remember the name of that store? P.T.: Oh, ••• I'm bad at names. B.B.: Do you remember any of the merchants from Ridgeway ? 2 �P.T.: Well there use to be Harry Benner, he ran a grocery store for quite awhile. B.B.: Where was his store located? P.T.: Just by the railroad tracks, south of the railroad tracks on the south side or east side of the road. And then Hansen Bream and he use to have a grocery store there too. Then a Dominion store they were there I guess when they first started. B.B.: What about in Stevensville, what stores do you remember there? P.T.: That was that one where the dry goods and the grocery store together and there was grist mills and saw mills and cider mill. B.B.: Where were they all located? P.T.: Cider mill and the grist mill and that on West Main Street. We'd take a wagon full of apples there and get three or four barrels of cider bring it home and make apple sauce took the whole day. Boil down about forty gallons of cider to about half and then you'd put the apples in and stir it with a.. Did you ever see them make cider? B.B.: No, I haven't. P.T.: Well they .. down at the Heritage Day down to that Boulevard there they use to make it there. But I guess last year was the last year. ( And he was there going around and around. B.B.: The same gentleman that use to have the cider mill? P.T.: No, no different one. Johnny, Johnny Ruegg he would make the cider and he use to have a store in Ridgeway too, a meat and grocery store. B.B.: Did you use to go to the grist mill? P.T.: Ya witha bob sleigh, loaded with oats and corn. Take it over and grind it up !_o feed the cattle, milk cattle. B.B.: Was farming one of the major occupations around here? P.T.: Around here, ya, right. I guess at first at Windmill Point they use to have a mill they ground out there before they had like ah horse •. and buggy, like the Indians and all that, a big windmill. That's all disappeared, the stone there is. all gone. B.B.: Where was that located? P.T.: On Windmill Point Road, right on the lake. There's kind of a point there. Have you ever seen a picture of it. B.B.: No I haven't. P.T.: You should go up to the Museum up here in Ridgeway and ask them I think they have pictures of it. Lot of old, real old, back, history 3 �and up here to the Battle of Battle museum up here, just up off •. the Number 3 Highway, there's a lot of old stuff and that. B.B.: You lived on Teal Road until you were about 21. Where did you move to from there? P.T.: Well, I got married a couple of years after that and then lived in Crystal Beach, took care of apartments for my wife and I for a couple of years. Then we liv �d down on the Dominion Road for a couple of years. Then I built this house in '19, we moved here in 1940, April of 1940. When we moved in here we had the kitchen, dining room and bedroom. This was all just studs around here. Hard times Hten. B.B.: This was farmland also? P.T.: Ya, it was. B.B.: What type of farming did you do here? P.T.: Well, corn, oats and wheat mostly. B.B.: Did you have the same neighbours .. as many neighbours. No, John Lichtenberger use to live here next door and my brother lives at 1943. My dad moved off the farm over and he built this house next door here and my brother lives there now. ( B.B.: Has this road is this road more populated now than it was? P.T.: More populated? Oh, ya, ya. There's houses up this way, there .• was hardly any. I guess one, the one house here, what they called the 'hospital' when that Fenian Raid. You've heard of that? They moved that up there in that park off of the Number 3 Highway and made it into a museum. B.B.: Snake Road as this road is sometimes known for P.T.: An old Indian trail that went right out to Fort Erie. B.B.: Tell me about that what, 'cause this road has history in itself. P.T.: Ya, there was a big battle, right up in here during the Fenain Raid. B.B.: And then the Indian trail, was this noted as being the home of a •• number of Indians or ••• P.T.: . .• ? Well, I don't know so much of that. Could have been, up on the hill there they found a lot of, they started gravelling and they found a lot of Indian relics and stuff up in there. There was a burying ground, there could have been you know an old Indian •• B.B.: Where did this trail supposedly come from? P.T.: Well, it goes as far as the Bowen Road. You know where the Bowen Road is? Ya, well that's the beginning of it. Whether it come out 4 �from before that I don't know, 'cause there's a house right out at the end of this road, goes all along the ridge and it's just on the edge of the hill there. B.B.: Now you also lived in Crystal Beach? P.T.: Ya, for a couple of years. B.B.: What was that like? That would have been in the late twenties approximately? P.T.: 1934 and 