Memoir by Margaret Laughlin Given McGee 1862-1955

Christmas, 1947, and I am 85 years old today. I am going to reverse my policy of looking forward at life, and instead I am going to take a backward glance and for a little while live with my memories which are both rich and satisfying.

I have had a very busy life; being the eldest of a family of ten, it left me little time to get into mischief and less time to try and wriggle out without the inevitable punishment. I was born on a little farm in Georgetown, Ontario near Toronto. It was a very comfortable and cozy place, and I can now see why my Mother was loathe to leave it and go north to the woods and help my Father start a new farm on the Bruce Peninsula.

The fall before I was six years old, the Canadian Government opened up some Indian territory in the Bruce Peninsula north of Wiarton, putting the Indians on a reservation on Cape Croker. My Father and my Uncle Andrew Weir each bought 140-acre farms. By that time my parents were the proud possessors of four little girls, Margaret, Fannie, Mary and Susan. Uncle Andrew had three boys and a girl. We must have made a most peculiar looking cavalcade as we went into Toronto and took the train to Collingwood where we got aboard a boat for Wiarton, the nearest town to the little settlement, later to be called Mar. Father, who had a marvelous sense of humor, must have had a good laugh to himself as his family, not so little anymore, climbed on to the train in the city. Of course, there were the big carpet bags holding most of our clothing being carried by Father. Being the oldest, I was entrusted with the big package which held the lunch. Mother carried the baby and the other children, no matter how small, each had her little burden. Father would see the funny part of it, but Mother, who was the very essence of dignity, didn’t think there was anything amusing in the situation. In all the years to come, through all the work, frustration, worry and sorrow, Mother never lost this inborn dignity, and this very dignity is her priceless heritage to me. When Mother went to town or to church, she and all of us were neatly and appropriately dressed, even if Mother’s little bonnet was years old and her little cape had been turned and relined many times, she walked as if she were clothed in ermine.

It was a warm day in late summer when we traveled to Wiarton and I can’t help thinking now how much more comfortable we girls would have been, dressed in tee-shirts and shorts instead of in our long black hand knit woolen stockings, high top shoes, underwear, innumerable underskirts, long-sleeved high-necked ankle length dresses, wool lined capes and velvet poke bonnets. Heat and all discomfort were forgotten in the wonder of our first train ride. Susan and I were fascinated by the crowds, the noise and the belching smoke, and we felt quite superior and a little sorry for Mary and Fannie because they were so little and slept so much of the time, for which my Mother was no doubt, very thankful. We remembered about all the excitement and told everyone who would listen about it many times, but we were well into our teens before the railroad line was extended to Wiarton and we saw a train again.

It was quite a little company that arrived at Wiarton that bright fall day. There were Uncle Andrew, Aunt Mary, and their four children, Johnny, Andrew, Willie and tiny Janet, Mother, Father and their four girls. We all went to a boarding house in Wiarton where we stayed for a couple of days, while Father and Uncle Andrew were making arrangements to hire a team of oxen to take our furniture to the settlement later to be called “Mar”.

The following day Father and Uncle loaded the wagon with the furniture and as many provisions as it would hold, and it started out for Mar. The day after the wagon left, the two families started out on the eight mile walk to their future home. We really must have been hardy souls as each child was held responsible for some necessary article. I can still see us leaving Wiarton, Uncle Andrew carrying Willie and a sack of flour, Auntie with a bag of groceries and Janet, Johnnie carrying an axe, Andrew carried flour, Father carried Mary and a carpet bag, Mother carrying Fannie, the baby and a sack of sugar. I have since wondered how many pounds were in that sack, but by the time I was old enough to be curious, everyone else had forgotten how big the sack was. Susan carried a lantern, and I was entrusted with a large basket filled with fresh baked bread. It was a brave little procession but before the end of our journey I must have been too tired to think or remember what happened on our arrival at Mr. White’s farm.

I do recall waking early the next morning and looking down through the cracks in the floor on which we had been sleeping and seeing the men at breakfast in the kitchen below.

In Mar, at the time we settled there, there were two families, the Whites and the Cranes. There were four White brothers, John, Matthew, Edward and Alec. The Crane brothers were Tom and Dick. I am telling you about the families because at no time in our life in Mar were we without the kindness and thoughtfulness of these wonderful people.

