Playmates in Sand Beach in 1930s.
The little girl closest to my age who lived nearby was Mary Wyman. At the time, she was living diagonally across the road, slightly up the road from our house.  She lived with her parents, two brothers and two sisters in a big house, wonderful to explore, and she and I did that a few times. There was the big back part and a palatial front part to the house.  

Mary and I attended the Sand Beach School and she and I sat together at a double desk with a bench seat made for two little ones.  Mary was much younger than all her siblings, whereas I was the second oldest of all mine.  Oh, how I envied Mary, at school with her “slick and shiny paper” scribblers, when I had only the rough-paper Mammoth one.  And Mary would have a whole lead pencil with an eraser on top, whereas I usually had the bottom end of half a pencil, cut in two by our Dad, and shared with my older brother. 

Mary had beautiful yellow hair and mine was dark brown.  In our school picture we both wanted to sit next to each other but also we both wanted to be next to the kindly Annie O’Connell, so in order to settle it, Annie sat between the two of us, and there we still are, seventy years later, the three of us in a row yet, in that old school picture! Little did I know I’d be writing about that after seven decades!

Christmas time was the time I envied Mary so much more and the time I asked my parents so many questions.  Santa brought me a lovely doll that I became attached to immediately, some crayons and coloring books, tea set, paper doll books, and a few more toys, and I was ecstatic!
However, during the holidays Mary asked me over to see what Santa Claus had brought her, and that’s when I became most envious of her!  The two Princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, would have nothing better than what Mary had near her tree!  

Mary had a big life-like doll with real hair and blue eyes that would open and shut. She had two real teeth and could cry Mama. And she came in a big blue pram with a pretty satin comforter, a carriage with a hood, like a real baby’s almost.  I know she received many more gifts that were too expensive for most families, but I was riveted to that doll and carriage, and paid little attention to anything else, except the laundry set with a “real’ iron and ironing board.

I couldn't help thinking that Mary received better gifts because she had been so good – and she was very good!  For a while I felt very inferior to her because of it.  When I went back home and told my parents what Santa Claus had brought Mary and compared it to my gifts, they explained to me that it was because Mary had no younger brothers or sisters to play with and we had a housefull.  

I still was not consoled that my doll had no real hair and asked my parents if they would buy me one.  

The only way they could change my mind was to suggest that we could “take our new baby back to the doctor” and trade her for a doll with hair, like Mary’s, for me.  

It took only a split second for me to cry with a truly broken heart and protest: “No! Don’t give her back! I want our baby!” and that was the end of my pestering.  

And I always wondered why I never saw Mary outside with her doll and carriage, perhaps she kept it upstairs and just looked at it as I did, staring, that Christmas.  I realized that I could look at a doll all I wanted and at any time in the stores, if that was all one would do with a precious big doll with real hair.

I liked Mary very much, and I found her smarter than I was even though she was younger.  She knew words that I had never heard before, big English words! She knew the words ‘accident” and “nasturtium”, both of which I had never heard before.  (I have a good memory, so I can still see the times she taught me those two particular words): 

One day her older brother Clyde took Mary and me for a Spring drive in his coupe, up toward the Airport that was being constructed near Starrs Road in the late 1930s.  We had an eventful Sunday afternoon because of deep mud ruts, but Clyde and friends soon freed the coupe and we were on our way back home. On the way home in the car, Mary asked me if I had ever seen an accident.  
“What’s an accident” I asked?
Mary was not pleased, thinking I was playing difficult. 
“You KNOW what an accident is!” 
I started to cry, “No, I never heard that word before.”  So Mary said 
“Well I’ll tell you; it’s when one car bumps into another car and the wheel comes off and you have to walk all the way home.” So then I knew that an accident was when two cars bump together.

The other story: One time Mary asked me to go with her on an errand to her Grandmother Hatfield’s. Hatfields lived a little further up toward town, but only a few houses up from Wymans.  Their house was a pretty cream color or light buff.  Along we went and Mary did the errand for her mother, and afterwards she wanted to show me Grandmother Hatfield’s flowers that were in bloom outside all around the house.  

Mary picked a flower and started to eat it.  She offered me one and I said “no, you can't eat flowers; they're poison!” and she said, these are not poison, they're nasturtiums, and you can eat nasturtiums and cook them too.” So I believed her and wondered – as I practiced the word nasturtium mentally-- how she could know so many things that I had never heard tell of. But I was learning all the time and really appreciated it.  That was Mary.  But then there was Helen next door, a few years older than I was.

I loved Helen because she was so kind and generous, smart, and full of fun and adventure, yet shy and modest.  Her mother made her a shoe-box full of doll clothes, and she made big date squares with the old fashioned oatmeal and they were better than any candy.  Helen took me into her house and showed me her big sister's typewriter and explained how it worked –the first I ever saw-- and I was so amazed! 

Helen took me with her picking berries, mostly blueberries, and took me to the beach with her so many times.  Just before the War started an airplane came by in the sky, the first I ever saw. Helen said to me, “See the airplane up there; let's watch it till it gets out of sight.”  I asked her, “What does ‘out-of-sight’ mean?”  Helen patiently and obligingly explained, “It’s watching it till it’s far enough away that you can’t see it any more, but it’s still up there.”  I was so amazed at how she could know all these things!

One time neither of us knew the answer to one of my many questions.  We were walking along our big stonewall between the back yard and the pasture. I asked Helen how we spell the word we use when we say we ‘hafto’ (‘have to’ do something): how do you spell “haft”? I asked her, and she said she didn’t know and neither did I, so when I got home I asked my parents and they told me that there’s no word ‘hafto’, that we were not saying it the way it should be: have to. So every day and every minute of every day we were learning from one another.

Other friends we had were Joyce and Lorna Nickerson who lived further down the road going toward the school. One time they came up to Wymans to play with Mary, so Mary asked me to come over so there would be four, two and two, she said. Her little table and four little chairs were out on the lawn and her little tea set on the table all arranged for four.  Mary had four caramels, and gave me two.  Those were four for one cent back then.  When the two Nickerson girls arrived, Mary and I gave them each one of our carmels. 

But there was more yet. Joyce and Lorna had stopped in at Mae and Winnie Rogers for a stick of sugar candy, so Mary got them to break their long sticks into two pieces, and share half with herself and me. That’s the way things were kept fair-and-square-and-even back then.  Everything had to be fair and according to proper regulations that were somehow ‘built-in’.  

How did we know all this? How do children get the notion that there are rules that have to be kept even in the smallest things, and put restrictions on themselves and on one another, such as when we played simple games like ‘Redlight’ and so on. 

I think now that children are a very interesting study!  How children impose rigid rules upon their games and adhere to them religiously.  (And who makes the rules? Did they change, and evolve, over the generations in a natural way?)

I find it fascinating – because it seems to be something innate, built-in, something humans are born with –but I never did any study on it, just think about those things sometimes.
Sand Beach children were very interesting and a lot of fun, and full of adventure, and maybe that’s because of their proximity to the sea, seamen, and seafaring stories of old from far and wide.  Who knows?  Children are a wonder!