35, around in that time. We lived right up in the sand hill there, we had an apartment there. Right by the Giant Coaster they use to call it. Boy, the Cyclone days! B.B.: Tell me about the Beach, the amusement park .. some of the rides you remember, if you lived right next door. P.T.: Well there use to be the bumpity-bumps now that's gone and the roller skating rink use to be way up on the big sand hill. And then the old boats use to bring the people to Crystal Beach before they had cars. B.B.: Was Crystal Beach Amusement Park a very popular place at that time? P.T.: Oh, down in, after like in the thirties, in the late thirties, forties and fifties it was real popular but now it's kind of there's been •. so many around, people you know don't go there. It use to about the only one around here. Have you ever been to Crystal Beach? B.B.: Oh yes. P.T.: Beautiful sand beach out there. B.B.: How else has that changed, has Crystal Beach changed? P.T.: Well you use to go and just walk in but now you have to pay to get in. That's a big change. Ya, I guess there was a lot of rowdies and you know everybody would go in there. Now you know it's more selective. B.B.: Were you ever to Erie Beach? P.T.: Ya, ya. B.B.: What do you remember about that? P.T.: Well they Wad a beautiful dance hall there. We use to go up on the balcony, the balcony all the way around. You'd look down on the dancers. They had a swimming pool right next to it. And all around there there was,midway was all different rides. Beautiful place. " 5 �B.B.: Do you remember some of the rides, some of the names? P.T.: Oh, no I couldn't tell you. I suppose it was the same that they've got now in Crystal Beach but I don't remember the names of them. But they had a fun house there. I know that was really something. You use to, I think, lean just remember when you'd walk downhill � you could hardly walk, it'd kind of ho d you back. I don'tknow what it was it was just an optical illusion I guess. I was only there three or four times and then it closed. I guess Crystal Beach bought them out so there wasn't so much competition. I can't remember when they closed it. They use to have a boat running from Buffalo to it, they had a dock out there. And there use to be a little trolley running from the ferry boat in Fort Erie, running up to Erie Beach. B.B.: How would you get there from this area? P.T.: Well, go down Dominion Road and then you had to cross there at Cresent Road. That Dominion Road didn't go all the way to Fort Erie. B.B.: Where did it stop? P.T.: It stopped at Cresent Park there, Cresent Road. You had to go across the track and then a winding road back in there. I don't know { where the road ran in from the other way too but that's the way we use to come. B.B.: If you wanted to go into the Town of Fort Erie at that time and you went up the Dominion how would you go over? P.T.: Well you couldn't,come up the Dominion. There was no Dominion Road, that was the end of it at this end. I don't know what it was like at the other end. But it wouldn't go all the way through there. B.B.: Ho.v would you go to Fort Erie? P.T.: Well we'd go down Number 3 Highway. B.B.: What was the Number 3 like? P.T.: Well, in the '30's, early 30's, 20 and 30's it was just a dusty stone road. Cars use to go down there and there'd be just a cloud of dust. People from Buffalo and around five o'clock in the evening, boy. Some of them young guys with lots of money and they'd go out in ··� their sports car and they'd go up there about 60 miles per hour and there was just a cloud of dust. They use to come up the Bertie Road too and that was just a mud road but in the summertimes there'd { be dust, just a cloud of dust all the way up. They wouldn't put any 6 �salt or anything to lower the dust in. B.B.: When did they pave it? P.T.: Must have been around 1920's I think some time. But I use to team, drive my dads team, he use to have a team..draw stone, I'd draw stone with the team from Law's Quarries over by Dominion Road. To fill in along side of the Regional Road to make it wider. That's wh�" t-hey must have been in the early 20's. B.B.: A nd you did this for your father? P.T.: Ya. B.B.: Was this a business of your fathers? P.T.: No it's just to make a little extra money. Eleven children you know and you had to do something besides farming to feed everybody. B.B.: What was Law's Quarry like? P.T.: Well one thing it was deep and they had to keep pumping all the time to keep water from coming in. And now it's right full level with the lake ..pumping all the time. And so he abandoned that and went to Port Colborne. He had a quarry up here just on the Ridge Road just on the other side of Number 3 Highway. they built the, widen the Garrison Road here. That's when They