The farm comprised about 140 acres bordering on Sky Lake. It was a lovely place of rolling hills and beautiful trees. In places it was rather rocky, but these stones were put to good use either as a fence or supports for the sturdy rail fence.

We stayed at White’s until Father and Uncle Andrew had cut the logs and built the two cabins. That fall was a busy time for all of us. We children had to gather moss and pile it up so that Mother could fill the cracks between the logs with it. We had to work fast as cold weather set in early that year and the snow soon drove Mother and us girls into the shelter of the cabin. Father had to get the wood cut into stove lengths and piled handy to the house. This cabin was one big room, fourteen feet wide and eighteen feet long. It had a slanting roof similar to the shed roofs of today. The door was in the middle of one side and there was a window at each end. Split cedar shakes were used for shingles and the door of cedar shakes was fastened to the frame with strap hinges.

We were lucky in that no well had to be dug that winter as Father had built the house on a little rise of ground at the edge of Sky Lake. In spite of all the work that we put in the house it was not what you would call comfortable. About all you could say was that it kept out part of the wind and was a roof over our heads. In the fall the rain beat in through the cracks in the walls and when the snow began it came in too. Many are the mornings we would wake up to hear Father say, “Now you girls lie quiet there till I get the fire going then I will take the snow off your beds.” After the fire was roaring Father would come and take the top quilt off each bed very carefully and step over near the door and shake the snow off and hang them over a chair near the stove to dry. Then he would sweep all the snow out the door.

Father worked hard that winter clearing the land so that it would be ready for the spring planting. Some of the logs were brought near to the house and carefully piled in order that a barn be built as soon as possible. Mother was kept busy keeping that fire going with the green wood, her cooking, mending and the ever-present knitting.

In the evenings Father and Mother taught us to read, write and do our numbers. No school was available until I was 8 years old. As soon as we older girls could read, we were teachers also. We had a large slate and slate pencil, and we took turns doing our “sums” on it.

In the spring a fairly large field was ready for planting as was the vegetable garden near the house. We did not have as great a variety of vegetables as we do today, but we did have plenty of potatoes, turnips, onions and cabbage. Our first harvest was abundant considering the small acreage that was planted. Father took the wheat to Oxenden mill and had it ground into flour, bringing back not only the flour but bran and shorts as well. No money was involved as Father paid the miller with wheat.

After that first year, time went too fast to be able to remember what happened each year, and as things became more familiar, the events which occurred in them were more easily forgotten. The memories are not reckoned by years now but are timed as “the year Rachel was born,” or “the year that Will was three.”

I remember the spring that Father went over to Dick Cranes and bought our first chickens and our cow. There was great excitement over the fluffy yellow chickens that were out running around the yard, and after a winter when we had milk only on rare occasions, the milk, cream and bit of butter were real treats. Sometime later when our cow had her first calf, we wanted to make a plaything out of it, but Father had other ideas. He realized that we needed a pet of some kind though so on his next trip to town he brought us a dog. Such a cute little fellow he was, and we called him Collie, though he most certainly was not a Collie, though he may have had a bit of Collie blood in him. He was a very frisky and lovable dog, and he was our pal for many years.

I still remember the morning that we went out to the barn to do our chores, and no Collie came running to meet us. We never saw him alive again, but in the spring when the ice went out of the lake Father found Collie on the shore. Someone had tied his legs together with cedar strings and had thrown him into the lake to drown. Who did it or why has always been a mystery as very few people passed by the farm and no strangers had been noticed in the neighborhood. It was purely an act of meanness as Collie never bothered anyone. We had several pets after that, including dogs, cats, baby lambs, and our big black crow but none ever took the place of Collie.

Father raised the calf for an ox as he needed the beast to help with the logging. When the ox was old enough to go to work, Father bought another ox and not only did his own logging but hired out to the other farmers to log and clear their land. The lumber mills were so far away that it was impossible to take the logs to the mills and so great piles of logs were burned after the clearing was done. No money was involved in these logging deals. Two men had to help Father roll out the logs and for one day that Father would work with his ox team, three days of manual labor was put in on our farm to pay for it. In this way Father got help with his logging and his work on the farm including the building of the barn and chicken house.