On the south side of the Horton house was the family of Gordon Colquhoun. His daughter Thelma married Ralph Martinelli who drove a motorcycle and lived in a little bungalow on Wyman Road.  I remember Gordon with a back brace he had to wear from his broken back.  Down from him was Ken and Jane Poole. All I recall about Ken Poole was that he was so tall, his trousers barely reached down as far as his ankles, and he was the best in the neighbourhood at playing the game of horse-shoes. His wife, Jane, had a little Kindergarten in her home, and how I longed to go to her classes, but was too shy to mention my longing. The Pooles also grew a lovely patch of cultivated strawberries. Some of us learned, as we reached in under the fence at the edge of the road, that it took only one of those great big strawberries to almost fill a child's hand! I know because I had one, and it was delicious, although I was guilt-ridden as I gulped, and worse, was never able to share the delectable story with anyone, especially my strict and law-abiding mother! 

Straight across the road from the Horton house, was Mr. MacKenzie's little store. When he was not there it was Kathleen Wyman behind the counter.  Mr. MacKenzie was a Boy Scout Master and was often seen in full Scout uniform with the large brimmed felt hat.  Mr. MacKenzie had a Scottie dog named Angus. He also drove a Beach Wagon, and it was the prettiest station wagon I ever saw. Its sides were panelled with beautiful light grain wood. [The only other similar vehicle I've heard of would be the truck owned by a Mr. d'Entremont, and the picture reminds me of Mr. MacKenzie's beach wagon. He used that for transporting his supplies.  
When Mr. MacKenzie was having a new house built a little south of his store, the workers blasting rock and all the neighbours were cautioned to beware of flying rock! Some of us younger and more timid ones hardly dared go outside.  I remember the sound of exploding dynamite and one time I saw a piece of rock lift a few yards up into the air and straight down again, but no more. We were glad when that was over. How anyone could plow a garden in that rocky terrain puzzles me to this day.  

Down from Mr. MacKenzie were the Rogers ladies, Mae and Winnie, and they sold lovely candies they made themselves.  They had a wide variety of flavors of taffy kisses and some made into longer sticks and canes. They made a reddish coconut chewy log called a hunkadory, and then a flat white candy with yellow blob on top called a fried egg, and those were creamy and delicious.  There were others but those mentioned were the favorites in the neighbourhood.  At Christmas time our family received one of their pound boxes of "ends" of candy and those were as yummy as the more perfect renderings of the original stock. 

The Purney family lived next door and every fall at Halloween they gave us children a box filled with beautiful chestnuts!  Oh, the games we made up with these treasures!  The Sand Beach school teacher boarded with the Purneys or with the Rogers, both beautiful large homes.  

The teachers there in our time were a Miss Clarke who was succeeded by Mr. Lawrence Doucette from Quinan, and he had a large family of his own. He travelled by motorcycle and went home to his family on weekends.  
On the north side, going toward town, there was a railroad crossing, and just before that was a little place where lived a Mr. Bushell (like Bush-Shell)  He was fond of children and liked to make them little toys from wood and especially popular were his little soldiers made of molten lead. He would melt the lead and pour it into little soldier moulds and out would come a shiny soldier. He gave those to children who did errands for him. He was a kind elderly gentleman. 
Not far from his place but across the road, was a Mrs Walsh, for whom my Dad would get her mail from the post office up town and take it to her.  She gave him a Christmas gift in the 1920s, a book she signed "Wallace, from Mrs Walsh," a book by T.C. Haliburton of Nova Scotia, Sam Slick the Clockmaker.  That book is still in the family. 

Various peddlers came around, some with apples, others with fish and meat, and yet others with a great variety of goods, such as Watkins or Raleigh products so well known all over the place, but Sand Beach has many more stories of back then when there was no pavement anywhere and where the Beach was a favorite summer attraction and the harbour and Bunker Island and Cape Forchu with the beautiful old light house where many went for a picnic. i remember the nasty experience I had on Bunker island with a group from school, when I was stunned after being bunted by a ram! I learned something new that day!  
Bless y'all, Marie
 

Marie: Date: 5/29/2010

In the 1930s when I was about six or seven, a 'circus' of sorts came to Yarmouth. My mother, who was then in her early thirties, and I walked from our house in Sand Beach to the exhibition grounds 'up town'. I was very excited and full of wondrous childish expectation, and felt so privileged, as if living in a fairy tale!

In school our reader had lovely colored pictures of circus animals and all the things that go with a county fair. Several things were my favorites, popcorn, cotton candy, fish pond with lovely little dolls and a variety of toys 'fished up' on the end of the line, also colorful balloons but mostly elephants that could do many amazing things. 
In our reader, elephants could make like a train or chain by hooking their trunk to the tail of the elephant in front of it, and this way them made a long line and put themselves in a variety of formations, according to their trainer's commands. One was standing with all four big feet on one small round drum. It seemed so impossible that an animal that huge was able to gently climb onto a small round drum the size of a barrel top, and stand there with all his weight, as if he were light as a feather! It was amazing to see these pictures in our reader.

So all of this is what I had in mind as I held my mother's hand all the way up the dirt road from Sand Beach to Parade Street --or was it Pleasant Street or Starrs Road, or wherever the exhibition happened to be, I don't know now. But alas, that walk and my happy anticipation was to be the best part of the day. 

We were late arriving because there our mother had so many things to see to at home first, so the elephant show was over, the gateman explained in a regretful tone. "But you can still see the elephants if you go to the outside of the back fence and look in from there."

That was a round-about trip but at last we were just outside the elephant compound looking in.  THERE WAS A REAL ELEPHANT! I was seeing a REAL ELEPHANT!  I was delighted, even though it was not his head I could see, but when I lifted my chin and looked way, way up, I could see his legs and tail and the round of his hind quarters. I remember being totally surprised and amazed at the height and size of the elephant. I wondered how big baby elephants are. 

I stood there captivated by this huge creature's size, staring up at the pivotal point for that swinging gray tail, when all at once he made a big blow of gas toward my mother and me!  How insulted I felt!  That's all I had gone to see and this is how we were greeted! I was never able to erase that from my memory, and now I'm glad I didn't because I have the story to tell. 

I was quite offended that my mother kept laughing about it! How could she! But now I do understand, it was very funny for her and more fun than seeing them make trains or stand on a drum; we could see that in a book anytime.  But to offset the disappointment she took me to the fish pond where I knew there were lovely little gifts, dolls and colorful animated toys for children. Oh, this would be fun and again I was filled with joyful anticipation.

My mother paid the five cents for a fish-line and the young lady helped me get the line up and over the top of the curtain behind which were an ocean of gifts.  When she said "Ready" I reeled in the string and with her help, the small brown paper bag was soon in my hands and torn open. 
"What IS this?" I exclaimed with a stunned expression.  I was holding two lengths of black elastic, like the kind that was run through a "tunnel" at the waistband in the tops of our big bloomers that all little girls wore in those days. "What kind of toy is black bloomer elastic?" I wondered. 

Again my mother laughed, and somehow I knew right away that was not a good sign for me: "Those are men's garters, we can give them to Daddy," she said in an effort toward the positive, but I started to cry. The young lady told my mother the nice little toys were already gone, but she would put the black garters back and I could fish again. I had no great expectation this time, so was surprised when I had fished out a bib-apron my size. I really wanted a toy, but I did like the little apron, like our mother's aprons, only just my size. 

I did learn some tough lessons growing up, and hardly realized at the time that I was getting a taste of the "real” world.

Those are vivid memories of the Yarmouth County Exhibition in Yarmouth town in the mid 1930s –or at least, how I FELT about it. 
Marie

Comments: SAND BEACH CONTINUED ...