use to call it Garrison Road now it's Number 3. B.B.: Who owned that quarry? P.T.: L aw , Harry Law. B.B.: Did the quarries all employ many men in those days? P.T.: Oh there was quite a few, quite a few. They then they had men down in the quarry. They didn't have all the n1a.C!. the crusher and machinery that they have now to load up the stone on the.. take it up to the crusher. They use to have the quarry there by the school and they use to have a bucket and a big dairy cup and they use to swing it around and put it up on the crusher and weighed ..loaded it all by hand. B.B.: Your occupation was a carpenter? P.T.: Right. B.B.: Who did you work for? P.T.: Oscar Teal & Son. Worked for him from 1940.. when the war was over, 1945 to '75, somewhere around that. B.B.: Where did you use to work out of? l>.T.: Well, Port Colborne Hospital first and they built a clinic up there and we built a, in Dunnville we built a big addition on an Old Folks Home. And we built quite of few houses around and mos t ly construction 7 �of the Nickle there was a big change house there and that was about •• a million dollar job, that was a big job. B.B.: What about in.the Greater Fort Erie area? P.T.: Worked on Hart & Cooley when they put a big addition on there. We built where the Custom Pharmaceutical, we done that. B.B.: Do you remember the dates on these? P.T.: Oh, no I couldn't tell you, dates. B.B.: Where else did you build? P.T.: Well a few houses along the lake. I couldn't name them all because so .• many of them I forget them. B.B.: Any other major jobs? P.T.: Leon's store in Fort Erie. We built that. It's still a furniture store. B.B.: Is that on Jarvis Street? P.T.: On Jarvis Street. In Welland we built a furniture store, I forget who that was for. And we remodelled Leon's in Welland. I should have wrote all this down for you. B.B.: What would you do for entertainment? P.T.: You mean when we were kids. Well during the war we had twelve acres of beans. And for entertainment after supper we would clear ( the table off and sort of the mud and clean them. Then we use to make tops out of the spools that thread came on and we use to race tops on the table, sit around on the table. That was before radio came. B.B.: Do you remember when the telephone came in? P.T.: We had the telephone in our house as long as I can remember, must have been here before I was born. We use to have the old party lines, just call up and ask for the person you want. They had parties on there that could listen in to your conversation. Here all the gossip. B.B.: So as you got older what would you do for entertainment, where were place in the area? P.T.: Well they had a show in Fort Erie, we use to go there and Crystal Beach before we were married. And we had radio. We use to listen to radio the by that time.. And then until you got television and then you got lots of entertainment. B.B.: What else is there anything as you look back that maybe isn't here •• anymore that you can come up with? P.T.: No . when they built the Crystal Beach Dance Hall ther � we used ••• 8 �to draw the gravel from up the other side of Point Abina for concrete. B.B.: You helped build the Crystal Beach Ballroom? P.T.: Ya. With a team we shovelled the gravel for it. We had about ten or twelve teams� We'd load the gravel in-the wagon, shovel it on by hand. B.B.: Was that you and your father was the business your fathers? P.T.: My dad didn't do too much. My brother and I had a couple of teams •. with other people around the area. And one of the sand hills, big sand hills we worked one summer there, all summer there, with a team scraper taking all that out. I had a picture when they were building the dance hall and I can't find it. A big one about that long. It showed all the team. There was about a dozen teams there with scrapers •. B.B.: Were you ever at the dance hall when it opened? P.T.: Oh ya, ya. B.B.: What did that look like? P.T.: Oh it was a beautiful dance hall. Did you ever see that big ball, glass ball? The light would shine on it and why ..there use to be a lot of dancers there. All the big bands would come over from Buffalo. B.B.: Can you remember some of the names of the bands? P.T.: I think Jimmy Dorsey was there was he a band leader? Dorsey .