Wild game was plentiful, and the lake was full of fish, but we children were not old enough to go fishing and Father could not take any of his precious time to fish. Thus, we had no wild game as there was no money for guns and ammunition. I remember the flocks of wild pigeons that would fly as far north as Mar from the rookery near Guelph and would alight in the fields by the hundreds. It was the job of the younger children to keep the birds away from the grain fields. I often wonder with food so scarce, especially meat, why we didn’t kill some of these birds and use them for food. They were so thick that you could have killed as many as was necessary by throwing stones into the flock, but we never had any. Mother wasn’t trained for the kind of life where you had to take advantage of every supply of food and she was so busy raising her family and helping Father, that she had no time to experiment with the unknown. Later, as Father had more time, we had fish. Occasionally when neighbours would hunt wild duck on the lake, they would give us some.

Father and Mother had a big family by this time. Besides the four girls, Margaret (me), Susan, Mary and Fannie, there was Will, Sam and Martha. The winter after Sam was born, Mother had been down at the barn. The dogs were barking and making a big fuss. Mother called us to come out. Three deer had crossed Sky Lake on the ice and as watched they crossed the clearing near the house and disappeared into the woods. One day, Mother bringing the cows home from the upper pasture, saw a bear. Bears were plentiful on the Peninsula, but they didn’t come out in the cleared areas. These were the only wild animals around except rabbits.

Father had a chance to sell the farm for $25 down and $10 a month. I don’t remember, I don’t think I ever knew the total sale price, but in those days, land was not expensive. Father got a job in the shingle mill at Pike Bay. Rachel was born soon after we moved. Boats used to come into the harbour at Pike Bay from Southampton bringing supplies to the communities of the Upper Bruce Peninsula. The summer before we moved there a boat loaded with flour and barrels of lard was wrecked near shore by a severe storm. Many people at the Bay salvaged these barrels of lard and in order to keep the boat owners from reclaiming them, the barrels of lard were hidden in the huge sawdust piles at the sawmill.

We had a prosperous two years at Pike Bay. The work at the mill was not as hard as farming and Father, who was never a robust man, enjoyed it. The hours were long, six o’clock in the morning until six at night, but in the winter, it was eight until six.

This gave Father more time to spend with us at home because on the farm he was busy all the time. These good times did not last too long. The following year the sawdust pile at the mill caught fire, internal combustion, and as there were still many barrels of lard still hidden in the pile, the fire was much worse than it ordinarily should have been. The fire spread to the mill and surrounding buildings and into the big piles of lumber and shingles. Of course, there was no fire protection, and it was not long before practically half the town was burned out. Our house, at the edge of town, was not burned. We stayed up all night watching the fire spread from building to building. The saw dust smoldered for over a year and was a constant source of worry, as those hardy souls rebuilt the town and the mill.

The man who had bought the farm decided he wanted to go back to Toronto, so the farm came back to Father. After the fire we moved back to the farm. Father had done well at the mill at Pike Bay and had enough money saved to buy another cow and enlarge the house and the barn. At this time, we had 30 acres of land cleared.

Many new families were buying land and moving into the small settlement. The Youngs had bought the farm to the north of us. They had come from Ireland and settled in Philadelphia before moving to Mar. Mr. Young was Mrs. Cranes father.

The Youngs invited Mr. Given from Philadelphia to visit him. They had known each other both in Ireland and Philadelphia. Mr. Given saw the farms around Mar and fell in love with the country. He bought a huge tract of land on Berford Lake, built a house and sent for his family. They came in 1874 the year we were at Pike Bay. They had three boys, Rob, Jim and Nat and a daughter Lizzie. The three boys were working in a carpet mill, and all were anxious to get to their new home.