THE HENS

Most families in Sand Beach had a small hen house and hen coop. Inside the henhouse were shelf-like roosts lined with straw for the nests hens used to lay their eggs.  A barrel lain on its side was used for the “broody” hen who stayed in it for a long time to hatch her chicks.  The spacious hen coop was enclosed with chicken wire, and I recall seeing small pieces of shell from lobsters, clams and other nutritious bits on the ground for hens to peck at. 
Hens made us laugh sometimes when they were pecking at something and then would begin to scratch the ground and weeds with their funny feet. It was fun for us to see them. 

One of the worst times for us children was when we observed for the first time how a hen was selected, then killed and prepared for a special dinner.  We watched and even giggled nervously at seeing the hen’s head and body held over the chopping block, the swift swing of the hatchet and the hen’s sudden odd display: the headless creature’s dizzy prance around the back yard leaving splats of blood on the shavings around the woodpile until it stopped and fell motionless --not among our best memories.
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As we know, nearly every household kept a cow or two, had a pasture and a barn. So, at the gate to the pasture, there were long removable “cow-bars” and these were kept shiny all summer long by children who used them to do what, at that time, was called “stunts”, twirling and spinning over and under the bars like acrobats.  We children spent a great deal of our summer days on those bars. 

As well, children were familiar with what we naturally called “cow flats”, some old and dry and others that looked old and dry. Wherever we walked in the pasture we sometimes sank our sneakers down into the fresher ones! 
And when War was declared in 1939, we children noticed that the Army used a “khaki” color for their military uniform, a color close to what we sometimes stepped into by mistake, so the new word “khaki” seemed to fit in very well with our ever-increasing kid-fun vocabulary. 
 
 

Wartime in Sand Beach
(for me, almost an oxymoron)

I remember the time of construction of the Yarmouth airport with its modest landing strip. It was not a war port, just a kind flying field, if I am not mistaken. Work on it began in the late 1930s, “up by Starr’s Road” we were told. The road was not yet paved and in Spring was quite muddy, yet people went there to view the new construction.  It was not long afterwards that war in Europe was declared, and this was a ‘life-changing’ moment for the whole world. Little Sand Beach rolled up its collective sleeves right along with the rest of the world. Men enlisted and others were “called up” and drafted. Some women joined the forces, and were called the Waves, Wrens, Wacks, and so on.  Many civilian women played the part of Rosie the Riveter (–she was very well portrayed on a magazine cover by Norman Rockwell).

Many of our fathers volunteered as air-raid (black-out) wardens, and our mothers who belonged to the Women’s Institute got busier than ever.  They dutifully studied their newly issued little black First Aid book, learning all they could in case of emergency. They practised making and applying bandages and slings from yards of unbleached cotton, and studied how to stop bleeding and to give basic treatments in any event. 
Children proudly collected “tea lead” from packages of Red Rose tea, and lead in any form, to bring to school to help the war effort. At that time even toothpaste tubes were made of lead. Children played with little lead soldiers, toy motorcycles and small lead farm animals. 
Also every household had a milk container called a “creamer” and those had at the bottom a lead pouring tap for milk, while the cream stayed at the top floating above the milk line. Lead was not known to be so harmful back then, as far as I know.
Most oil paint contained some lead.  None of that abundance of lead seemed to harm us children in those times, but today its use is largely banned.

In wartime, women and older girls knit khaki winter clothing for soldiers to help the “war effort”. 
These additional wartime jobs meant that nearly every home, even in Sand Beach, had a modest supply of khaki wool yarn, unbleached cotton, boxes of sterile gauze and cotton batting, iodine,  mercurochrome, rolls of unforgiving “sticking plaster” (-which was almost as adhesive as our contact cement or crazy glue – if only certain modern band-aids had more of the holding power of that old-fashioned sticking plaster, but on second thought, it’s merciful that it doesn’t.)

Added~~~~~April 17, 2010

Yarmouth became one of the training bases for men in the Army, and at that time, unbeknownst to me, my future husband (from PEI) was one of them! A story he told me was that every Sunday those who went to Mass at St. Ambrose had Church Parade, from Parade Street over to Albert Street. Father Penny, native of Newfoundland, was pastor at St Ambrose during those years, and he was a great friend of the soldiers. He often invited them to his house (the Glebe House on Albert Street) to play cards.  Every Sunday after Mass he provided a breakfast for for those who had come to Mass, and before their march back to Parade Street. Ladies of the parish prepared and served the men, and all the while Father Penny was removing his clerical vestments and chatting with the men before they would leave under the orders of a very fine Commander, Lucien d'Entremont. (He was married to a Rose Deveau and they lived in Salmon River, NS.) 

Father Penny had a big Newfoundland dog that as gentle and loveable as he was big!  Children loved that dog and he liked being patted by them.

Father Penny was a very friendly person. He came to visit our family before my brother and I made our first Communion, to find out if we were ready. Our father would not let him leave without a gift, either a chicken or two ready to be roasted, or beautiful big dahlias for the altar.

GRANDMERE

Grandmere Doucette made my first communion dress by cutting down the white dress our mother was married in, and it was beautiful! Grandmere would pull out one of her big fancy kitchen chairs, she would look at me and say, "Monte", and I would climb up and hang on with both hands as she pulled and tucked and pinned, as my mother stood by and watched, not having much to add to whatever Grandmere said or did.  Grandmere was an accomplished seamstress and taylor. She was a quiet woman who knew all about very large family and about very hard work, inside and outside. I am so proud of our Grandmere Rosalie! But it took decades for me to acquire a proper understanding of her sterling qualities.

She taught all her children all the necessary jobs, inside and outside, boys and girls alike. Her sons all learned to hem and cuff their own trousers, to darn socks neatly, how to press wool pants and suit coats properly, how to wash and iron their own white shirts, how to starch collars and cuffs and to press them so as to leave not a hint of a wrinkle in them! She taught them all to make and bake bread, to cook and bake all the basic meals, and how to keep a house clean and ship shape! I like to think that Grandmere was tiny but mighty. She had a deep conviction of it being vitally important for French people to speak their mother tongue, to maintain their language, religion and culture. 
Little did I know that her conviction and the fact of my becoming rapidly anglicised would be the cause of a huge clash between Grandmere and me. That is a sad story but it has an amazingly happy ending. That story will come next. marie

Added~~~~~April 18, 2010

Grandmere and the Mother Tongue, Acadian French.

At the same time that my siblings and I were becoming rapidly anglicized, we learned that our becoming so was causing a huge barrier between us and Grandmere Rosalie (Surette) Doucette. She and Grandpere Theodore came in 1912 with their very large family from Wedgeport to live in Sand Beach, in a big square house that was only five places up from the Horton House, but on the opposite side of the road. 
And how ironic it was that our family settled on the opposite side of the road –with our anglicization that caused so much grief on both sides of our friendly dirt road. The road was lucky it could just lie there in the middle of things, oblivious to the growing chagrin. 
I like to imagine that if the Sand Beach roads could talk, what stories they would tell!  One true story is paramount in my memory, because it takes in so much about culture conflicts, about losing our baby French and about my lifelong and deeply troubled relationship with my dearly loved but estranged Grandmere Rosalie.