• I know was his last name, he use to be there. I can't remember the others. Tommy Dorsey Tommy Dorsey's Band •. ••• you don't remember that. You're not quite as old as I am. B.B.: So what else can you remember? P.T.: I can remember when they had no traffic cops. B.B.: Is that right. P.T.: Ya, Joe Tripp he was the first traffic cop, witln ::: a motorcycle around here, around this area. B.B.: Would that have been it wouldn't have been the Regional Police •• at that time what would it have been then? •• P.T.: No, just a local, like a, it would be I imagine the Township or ! •• don't know what they would have called them then. And after him there was Vern Detenbeck. They were both motorcycle cops. B.B.: Where did they have a station? P.T.: Oh, no. Not until the Provincial Police had their statio� in Ridgeway. •• 9 �No. I don't know when they come in. Must have been when they got cars on the road. B.B.: Do you remember when the first cars came into the area? P.T.: First one I can remember is when I was going to sc;hool. That was maybe when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. But oh high wheelers with hard rubber tires and .they'd crank them up on the side. I remember going up from school, there was a team of horses corning up and this car was going the other way putt, put, puti.the •• team of horses went right in the ditch they were so scared of it. So that must have been ! was born 1904and I was 12, 10 years old . • so it must have been around 19 13 I guess. We had our first car in 19 16, my dad bought a car. B.B.: Who P.T.: Ed Spears in Stevensville, Ed Spears. B.B.: Where was that lot? P.T.: In Stevensville, right next to Black Creek there. did he buy it off of? Was there a dealership? Where was that car lot? He was the first Chev. car dealer around here. Ya, I remember my brother wanting to clean the distributor and he took all the wires out of the distributor cap and then when he put them back in he got them mixed up. ( And there was a bang and blow up and oh... B.B.: Where did you attend school? P.T.: Number 10 School on what they call the Garrison Road. When I was six years old I started and I guess I quit when I was fourteen, to help farm. B.B.: What was the schoolhouse like? P.T.: In the winter time you froze to death and a big long stove with gas. They got free gas then. But you had to put wood in, big chunks of wood you know to heat the school. We use to, real cold mornings we had a bench on each side of the stove and we'd sit there for a couple of hours until we got warmed up. No lights in the school. B.B.: What were your desks like? P.T.: The first desk, two pupils would sit in it, side by side. When I went to school I sat with Joe Athoe. the Bertie and the ridge. than I was. The Athoes use to live here on -� He was maybe seven or eight years older He was, a lot of those big guys they went 'til they were about eighteen years old. I don't know how long they had those desks and then they got the single ones. B.B.: How would you get to school? 10 �P.T.: We walked a good two miles each way. Walk. I always remember my sister was two years young than I was .. my mother use to curl her hair with the you know ringlets and when she got to school in the winter time they'd be all frozen stiff. She'd use water on them B.B.: and they were wet snow drifts up to our knees no ploughs then. ' Do you remember any of your teachers names? P.T.: Yes, one was Harry Bowen. B.B.: What was he like? P.T.: He was a good teacher. •• •• He was ared head. He was a good teacher as long as you didn't cross him or anything. I remember once somebody was doing something there and he had a ruler and he smashed it down across the desk and the ruler just went all to pieces. Right at the corner there use to be a, Norm House had an orchard and he use to have all kinds of apples in there and I guess somebody was going in there getting apples and Norm House must have told the teacher. And the teacher forbid any of us to go in the orchard and get apples. So a whole gang of us went in and he found out about it and he lined us up all the way across the school .. bamm with the strap. B.B.: How many would be in your class? P.T.: Oh, it wouldn't be over 25 or 3 0 in the whole school so maybe four or five B.B.: Do you remember some of your fellow classmates? P.T.: Ya, Walter Reinhardt and, well I can remember Walter 'cause him�.: and I use to chum around together. B.B.: Can you think of any stories? P.T.: Yes they use to, at the quarry, they use to drill with a steam drill and when they'd blast the stones they'd fly up and down on the metal roof and banging on your roof putting holes in it. B.B.: Of the school house? P.T.: Yep. Ya and there was a big thorn apple trees right next to the school there and we use to get them and throw them around and eat them in school. B.B.: Do you remember the fire in Ridgeway? There was a couple of main fires in the downtown of Rdigeway. P.T.: Ya, that was in, that was around must have been in the fifties wasn't it? B.B.: There was two of them. Do you recall either one? 11 �P.T.: I know the last one. Must have been in the fifties, I was, we were working in Fort Erie and we came home and they said there was a fire in Ridgeway. B.B.: Was there a fire station 1n Ridgeway at the time? P.T.: No, it wasn't in Ridgeway then no. I can recall some guy told me, I don't know whether I should tell this story .