The year I was eight I went to school from early spring till school was out and in the fall until the snow got deep, usually in November. The school was four miles away and as we had to walk and the lanes were not plowed, the children that lived any distance from the school had to drop out after the first snow because adequate clothing was lacking, particularly shoes. The second year I started back in May. Of course, we had no shoes, and I developed what we called “stone bruises” on the soles of my feet, nine on one and seven on the other. They were big abscesses and nothing Mother or Father did seemed to help. I crawled around on my hands and knees all winter and into early summer. Just about one year. In April our first lambs were born and while Mother was milking, I crawled to the barn to see the lambs. I watched the lambs until Mother was through milking, then she took the milk up to the house and came back and carried me home. When my feet healed, I had to learn to walk all over again. The following summer and fall I went to school. Lees had bought the farm next to ours and George Lee and I walked to school together. He had shoes and I had none. In the fall when the ground was frozen and white with frost, he would go ahead of me through the pasture and make a cow get up then I would run and stand in the warm spot while he went ahead and made another cow get up.

Susanne Crane and I were the best spellers in the school. I was a good student and had been at the head of my class for some time when the weather got too cold, and the snow came so I had to stop school. I was heartbroken. This ended my formal education. I was in junior second book which is the same as third grade now. This doesn’t mean I stopped learning. I read everything I could get my hands on and still do. I borrowed books from everyone that owned any and the iterant Minister would bring me some, every time he came. As yet, we had no church in Mar and services were held in the schoolhouse. Years later while discussing the Mexican people and their culture with the President of a college, he asked me from what college I had been graduated. My struggle for an education had paid off.

When I was nine, Father and Mother went on one of their rare trips, an all-day picnic to Red Bay and Susan and I were left in charge of the family. Susan was 7. We did our chores, then went down to Sky Lake. Father had an old scow tied up that he used to take supplies to the farmers across the lake. Susan and I loaded our charges Mary, Fannie, Will, Sam and Martha the baby, onto the scow. It was tied securely but we decided to untie it and take a ride. I used a long pole and shoved the scow away from shore. It was fun riding until it dawned on Susan and me that we couldn’t get back. We stayed on the scow all afternoon, almost too scared to move. I remember Martha and Sam crying a lot. Father rescued us when he came home from Red Bay. It was lucky that Father and Mother had to get home before dark to get the milking done and the chores taken care of. We certainly were seven scared, sunburned youngsters.

One day, Mother sent Mary and I down to the barn which was quite away from the house to feed the chickens. While fooling around, I tripped Mary, and she hit her head on a stone. She was unconscious but I was so scared I took her by the arm and dragged her behind a pile of rocks so Mother couldn’t see her from the house. When I couldn’t “wake” her, I ran and got my Mother. She wasn’t badly hurt but I had learned another important lesson.

Mother had a trunk which no one must open, but one day when Mother went to Mar with Father we opened it. We found among other things a beautiful blue silk and lace parasol. We opened it and each of us took turns parading around the yard holding it high above our heads. When we knew it was time for Father and Mother to come home, we tried but we couldn’t close it again, so Susan stayed with the children and Mary and I ran over to our neighbour, Mr. Lee, who closed it for us. We got it back into the trunk just as Mother and Father drove into the yard. Mr. Lee thought this was funny and he told Mother about it but what happened to Susan and me was no laughing matter.

By this time, we had a pair of oxen. Buck was a brindle ox, and Bright was red and white. My job was to lead Buck by a rope around his neck and keep his feet in the furrow while Father plowed. Father and I spent a lot of time together doing the plowing, seeding and harvesting. I got to really know, admire and respect him. I even helped with the logging. Father cut the logs and then hitched them on the pull chain. I’d lead the ox to the loading platform, unfasten the chain and go back for more logs.

My Father was one of the kindest, most understanding men I ever had the privilege of knowing. He was never strong and the work on the farm used up all his energy. Yet he never was too tired to take us on his knee and listen to our woes, which were really insignificant. He told us wonderful stories of his life in Ireland and about his parents.

His Mother was Lady Frances of Fife who had eloped with her Fathers bookkeeper and settled in Omagh, Tyrone County, Ireland. They had a large farm near Omagh, but he and his three brothers came to Canada at the time of the “potato famine.” My Father and his brother Tom worked in a factory in Toronto. His brothers John and William went out west. My Father never heard from them again. I saw Uncle Tom only once and that was when he came to the farm after Father had died.