For example, a few short years after our parents moved to Sand Beach, we children were old enough to start school. We had already become acquainted with some of the neighbour children, most of whom were a little older than we were, and they enjoyed telling us new things, initiating us, especially in anything fascinating and fun. 

~~~~~~
THE WYMAN ROAD “WITCH”

One day my best friend told me in very serious tones that a real witch lived down Wyman Road, a real witch!  She dressed all in black from head to toe, was tall and thin, wore a black hood over her head and a black shawl over her shoulders, wore a long black coat that went right to the ground and her boots and stockings were black.

I kind of knew what my friend meant by “witch”, since we had read in school the story Hansel and Gretel and the old witch who lived in the woods and lured children with sweets, caged and fattened them, then cooked and ate them! The witch was friendly and charming in the beginning, but that was only to fool children, she was really mean and would steal you and eat you up!
~~~~~~
At school one day a little girl I liked very much, and who lived a short distance down Wyman Road, asked me to take my doll and go down to her house to play with her.  We could see her house from our back yard, and my mother said I could go for a little while, so I took my doll and started for Wyman Road.

I was not quite as far as Ralph Martinelli’s bungalow when all at once I spied the WITCH!  I had forgotten all about her! And now here she was, right before me! She had just come up over the little hill in the road and there she was, and there I was!

But, somewhat comforting, I noticed that she was not wearing a pointed or peaked black hat like the real witch wore in the Reader, so I doubted that she was the real witch.  Timidly I continued walking, hugging my doll tighter, and at last I came right in front of this pleasant looking woman. 

“I-ou’s-tu va avec ta catonne?” was what I heard. 
Now, I have to say, here and now, that my father was from Wedgeport but my mother from East Pubnico, and their French accents were quite different.  In Pubnico the word “catin” would not have had the ‘onne’ sound on the end of it, but more the “an” sound on the ending. But I had never heard the word “catin” or “catonne” before! In Pubnico, the French word for doll was “poupet” or like a puppet. I had never heard any other.

I felt sure the woman was referring to my doll but I was afraid if I assumed so, and answered her in English, she might continue the conversation in French and I would be stumped for sure. And I had never seen her before, had no idea who she was! 

I was not terribly afraid, but confused, knowing that “I-ou’s-tu va avec” meant where are you going with, but that other word, catonne, I wondered: Was that a trick of a real witch, trying to trick me? I was very nervous and confused. 
I know now, in adult hindsight, there were better ways for me to let her know I was unfamiliar with the word catonne, but in my nervousness, I tried to get out of the situation by saying to her simply, “I don’t speak French”, meaning I cannot speak French. 