•• it might get back to somebody. B.B.: Do you remember the opening of the Peace Bridge? P.T.: Ya, I was down there at the opening. B.B.: Tell me what you recall of it. P.T.: Well it was the Prince of Wales who opened it. I can't recall too much but!· he give a speech, I don't know if I was close enough to ·hear it.or not. I can't remember too much. B.B.: What was the feeling of people when it opened up? P.T.: Well to those who had summer homes over here it was a big relief. because down at the ferry they use to Hine up for miles. When you know I guess on a Sunday people going home fr.am Crystal Beach, they'd line up for miles the cars. to wait to get across. They had the two big ferries:tkere at one time maybe hold a hundred cars. ( Ya it was a big relief for the traffic, it was terrible then. B.B.: Do you you would remember when Ridgeway and Stevensville •• amalgamated with Fort Erie, where now it is considered Greater Fort Erie. P.T.: I can remember things way back better than recent. B.B.: So you don't remember any feelings you had about that, about Ridgeway nOW\'.being considered as part of Greater Fort Erie? P.T.: No. It must have been about the time that the Region took over too. The Region started about that same time. But the date I don't remember. B.B.: Do you remember anything about the Shipyards?along the Niagara Boulevard? P.T.: I was down there when they launched the five hundred foot freighter. '!:hey slipped it down into the water. when the inee was going down the And that was in the spring it pushed the ice right up on •• • the shore. B.B.: Do you know approximately when this would have been? P.T.: Well I imagine it must have been around 19M or something like that. I can just remember riding down there with horse and wagon, , 12 �my brother and I. I had one brother older than I and he's still alive. B.B.: Has the Parkway changed, the Niagara Boulevard changed? P.T.: I guess it has! B.B.: Tell me how? P.T.: Well I don't think they cut the grass and had it as nice as it is now. It's just I suppose, just all grass and weeds all the way down there. Of course I didn't take much notice then 'cause you wouldn't the way they keep the lawns and things now. It makes a big difference. B.B.: What was the roadway like? P.T.: Oh, well I couldn't tell you about nothing like that because we came down this back way and I don't think we was even on the Boulevard like •. B.B.: What would the back way be? Which roads would you take? P.T.: Well I went down the Ridge Road and the Bowen and then I forget the name of the road. It's just on the otherside of the Queen Elizabeth on the Bowen Road. I forget the name of it. B.B.: What was the Bowen Road like? P.T.: Mud.. stone, I guess it was stone then too probably 'cause it was the main road to Fort Erie. I know we use to buy wood, my dad use to buy wood up Netherby and we'd, in the winter time, we'd take it and sell it in Fort Erie. We'd drive up to Netherby in the morning and we'd take it down to Fort Erie and when we got home at night it was suppertime. B.B.: Who would you sell the wood to in Fort Erie? P.T.: Oh, different ones that would burn wood you know. B.B.: You took it right to their home? P.T.: Right, ya. I remember we use to the Bowen Road didn't have the •• subway, it use to go out and cross about six or eight tracks and there was a lot of trains then. And I remember we were going down once and there was a team of horses on a milk wagon and the horses run away and they were running up here. Millers horses they run, they come home here to the farm. They got away from them delivering milk, and they got away from them, they were just a running like, just a galloping all the way home. B.B.: So where would the Bowen Road join up then? Would it joing up at Phipp Street or the other Bowen Road? P.T.: That other Bowen Road, that there was joined right straight throughl1 there. B.B.: So old Bowen Road, we say, would have been joined out with the Bowen 13 �Road that's in town? P.T.: Right, ya. It use to go right across the tracks at an angle. B.B.: Would that cut across what is now Rio Vista Golf Course? P.T.: Ya, that road is just on the other side of that. Is that Rio Vista •• maybe that roads all closed down now I suppose. That was really a dangerous place there because in them days the trains were going all the time, not like now. B.B.: No stearµ engines. Did yo u have a certain route you use to take, every time you brought the wood into Fort Erie? P.T.: Mostly we went down the Bowen Road. B.B.: But once you go into Fort Erie? P.T.: Oh, delivered anywheres, you know, anywheres they needed