The Given family and our family became very good friends. Mr. and Mrs. Given came from Tyrone County in Ireland as did my Father, so there was a strong bond between the two men. Grandpa Given, as I will call him from now on, was a strong, substantial man and seemed to give energy and hope to Father who was not well. Nat Given and I became engaged in the early spring of 1878. Father contracted pneumonia in March that year and died on Good Friday. We buried Father on a knoll overlooking Sky Lake. (In 1880 Uncle Tom came from Toronto, bought some lots in Colpoy’s Bay Cemetery and moved Father’s body there. My fourth child who died at the age of six weeks is buried there also.) A short time later Nat and I were married, and we lived with Mother on her farm. Nat put in Mother’s garden and ran the farm for over a year. In November Mother went to Orangeville to visit her Mother and stayed until the last of February. I was just sixteen, but I was left in charge of nine brothers and sisters, beside all the farm chores. The knitting seemed endless as each one wore hand knit long stockings and as it was winter there were stocking caps to knit and mittens.

Mother came home the last of February and my first baby, Robert Laughlin Given was born March 2, 1880. When Rob was two weeks old, we moved onto a farm which Grandpa Given had given us. There was a shack on the property that had been built to use while the men were clearing the land. We walked across the ice on Sky Lake to get to our new home. It was made of logs, as were all the houses and barns, but it needed a lot of work. The wind and snow seemed to come in from all sides. The furniture was all handmade and Grandpa saw to it that we had a good stove. Grandma Given gave us a set of white china and I know now that it was English Ironstone. The next day Grandpa came with a sleigh load of provisions which included plenty of food and some woolen blankets. That summer we built a barn to house our one cow and some chickens. In this shack Jim was born in September 1882. The following summer we built a new house and moved the chickens into the shack for by now we had two cows and a pair of oxen. Elizabeth was born here on October 25, 1883. I had a big husky baby born in June 1886. He was a beautiful boy. A week after he was born, I took pneumonia, of course I was too sick to nurse the baby, and no one knew how to feed a newborn infant. I know everyone did the best they could but six weeks later my baby boy was dead. He starved to death. I had a brush with death also so it was two months before I could do my own work and take care of my three children again. Nat Jr. was born on July 26, 1889.

James Blake, his wife and nine children moved to Mar from Seaforth, Ontario the fall before Sam was born. He was a very energetic man and worked a farm near Mothers on Sky Lake. He didn’t own the farm. His wife died two years later. Mother married James Blake in 1880, and they had a daughter Lillian. Of course, they moved to Mother’s farm after the wedding. In 1882, while Mother was visiting her Mother in Orangeville, Ontario, James Blake sold my Mother’s farm and all the stock and took his children and went to Vancouver, B.C. He left little Lillian with a neighbour. Victor was born soon after Mother came back. Mother was left without even a roof over her head, and still had six children to care for. Someone gave her a small house across the road to use until she could make plans. Will and Martha came to live with me, Tom went to live with Mary who married John Martindale and lived in Stokes Bay. Susan was living with Uncle Tom in Toronto. Fannie had married David Foley and was living in Sarnia.

In 1883 Mother moved to Sarnia where she worked and supported her children until they were on their own. She visited me many times after my brothers and sisters were grown. She died in Sarnia in 1923.

Nat, my husband who had been hit on the arm by a ball began to suffer from pain in the arm. The pain became severe as time went on and at last, he went to see a doctor in Wiarton. The doctor treated his arm for a few months, then as there was no improvement the doctor had to operate. Elizabeth (Lea) was born in 1883 while he was in Wiarton. He was there several weeks but the incision failed to heal, and the pain worsened. In October 1888 he went to see a doctor in Toronto. He had his arm amputated at the shoulder. He was in the hospital for five Months: then came home. He was home only two weeks when he had to go back to Toronto. He was gone only a couple of weeks as the cancer had spread to his body and the doctor could do no more.

The last couple of months he suffered agony, and we gave him morphine in order to give him any relief. On July 26, 1889 our baby Nat was born. Two weeks later my husband passed away, August 12. He would have been 32 on August 18.

After the death of my husband, I ran a small grocery store and Post Office in Mar. In this way I was able to make a living for my four small children and myself. My husband’s father who we called Grandpa Given was the kindest most considerate man I have ever known. He was my father-in-law but also my best friend who helped make the next few years bearable.