Well! Why did I not say, rather, I CANNOT speak French very well, then she might have understood and been less offended, but that was not the end of it by far! From then onward I was in very big trouble! All because of that Wyman Road ‘witch”!

~~~~~~~
Around that time, a man from West Pubnico, Desire d’Eon, started a wonderful little newspaper that he called Le Petit Courrier, which carried little news from many French-speaking communities. Every household subscribed, or borrowed and exchanged copies of it.  Grandmere would pass her copy to our parents when she was finished with it.  Our father or mother would stop in for it on their way home from town, or my brother and I would be sent to ask for it: always in FRENCH! 
Our mother helped us memorize what we were to say, and for me it was something like: “Grandmere, Mama vay le pity coor-yea, si voo plah.” 

So Grandmere would hand it to one of us, with a grunt of “tan” (or “tiens”).

One time our mother stopped in at Grandmere’s to see if she was finished with her Courrier, and she was.  But she gave my mother an earful and I got it after that when my mother said indignantly:

“The nerve of you acting so big feeling and telling Tante Rose when she met you on the road and asked you where you were going, that you stuck your nose up in the air and sassed her with --(and repeated to me with special un-dreamed of emphases)--: 
‘I - don’t SPEAK French!”

Ohh, ohh, what did I do now! And who was Tante Rose?!  Did we have a Tante Rose living down Wyman Road? Why didn’t somebody tell us that –  and so much more that we didn’t know?!

Grandmere was so indignant and said to my mother, who repeated it to me, and translated it for me:
 “Si a’n’ veut pas me parler en francais, je n’ lui parle plu!” 

And stubborn she was, and she never did speak to me again, except once when she was moving from Sand Beach to Halifax after the war started. 

She called my brother and me over to her house on our way home from St. Ambrose, and gave us each a small statue, my brother’s was of St Joseph and mine was our Holy Mary.  “Casse le point!” she said. 

I walked along the ditch, fell down and broke in two pieces my special souvenir of Grandmere! I became very said over that and blamed myself for everything bad that was happening all the time. Life was not fun any longer! What on earth was wrong!

I did get to my friend’s house down Wyman Road that day, but never had a chance to mention the ‘witch” because this little girl had been given a batch of quilt samples, pretty pieces of good quality cotton print. I loved them all!

Right away, she asked me which one I liked best. There was a beautiful material in white on top and I said the white one. “Nope, that’s mine; you have to pick a different one. 
This one?” I said “Nope”, and the game continued to the very last sample, and I still said nope, stubbornly. 

And she, just as stubborn, said “Alright, then “git home”! So I took my doll and went straight home and that was the last of my trips down Wyman Road until our new baby sister was born in December 1940. That time some of our cousins took in my brother and me for the duration and gave us lovely home made strawberry jam, all we wanted! Unforgettable!

''Yes, we were a stubborn lot and I vowed to myself that one day before I die I am going to learn French and be able to understand it, even on the radio, to speak it, to read and if possible, to write in French!

In 1989 I started learning French conversation and continued taking various French courses until 1994 when I had been studying in Moncton for the summer and stayed on for the Congres Mondial acadien! "

My husband and youngest daughter came over from PEI and we stayed in Moncton and took in as much of the amazing Congres as possible. 

At the very end, after the Grand Spectacle, which was so wonderful, so unforgettable, we were leaving the grounds with a huge throng of Acadians from all around the world. It was dark by then and with the crowd one could hardly see the ground. My feet got caught in something, and when I told my husband to wait, he bent over and picked up a very large cloth banner that had in big bold letters: SURETTE!

Tears came into the eyes of both of us, my brown French eyes and my husband’s blue Irish eyes! And he said to me with great emotion: 

“Marie, this is your Grandmother, 
Rosalie Surette Doucette saying that now, at last, she’s proud of you!” 

That was my biggest healing moment! I knew Grandmere and Tante Rose not only understood, from their lofty vantage point, but also were happy that our Mother Tongue is still alive and well, and so easy for me now! 

At that moment I felt so close to Grandmere and I knew that I was now ready to do research on our Acadian ancestors, now that I could read our story in our mother tongue! 

More than that, I am extremely grateful that our grandparents were so stubborn as to insist that we not lose our French language, and that we know how to communicate in French.

Tante Rose had been a Muise, and she was married to a brother of Grandpere Theodore. I learned that from the Wedgeport book, but that book is in English, whereas the new book of Pubnico families (2010) comes to us in French, but now I usually never notice the difference, whether I’m reading English or French! 

How grateful I am for Grandmere and for the opportunities given me to learn what was lost so early in life. 
Sincerely, Marie

At Easter time in the 1930s school was closed during Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter Monday.  When we became old enough to go to school, for days before the school break we had colored Easter baskets and eggs, cut them out and brought them home to give to our parents as a surprise Easter card.

Most families went to the special church services held all through the week in various Christian denominations. Stores were closed on Good Friday and people who were not able to go to church prayed in their homes, trying to keep silence, especially from noon to three o’clock, the hours when Jesus hung dying on the cross. Most Christians who were able, in a spirit of penance and renewal, had given up eating certain foods such as meat and sweets from Ash Wednesday until Holy Saturday, the vigil of the great feast of Easter. 

What joy when that great day arrived!  Easter eggs, real eggs! Hens had started laying and eggs were plentiful, and to our delight, children were told that on Easter morning we were free to eat as many of them as we wanted.  Excitedly, we ‘talked big’, saying that --if Easter ever got here– we were going to eat five or six eggs, but most of us were stunted after only two of the soft boiled wonders. At a very young age we called boiled eggs ‘coque-coques’, and I can still hear our father and mother coaching us to “mange ton coque-coque.”

One year, probably 1935, Grandpere and Grandmere had bought us each a little white porcelain egg cup that had a thin gold line around it, real gold, we believed. How precious and lasting a gift it was! And how exciting it was for us, as we got older, to have a special little holder for our egg at Easter.

Another year our father bought us each a small cup and saucer that was filled with small Easter candies. The whole thing, saucer and all, was wrapped in cellophane that was either pink, mauve, yellow or pale green.  One year our mother gave each of us a small fluffy yellow toy chick that had orange wire feet and could be made to stand up.  They looked like the real chicks our father had in the incubator down in the hennery. They had bright and shiny little black eyes and orange beak.  Our mother said they were so cute she wanted to buy them for us, and she bought some marshmallow filled candy eggs which we found in a bowl on the dining room table. Those were delightful Easter gifts and so treasured by us for many years. 

I recall thinking about our parents and grandparents, and wondering how they –as “old people”-- would know what would be the right gift for us children.  How would they know what little gifts would delight us? They never seemed very interested in children’s things, but at Easter they seemed to know somehow the best way to reach the hearts of little ones, reach them in a way that would last a lifetime, long after they themselves had passed on.  Those are a few of the heartfelt gifts we receive in life from those who love us, and whom we hold forever in our dearest memories.

Mothers everywhere made sure all their little girls had a new dress or skirt and blouse, new socks and a Easter bonnet or pretty hat to wear to church Easter Sunday morning.  Sometimes new outfits were home made, and some items of children’s wear could be purchased at the Royal Store, while ankle socks and hair ribbons could be found in the Five-&-Ten, up town. Main Street in Yarmouth was a busy and happy place to visit on shopping day, it was like mile long meeting place because most shoppers in town knew one another.

Each year at church the boys looked so handsome in their new white shirts, little neckties and neatly pressed short pants and knee socks. Their shining hair was neatly parted and combed over to one side. How on earth these rough and tumble fellows were able to look and act so gentlemanly for a whole day was always a puzzle for timid little me, as I wondered: “If they can be so civil on Easter Sunday, how come they are so rough and rowdy all the rest of the year?” Already as a young child I was learning very gradually about how our daddy had got to be so big and strong, and eventually I began to see that it was all OK, that everything was as it is supposed to be.

Everybody was all ‘decked out’ for Easter.  For church, all the mothers wore a pretty hat, dress and Spring coat, and were imitated by their daughters. In those days mothers often “made-do” with their last year’s Easter wardrobe in order to provide better for their children.

Our father was one of the choir members at St Ambrose. He would take us up in the choir loft with him when our mother had to stay home with the little ones.  The singing was beautiful Gregorian chant, especially the Gloria, when the bells rang, statues were un-draped of their lenten purple, flowers everywhere, and liturgical singing nearly all in Latin. Some psalms were sung in lovely harmony, all male voices. I especially loved Vespers and hearing the Magnificat by men of the parish. It was so special to hear this music, to see the beautifully ornate vestments, the sacred vessels, the lighted candles and the pervading smell of incense from the censer (or thurible) that were used at evening Benediction. Those were times of greatest awe and wonder, and the lasting effects of it all are most difficult to describe in plain language. All this went together so well with our pleasant walk home back to Sand Beach with our father, on a dry and smooth dirt sidewalk and on a most perfect Spring evening.