wood. B.B.: Do you remember changes that happened in Fort Erie? P.T.: If so many people could come back now and see all the different changes around here they wouldn't know it. B.B.: As you look back try to describewaht it looked like. P.T.: Well I can't hardly remember. But I don't thi:D.k we went down in the main part, mostly out in the, like Amigari and the Fort Erie and Bridgeburg. I remember my dad use to do a lot of pedalling in went to a peach orchard once, got a load of peaches and took •• them down to Fort Erie and pedalled them around. We stayed, I think we stayed down there all night in a hotel, one of the hotels down there. B.B.: Do you remember where the horel was located? P.T.: Seems to me it was on the Boulevard there, on the end of Jarvis Street, I wouldn't be sure. I think it was a Hoffman that use to own it. B.B.: Did you ever eat in any of the restaurants at that time •• • • What about the south end business, you know where the Chinese Restaurants are now? P.T.: Well there was all stores then, a lot of stores. been one restaurant but I can't remember it. to eat in the restaurants like they do now. B.B.: There might have No we didn't go out Couldn't afford it. If you happened, when you were younger, if you happened to get ·�. sick, who was your doctor or? •• P.T.: Dr. Buehl. B�B.: Where was he located? P.T.: Stevensville. All, everyone of us children were born over there on Teal Road in the family home. He was a rough doctor but he 14 �was a good doctor. He'd swear like a ••• B.B.: Was he from Fort Erie originally or ? P.T.: As long as I can remember he lived in Stevensville. Then he died •• and then Dr. Stackhouse was our doctor. I can remember when we went to the Welland Fair in October and we had an old touring car and I was sitting on the side and it was cold and the wind was blowing in and I got pleurisy. And everytime I'd laugh I just felt somebody was jabbing a knife in me. And when I came home that night we called Dr. Stackhouse and he come down and taped me up and I was in bed for a couple of days. Boy that was awful! B.B.: Well can you think of anything else, any changes? P.T.: Well, this Stevensville Road, Gorham Road, they call it now. That ended on the Bertie Road from Stevensville. And cars use to come all the way up around here . B.B.: Up through the Snake Road? P.T.: Then they put that through, it must have been in from Bertie Road •• to oh where's that.., Nigh Road. That was no road there it was just farm. And they put that through, it must have been in 1940 something. I can remember the cars from Crystal Beach would come from Niagara Falls and at night they'd go home they come around here and go around this curve down here and they'd when they'd slow up for •• th<i--S' :::urve here they'd backfire and boy until 1 o'clock you couldn't get to sleep. Then there was one thing I could tell you there was •. a, must have been about seven o'clock in the summer time. A car came up here, stopped up here and the guy driving got out. The engine was racing like anything. The guy dringing got out and the passenger on the passenger side, guy told him to pull the lever back to open the hood. Instead of that he pulled it in gear and nobooy behind the wheel and the motor racing wide open. It come around in a little circle there and came right, bang into that fireplace. Two women in the back seat there pretty near went over in the front seat and the guy broke the windshield. Had a front entrance there, hit part of that and it just shoved in sideways. house about two inches back off the foundation. Moved the Knocked everything off the mantle. B.B.: Not as safe as horse and buggies, eh? P.T.: I guess not. B.B.: Well is there anything else Mr. Teal that you can think about? P.T.: I guess that's about all. I suppose after I could think about a lot 15 �of things I forgot to tell you. ( B.B.: Okay, well thank you very much. I've appreciated it. P.T.: Oh, your welcome. ( 16 � 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. Beverly Branton Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Percy Teal Location The location of the interview. Mr. Teal's home at 1219 Ridge Road, Ridgeway 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 - Teal, Percy Description An account of the resource Provided here is Percy Teal's interview. He discusses such topics as: Farming Stores Stevensville Crystal Beach Erie Beach Crystal Beach Amusement Park South end Recreation Transportation Schools Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Fort Erie Public Library Local History Collection 1980s 1985 Crystal Beach Crystal Beach amusement park Erie Beach Fort Erie Oral history recreation restaurants and bars ridgeway schools south end stevensville transcripts transportation