Edward William McGee was born in Tyrone County, Ireland in 1857. He was the oldest of four children of George and Sarah McGee. With his brother Richard and sister Sarah he came to Guelph, Ontario in 1877. The following year Richard returned to Ireland and Sarah married Harry Zoller in Guelph. As far as I know Richard is the only McGee now living in Ireland. Edwards parents and one sister are buried in Newton-Stewart cemetery near Omagh in Tyrone County. My Father’s Parents and two brothers and some of the Givens are buried there also.

Edward came to Wiarton in 1879 and worked in a blacksmith shop. In 1880 he bought the shop on Berford Street which he ran successfully until impaired vision forced him to sell in 1905. In 1881 he married Charlotte Crozier, and he built his home Claude Street. In 1883 Emma was born, Ella in 1885, George in 1887 and Ainsley in 1889. Charlotte Crozier McGee died in 1891 and is buried in the cemetery in Wiarton.

In 1892 I met Edward McGee, and we were married in 1893 and I moved from Mar into the big red brick house in Wiarton. So immediately we had eight children, only four of them living at home. Bob and Jim went to live with my Mother and brother Will in Sarnia and Emma and Ella were living with an Aunt in Palmerston. On March 31, 1895, Margarette was born. Her Father, who would have preferred a boy, called her Tommy for a year or so. On November 17, 1897, my husband got his wish when Darcy was born. Here I was with practically two babies, my girl baby and my boy baby so we got in the habit of calling Margarette, Girlie. Until she was ten and after we left Wiarton she was never called Margarette. To this day many of her cousins and old friends still call her Girlie. In 1900 I had just finished a novel in which the lovely heroine was named Muriel. I loved the girl, and I loved her name, so when my little girl was born on November 19th, I named her Muriel. Then for a middle name, Martha after my Mother and Letitia my husband’s Grandmother. For a while she was called Lettie, but gradually I won the family over and she was called Muriel. By this time Lea was living with Dr. and Mrs. Eaton in Toronto. George was working as cook on a small freighter which ran from ports on Lake Ontario up Georgian Bay. Ainsley and Nat were going to school.

The winter of 1901 my niece Elizabeth Given lived with us. She was learning sewing and tailoring from Miss Crawford and was a great help to me. In our spare time we made and trimmed hats for the local millinery.

We had a very busy and happy life in Wiarton. Many friends and relatives came from Mar for the day and from Guelph where my husband’s friends and relatives lived. Our children came and visited often as did my Mother and sisters and brothers from Sarnia.

In 1901 Emma married Lorne Palmer in Palmerston and they spent their honeymoon with us. Lorne was a gay, likeable fellow and was a great tease. Margarette especially enjoyed him and was always trying to get even with him. I remember him coming in from the outhouse laughing heartily. Margarette had seen him go into the outhouse so thought she would trick him. So, she had carried and dragged wood from the wood pile and stacked it in front of the outhouse door, thinking she had trapped Lorne. She failed to realize that the door swung in and not out.

My days were spent as were the days of the other women in the small town. Up early to get my husband off to work by 6:30, as that is the time he opened his blacksmith shop. Many mornings during the summer he was away to work by daylight as many of his customers were farmers and precious daylight hours could not be wasted. The older children were up next as they had their breakfast to eat and their chores to be done, bringing the morning supply of water from the pump and filling the wood boxes. Then the younger ones were dressed and fed, and my daily household chores began.

You must remember that there was no indoor plumbing. In each bedroom was a commode or a washstand. On the top of the commode was a basin, pitcher and soap dish. On the side was a bar which held the towel and wash cloth. Behind the door at the bottom was a pot. Some called it by a fancier name but in our house, it was called a pot. These pots had to be emptied and rinsed out every morning and the pitcher kept filled with water so up the stairs I would go with an empty pail in one hand and a pail of hot water in the other. On Saturday morning all the pots, basins and pitchers were brought downstairs, put in a wash tub of hot sudsy water to which some carbolic acid was added. Then they were thoroughly scrubbed, rinsed, wiped and returned to the commodes upstairs. Not a pleasant chore but a necessary one.

Carbolic acid was the only disinfectant we had. It had a great many uses. For infections it was diluted, and cotton soaked in it and applied to the area. Getting the solution just right was necessary, as too strong would burn and too weak was of no use. I always tested the solution by putting a drop on my tongue.