Daffodils and crocuses here and there and Spring Peepers out singing their praises in harmony with the season.

After dinner, on Easter afternoon neighbour children gathered on the front doorsteps and started telling one another about our special morning. One boy told of snaring rabbits and of having eaten rabbit pie for dinner! A small girl cried out: “You ATE the Easter Bunny?!” We were so serious about everything but we were still learning about life around us, new things every day!
This is enough for now. Happy Easter Everyone!
Marie

Date: 2/23/2010
Comments: Horton House, Sand Beach in early 1930s

My two brothers and I were ages 5, 3 & 1 when our family moved into the Horton House in Sand Beach in the Spring of 1934, and there we lived, explored, grew up and learned new things until May 1941 when our father was transferred to Halifax by Canada Customs.

Someone said a Mr. Fisher had been living there before us, and he had a little store in the front room facing the dirt road; the room with the ‘store’ was at the north side of the house.  The large empty room still had some removable shelves standing up against the rear wall, and on the bottom shelf we children found a delightful surprise, a small flat box that contained new green packages of Doublemint gum –a whole boxful!  We had never seen gum before, but my elder brother and I liked the minty smell and taste. We chewed but it would not dissolve, so we swallowed gobs of it and went for more –until our mother caught us with the empty wrappers, and our new-found fun vanished in an instant –never to be repeated. When we were older our dad made spruce gum from trees which made for healthier and stronger teeth.
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There was so much to explore, inside and outside.  The house had three exits and two entry ways: front door toward the road, side door toward the back yard, and another exit-way from the back porch down to the woodshed where winter wood was kept and where kindling wood was cut each evening, also a 3-seater outhouse –a lower seat for small children.  Still under the same indoor passage-way a little further on, there was a milking stall with place for milking stool and milk pails.

There was a “hennery” (a place “used to house domestic fowl”), which was a long well-ordered building that held our dad’s several dozen Plymouth Rock hens of which he was so proud -- some gray and some white-- and it had special round incubators for hatching chicks, and places for gathering fresh eggs, sometimes double-yolked ones, to our added delight.
There was a separate larger barn down toward pasture, with spaces for a horse stall, cows, pig pen, garden plow, grass mower, scythes, cart, wheelbarrow, and whatever else came with the place.  The hennery had many windows all along the south side of the long structure. How tempting it was for a child heading to the meadow for blueberries, long-handled dipper in hand, to bat out several of those more reachable small panes of glass!  And how keenly felt, a few swats with said dipper across a small boy's corduroy covered bottom! Part of his restitution was to help soften with his little hands, lots of smelly putty our father used for securing replacements.  At times on rainy days we would play in woodshed, or inside the entrance to the hennery, but our most fun was inside the house itself on those days.

 [There are still some places “Up the Bay” around Church Point and those older places that have a covered structure from the house to the main barn, all under the one extended roof, and over the decades those structures always reminded me of the Horton place in Sand Beach in the early 1930s.]
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In season, the stonewall that separated the back yard from the pasture and meadow, was covered with beautifully perfumed climbing Honeysuckle, and later on, large juicy blackberries. In front of the stone wall was an apple tree that produced a profusion of sweet-smelling apple blossoms every Spring. Often I climbed on top of the stone wall and studied the blossoms very closely for a long time.
I came to know the beauty God gave these simple creatures, not only their beauty in shape, structure and colour, but especially their captivating scent.

These were all new experiences for us children; the universe was opening up to us a little at a time and it was so beautiful and exciting, inspired in us such wonder and awe.  Before long we were old enough to notice our first yard full of yellow dandelion and later on an abundance of daisies and then golden buttercup.  The meadow was almost carpeted in spots with lovely purple violets, and down along the rocky and dusty road the ditches were lined with rainbow shades of tall and majestic lupins! They looked like slender princesses in their glorious pastel gowns. 
 [In case the reader thinks my description is too one-sided, too idyllic, I must say there were the uglier experiences too, such as getting hen droppings on our clothes, or worse, that of cats! sneakers stuck in cow flats, June bugs upstairs in the house, mouse in the porch in a rubber boot! Spankings for disobedience, mischief, or for fighting with one another, for being “sassy” and for sticking out our tongue at a temporarily un-favorite adult after some confrontation, and so on! But everybody goes through that other natural side of life, so that here we portray some balance, perhaps.]

When we were old enough to go to school, we saw in places along the roadway long stretches of friendly alders from which some very fine whistles and pea-shooters were made. The ‘peas’ for the shooters grew by the wayside as well, little “bee-bees” the tiny seeds were called, and most boys kept a pocket full of them. Some called them “mouse peas”.  (Picture is of Beach Peas)
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Click  To Enlarge Picture

The boy on the pony was one of the Jenkins children. Zeno and I visited them and that's the time they gave us some of the rose bush, and Mrs Jenkins kindly gave us this lovely picture. It shows the back of the big square house Grandpa Theodore Doucette lived in and where my father, Wallace, grew up, so I was delighted to have this picture.  That picture was given me in the 1970s by Mrs Jenkins, whose family was living in the big house in Sand Beach that my grandparents had lived in from 1912 until the onset of the second world war in 1939

Horton House, Sand Beach in early 1930s Part 2

Our Jersey cow gave all the milk, cream, butter and buttermilk needed for our family. We children watched in awe while our father, and sometimes our mother, milked the gentle "Bossy" who looked at us with her big brown eyes. We children were taught to respect the three-legged stool that our father kept hanging way up high on a spike ever since the day he had to hunt for it. We had taken it for our makeshift play house in the woodshed. Other spikes there held an interesting assortment of old horseshoes, pieces of rope, leather harness and whatnot.

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Our dad had an iron "last", or shoe form, for repairing leather shoes for all the family, and many a time we watched as he tacked on a new leather half-sole over the old one that had a hole worn right through it. The iron last had two sizes, one side for adult shoes and the other end for children's and ladies’ small sizes. It was such a treat to have new soles on our worn shoes, and new hard rubber "lifts" put on the run-down heels. For us it was better than having a brand new pair.

Mostly everything one can name, that was in every day use, was hand made in those days, including furniture, and clothing, so every homestead had tools and whatever was needed to work with in order to produce all that was required. 

Meals were cooked at home and ordinarily all the family ate together seated around the kitchen table, which was so welcoming with its pretty flowered oilcloth. But on Sundays in summertime and during Christmas time and special days, our family usually ate in the dining room with its large table covered with a special linen tablecloth. Both parents were good cooks, but especially our father who, at a young age, had apprenticed at hotels and restaurants in Boston,.

For dessert on Sundays our mother would cut up a bowl of orange sections and sprinkle sugar over them, a very special treat. Other special days there might be each a piece of cake or dish of bread pudding, all made in the oven of our big iron kitchen stove. 

[I cannot resist stating an opinion now, in 2010, that no cake or pudding of today, in fact no meal whatsoever, tastes as good and rich and wholesome as those made in the 1930s. In fact, nothing we call food today tastes anything like real food as we knew it before the war when everything produced was still pure and simple.]

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The Horton House must have been quite elegant in its early days, and seemingly built for a well-to-do family. Inside, there were two sets of stairs, back and front. The back stairs off the kitchen led to servants quarters above, while the front led to the master’s quarters. A magnificent front stairway boasted a shapely wide railing –one that we children would find perfect for sliding down! The stair steps ended in a wide curve at the bottom and the fancy railing followed suit. It ended in a circular form, leaving a flat round stand upon which an arriving gentleman could momentarily set his hat while removing his overcoat –or, upon which a child could sit after having slid down the rail to the bottom, before leaping with a thump to the hall floor.

Under the front stairway was a spacious closet with large shelves but no light, so when the door was closed it was very dark inside, and a nice hiding place. Former tenants had stored there several dozens of wonderful magazines. When I discovered those, I would go un-noticed to sit in there for a long time, leaving the door open just enough to see the colored pictures in those magazines, one after another.

One day my mother tried to punish me for being disobedient, so she sent me into that closet and closed the door –until I would apologize, which I stubbornly refused to do. She said she would leave me there until I conformed, which I was determined I would not do. 

I was not afraid, because the place was so familiar to me, and those magazines I considered my friends, so I pulled them from their stacks and spread them all over the closet floor and lay down on top of them and was ready to spend the rest of my life there, I thought. 

After a while, my mother. curious about my silence, opened the door a bit and peeped in and saw me lying there contented. She ordered me to re-stack the magazines, which I started doing just because I wanted to. The door remained open and the whole issue was soon forgotten.

[The big "issue" was that we children were just beginning to learn English. Too young for school, we had to pick up the language of our neighbours from their children. 

One neighbour girl told me my "yes" was too Frenchy-sounding. She coached me: "Don’t say ‘yiss’or "yess", say ya-ass! 

So I learned to say ya-ass, but my mother did not like the sound of that pronunciation one bit, so she told me to say "yes". But I would not, thinking it sounded "too Frenchy", and I could not understand her disdain for my way of saying it. 

So she would leave me in the dark magazine closet under the main stairs, until I would say "yes". I would not make myself sound Frenchy on purpose, and risk being ridiculed for it by neighbourhood children.

I think perhaps children instinctively obey peers rather than parents where there is conflict of popular opinion. Anyway, by the time I was a student at school I dropped the ya-ass and learned to say yes like everybody else. 

And in order to be able to read my Acadian history, I had to study hard to learn French (for the first time)–which I did do with firm determination after a fierce struggle with Grandmere Rosalie who insisted I speak in French or she would not talk to me any more. But I could not speak French and she didn’t believe it, so that, broken-hearted over Grandmere’s stubbornness, I, with equal stubbornness vowed to study French one day, which I did do in later years. All my thanks to Grandmere Rosalie Doucette!]

I think now that my mother was secretly proud of me for being more stubborn than she was! That is my main and fond vivid memory of the front hall closet under the big stairway.

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While the front hall stairs went up to the large and bright rooms in the front part of the house, a narrow closed-in one from the back porch took one up to the servant quarters toward the back. My parents used some of those rooms for storing trunks and suitcases and other things they were keeping for use at some future time. Also, it was a great place for us children to play Farm, Soldiers, or Chinese checkers and Jacks, or color in our coloring books when we couldn’t be outside. My own favorite playthings were dolls and paper dolls, tea sets and coloring books. My brothers liked what they called "funny books" (comic books) and Big-Little books. 

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The Horton house had two fine pantries, the regular large one just off the kitchen, with space for a barrel of flour and large breadboard, breadbox, and all the necessary cooking and baking supplies. Cookware was hung up on special hooks that were fastened to sturdy boards high up on the wall that kept the pots and pans visible and handy, yet out of the way.

There was also what we children learned was called a "butler’s pantry". It was between the kitchen and the dining room. We asked lots of questions about butlers and why a man had a pantry, but we still could not identify with any of it, but it was fascinating for our imagination.

?

We were satisfied that we had access to this pantry’s two wonderful swinging doors. The door next to the kitchen had a small cut-out door with a slide opener and a small shelf just large enough for a platter of food, The door that swung into the dining room had a small peep hole affair at average height for the butler to peer through to keep watch over every need and desire of his table guests. All this I tucked away in memories, and they are still there, only to resurface now, for some strange reason! Mainly thanks to this wonderful website that gives me such freedom to tell my Horton House Story "as is". 

We children heard stories about wealthy people having lived there and were served by a hired butler and at least one maid. Servants could walk from the kitchen and through the butler pantry with trays of prepared meals, right into dining room without having to stop to turn a door knob. They only had to slip through them somehow, tray held high and steady.

The shelves in the butler pantry were wide and deep, and in times gone by they surely held a variety of fine chinaware sets, goblets, silverware, linens, white cotton gloves, candles, wines, and so on. The floor had a hatch that led to a small wine cellar down under the floor where it was cool.

When our family lived there, the varnished shelves, cabinets and drawers were empty, and the place was dark. There was a light bulb hanging from the ceiling on a length of yellowish asbestos-covered and twisted electrical cord, and the light had a beaded pull chain. But there was no light, no electric hookup when we were there, we had only kerosene lamps and candles. The kitchen had electric switch buttons on the wall near two of the doors, the top button was white, and when it was pushed in, the light was supposed to go on. The black button just below the white one was to shut off the light. Try as we might, we could not get those buttons to work, no matter how many times we pushed those buttons in. Now another story, one of my favorite memories, and it too takes in the butler pantry!

When one of the new babies came along –about 1936 in the summertime, our other Grandma, Mary Elizabeth Amirault, came from Center East Pubnico to Sand Beach to stay with us for a few days. During that time a powerful thunderstorm arose, something Grandma did not like one bit, and it made her very nervous. She looked for a place without windows where she could wait out the storm. She took me with her, took a stool for her to sit on and I had the highchair, because I was only five.. Our arms rested on the top of the buffet counter where Grandma had placed a lighted candle that was kept in a metal holder. She put that in front of her and took from her purse a small bottle of holy water and her rosary beads, blessed herself, sprinkled everything with holy water, and started to pray in French while I sat there in silence with her, and without moving. Sometimes the crashing sound would interrupt her prayer and I’d hear her counting, cinq, six, sept, to see if the storm was still coming or going away. 

We saw none of the bright flashes of lightning but the thunder boomed and echoed for miles out over the Atlantic from whence it came. I wonder if it was that day when I absorbed her phobia that lasted for several decades, until I decided how useless it is to be afraid of it or to worry about it. That is my most vivid memory of the butler’s pantry in the Horton House in Sand Beach.

Horton House, Sand Beach in early 1930s Part 3
 

The kitchen and dining room had access to each other through other doors as well. It was a most interesting house for us children to explore!

The dining room when we lived there was my favorite place, perhaps because it had become our family room. In winter a heat stove called a "base burner" that looked like a pot-bellied stove, kept the whole room, and us, warm and comfortable. My first memory of it was the time my father carried me downstairs wrapped in a blanket, and settled me down in a highchair just a few feet from the base burner. He came from the kitchen with a saucer of warm porridge and placed it on the little tray. As I awkwardly spooned in the porridge I kept watching the little square shaped isinglass windows on the stove door. These were brightly glowing mica squares that brightened reddish and almost to a whiteness when the fire inside the stove was its hottest. That stove could radiate tremendous heat, and we children were taught to keep our distance from it. 

The dining room’s main feature was the beautiful bay window. It was a favorite place to stand and watch snow or rain coming down, or on a windy day to watch hundreds of daisies bending over in the fields. 

Raindrops made small rivulets on the window pane as new drops clung to other drops and ran down as fast as a mouse could run! 

Snowflakes were fascinating to study through the double windows in winter. Jack Frost (we were told) painted beautiful fairy patterns on the glass on frigid days. Everything was so delightful when we were just becoming aware and noticing new and interesting things for the first time.

The dining room was the place where we celebrated Christmas and all ‘twelve days’ and more. What a surprise for us on Christmas morning. Without us suspecting, our dad had brought a big tree from the woods, and set it up on the 24th, when he and our mother decorated it with the most fascinating glass ornaments one could imagine! There was shiny tinsel and many pipe-cleaner Santas of all colors. Usually, in those days, gentlemen cleaned their smoking pipes with those sturdy white pipe cleaners, but these small, fuzzy and skinny Santas were made of the same material and came in all colors, purple, pink, yellow, red, blue, green, white and so on. And we found them hiding all over the tree, also candy canes and round popcorn balls that were wrapped in colorfully designed wax paper. On the floor under the tree were a great assortment of new toys, which gave us children great delight.

The dining room fireplace must have been connected at one time to that of the parlor or what we called the front room of the house, toward the road. The fireplaces had been closed in, and were back to back from each other on the wall that divided the two rooms. There were two tall and spacious chimney closets in the dining room, one on either side of the fireplace. That’s where Santa had stored in advance some of the gifts, thinking surely they would not be discovered there before Christmas. Both fireplaces had a very large mantle piece upon which sat a special parlor clock that had been wedding gifts to our parents only six or seven years earlier. On the parlor mantle piece stood a couple of naked celluloid Kewpie dolls because, much to my chagrin, a gift that was too fragile to be played with. (That was one of the more sorrowful memories for me,)

Christmas time was so wonderful in the Horton House! Barely noticed were the big dining room table that was made to be extended even longer, and eight lovely chairs with their high backs that had been carved in beautiful designs, dark stained and varnished. Two or three oil lamps were placed on that table when we spent evenings there. 

Some years, for greater convenience, we had our meals in the kitchen where it was always warm from the big stove. Our parents prepared special Christmas meals, but we children were not very hungry because we had opened our stockings that Santa had filled and left hanging under the mantle piece above the fireplace. We were busy playing with our toys most of the day.

Our Uncle Harry, not yet married then, spent a few Christmases with us, and always he brought a large brown paper bag filled with delicious peanuts in the shells. He would hang the bag high up on the door frame, and we could have some if we could reach them! The highchair was the solution, and down came the bag, peanuts and all. We sat on the big couch with our kind and gentle uncle, responding to his teasing, listening to his stories and spreading peanut shells all over the place, leaving one more job for our mother. 

After supper, toward evening when lamps were lit, our mother would take out a box that held many special Christmas greeting cards from relatives and friends from many places. What a joy it was to see those beautifully decorated cards and to hear our mother read the messages and letters! Each one was different and special, some with red velour, lacy paper, cut-out and pop-up cards for children, some with colored crinkled cellophane, sparkley snow, windows, stars, and pictures of all kinds. Some had wonderful big Santa Claus and sleigh on them, also reindeer. Some had baby Jesus in the manger. 

I had a special fascination for colored pictures, and for greeting cards, and that trait holds to this day. Every one seems to be, for me, a kind of ‘presence’ of the sender, and they are so special that I cannot throw them out. (I don’t understand what caused me to become so sentimental –but if I were not, I surely would not be sitting here writing all this stuff! ..smile: ).

Those memories are unforgettable because of the delight they held for us at that time when we lived in the Horton House. Those are real memories of our time spent there in the large dining room.

The front room toward the south side of the house was darkish and seldom used, perhaps only for summer visitors from the States. We children were not allowed to play in there. For me it contained a drab and dark colored velour sofa and two matching chairs, a few uninteresting occasional tables, old fashioned lace doilies, old style lamps and vases, window curtains and thick drapes on both windows, and a square on the floor like a Persian rug –the most boring and uninspiring room in the whole house, I felt. It was all too ancient and too quiet and mysterious, surely a remnant from someone’s musty past. Had it at one time been a smoking room, or what? In its favor, I can say that it was a convenience at times when one wanted to see up or down the road.

Across the hall from it had been the delightful shop or store, with the shelves, which our father took down in order to make it a lovely bedroom with new paint and wallpaper, even a new flowered linoleum square on the floor. We are told that this special room was the birthplace of one sibling.

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While we were living at the Horton House, our family had increased by four more children by the end of 1940, making it seven of us instead of the original three. As we were growing up, our curiosity never waned. One day my brother and I sneaked up into the attic to see what was up there. We carefully climbed a small wooden stair-like ladder, and that was risky, not so bad going up, but scary trying to get back down. After watching my brother a few times I tried but had to call and wait till our mother came and rescued me. Mother was not very interested in hearing our account of what was up there: a very nice Charlie McCarthy made of solid rubber and painted in bright colors. There was no sign of Edgar Bergen, the ventriloquist, but we were not as familiar with him as with his voice and puppet, Charlie. There was a pretty sewing basket made of masonite fibreboard with a few flowers hand painted on the outside. It had a high carrying handle and two flaps, one on each side of the handle that opened up on small hinges. It was nicely made, and likely made by a student or apprentice at one of the schools or work places. I opened it and was so pleased to see some very interesting sewing articles inside, especially colored threads and embroidery floss, small cloth measuring tape in a round case, small pair of scissors, a thimble and some needles in a little pin cushion. Santa had left that there for safe keeping and he put it under the tree for me that Christmas, to my greatest delight! My brother and I were attending Sand Beach school where some of the older girls had started a sewing club which all the girls were expected to join. I was fascinated at what could be done with just a needle and thread! What a wonderful discovery it was for me! I could hardly wait to learn how to construct a garment of some kind, even the simplest thing like a small purse or marble bag. A sewing teacher came once a week to show us new things, and even the youngest were permitted to learn to make embroidered daisies with French knots in the centers. This was a wonderful new world of creative delight that opened up for me, one I never let go of! I never forgot Mrs. Lydia Hayes, our sewing teacher. She came with pretty cloth to encourage us to enjoy sewing, and besides that, she helped with other little student activities, such as coaching us to sing carols for the Christmas concert which was a highlight of the year, not only for our school but also for the whole community.

When the second world war was declared, everything changed. Children saved pennies and collected all kinds of lead to bring to school so that it could be donated to help the "war effort". Mothers, especially those who were members of the Women’s Institute, began studying First Aid, learning to dress wounds, to make slings and all their little guide book contained. They knitted many skeins of khaki wool items for soldiers who were being drafted overseas. Some knit sweaters, others socks, mittens, gloves and scarves, all in that khaki color which children didn’t find very pretty, and some gave the color nicknames, with words that most of us were not allowed to use!

The War changed many things, and quite suddenly. For example, our father was buying the Horton House and wanted to raise his family there. He loved the country place, the animals, and all Nature.

He scraped and painted the whole house himself in a very nice light buff color, planted beautiful flower beds of sweet Williams, marigolds, forget-me-nots, pansies and other flowers besides his row of tall, large and glorious dahlias that I remember being in full bloom all along the white picket fence he made. He also made a very nice lawn swing that had seats enough to hold all of us children and our mother too, and painted it light buff like the house. He had done all this lovely work for his family to grow up in Sand Beach, when all of a sudden he was notified that he was being transferred to Halifax by Canada Customs for the duration of the war! Life was never the same again for any of us, but that is the same basic story of so many other families in the Maritime provinces.

What we were not able to take with us was disposed of and our father made a big bonfire to burn more than any of us wanted to part with, but it was wartime, and soon men would be leaving families and jobs, ration books with food cupons were to be issued and we were asked to buy victory bonds and all went toward the war effort.

There was time to take one picture to mark the year and month of our departure from our beloved Horton House. The picture was taken in the front yard, between those nice pillars that had been topped with the round wooden balls or post-tops that would spin and shake and rattle, making weird-sounding ghost-warbles in the wind, and would scare us children at night.

Our mother dressed our baby sister who was born just before Christmas, and in the picture was four and a half months old. I was wearing my new black shoes, blue knee socks and blue tam that were bought for me to wear for the trip to Dartmouth.

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Picture

Picture of Marie holding Joan age 4 ½ months, May 1941 on front doorstep of the Horton House, Sand Beach, our last day there.

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I could write a lot more, but this is enough for now.

God bless, 

Marie
 
 

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 

 I received the old picture of Grandpa's house in Sand Beach from Dad's sister, my aunt Rosabelle {Doucette} Snarr. 

She and my father were close in age, -two of the younger bunch in the family, so they grew up there, practically. They went to South End School and then to the Yarmouth Academy I think it was.

This picture of the Theodore Doucette home in Sand Beach was from the collection of his daughter, "Rosabelle" (Doucette) Snarr. 

Grandpere Theodore moved there in 1912, He died in November 1935. Grandmere Rosalie (Surette) Doucette remained there until wartime when she and youngest son Ellis moved to Halifax, where Rosalie died in 1946.

The Horton house picture was snapped by my husband-to-be in June 1954. The window that is just above my head in that picture was my bedroom window when I was growing up.

The "old" Yarmouth Light used to shine in that window most nights! When it was not shining, the foghorn was sounding its descending moan.

My brothers slept in the room with the window at the front, right next to my room. Outside that window there was a high railing around the turret or balcony, and we sometimes climbed out that window, which was several feet directly below the peak of the house. We climbed out on that little roof until our mother would catch us and warn us never to open that window again. 

But that railing has been gone for a long time now. On that fenced-in balcony there were two corner posts, each topped with a round wooden ball or cap. When these caps became old and weather-worn , they became like a hollow shell. The wind used to make them spin round and round at various speeds, slowly for a while, then spinning wildly in the stronger gusts and gales. The rattling sound of those two wooden shells spinning erratically on the posts, together with sounds of the howling wind in the trees and past the windows, made eerie and fearsome sounds in our young ears. 

Our mother reassured us right away, saying something like, "Oh, Daddy is going out there on a fine day and take care of those loose tops on the posts so you won’t hear them spinning in the wind any more. That’s all it is, now go to sleep."  We closed our eyes, and next thing we knew, we were awakening to another beautiful Sand Beach morning.
Marie
 

This is a picture of the house Grandfather Theodore Doucette's lived in from 1912 until his death in November 1935. It was on the left side of the road going toward town, and about five places up from the Horton House.

I forget if I ever knew who had the place before Grandfather moved in from Wedgeport with his very large family. The older ones in the family were adults while the younger set attended South End School in town. My father, Wallace Peter Doucette was age 6 when they moved in there. 

A few years ago I met the Jenkins family who were living in that house and they kindly dug up some roots of "Grandpa’s climbing roses" for us and we have those few roots transplanted and growing near our own house in PEI. marie
 
 

marie

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