Another job that was just as time consuming was getting all the lamps back into the kitchen to be cleaned. The older children brought down their own lamps, but I must get the hall lamps. The lamp wicks had to be trimmed evenly so they would not smoke; the lamps had to be filled with coal oil (kerosene) and the chimneys cleaned. The lamps were ready to be put on the lamp shelf in the kitchen. We found out that by wrinkling up newspapers and rubbing the chimneys it gave them a good shine and removed the smoke and soot. On Saturdays all chimneys were washed thoroughly in hot soapy water.

Dishwashing was not a very pleasant chore either. The reason was not lack of hot water but the lack of good soap. I never made soap but my friends at Mar did and would bring me some. Otherwise, we bought bars of strong yellow soap at the store. No matter how much hot sudsy water you started out with or how much more soap you used during the washing, the suds just didn’t hold up and you ended up with a dish pan of dirty greasy water. It was always a losing battle. This yellow soap was the only kind you could buy so it was our toilet soap also and it isn’t any wonder our hands were sore, red and chapped all the time. In cold weather our skin on our hands would crack and bleed. The only lotion we had was glycerin and rose water and this applied to the bleeding hands was nothing short of sheer torture.

Three times a week I baked 12 or 15 loaves of bread and several coffee cakes. The water in which the potatoes had been boiled was saved and after supper the yeast was dissolved in it. Then flour and salt were added to make a soft dough. This was put in a warm place to rise over night. Then first thing in the morning I “set” the bread.

I had a large bowl-shaped pan and into this I put the flour and lard and added the yeast mixture. I kneaded it until it was firm, then put it back into the bread pan to rise. I wrapped it in a woolen blanket (the bread blanket was used for nothing else) to keep it warm. When it had doubled in size, I kneaded it again and let it rise the second time. By eleven o’clock it was ready for the baking pans. I had large pans each holding four loaves and a pan for the coffee cake or extra loaves. The oven held four pans, two on the top shelf and two on the bottom. After thirty minutes in the oven the pans were switched from top to bottom. It was a tricky business keeping just the right amount of heat in the oven. Just enough wood was added to the fire box to keep an even heat. An hour later the bread was done and turned upside down on wooden racks to cool.

Before the bread went into the oven the pies were baked for dinner, which was our noon meal. I don’t remember sitting down to dinner without pie for dessert. I baked two pies every day except Saturday when I baked four.

After the bread came out of the oven, the cake for the evening meal was put in. On days that I didn’t bake bread I made 12 to 14 dozen sugar cookies, baking powder biscuits and Johnny cakes. On Saturday I always made raisin or currant cookies.

Once a week we churned. We always had a good Jersey cow and the milk that wasn’t used each day was put in large flat pans so the cream would rise to the top. Then the cream was skimmed off and put in a large crock and stored in the “cold cellar.” The milk was made into cottage cheese. By the end of the week enough cream had been collected to half fill the churn. We had a barrel shaped churn with a “dasher.” The children did not like “churning days” as everyone had to help and pumping that dasher up and down was not an easy chore. We were always happy to see the butter come. If formed in small yellow chunks around the dasher. An hour or so later the churning was finished. The contents of the churn were then drained through a piece of cheese cloth. The butter was put in a large wooden bowl and “worked” with a wooden paddle until all the liquid was removed. I then added salt and worked it again. The butter was then put in one-pound crocks, covered and put in the cold cellar. We all enjoyed the buttermilk. Once in a while, I made an old Scottish dish called “Possit.” I put a shallow pan of buttermilk on the back of the stove where it would get warm but not hot. In an hour or so the buttermilk would separate into thick curds and a milky whey. A pinch of salt was added to the curds. The whey was never used as it had a rather bitter sour taste. We ate the curds with jam, jelly or preserved fruit and crackers or soda biscuits as we then called them.

The children didn’t like Possit very much but my friends from Scotland and Ireland enjoyed it with their afternoon tea. I cooked much as my Mother did. There were no recipes, it was always a pinch of this or a handful of that. Pie crust and baking powder biscuits were always made by feel. When the crumbs formed by the lard and flour were just right the liquid was added. Johnny Cake, made with butter, eggs, sugar, milk and cornmeal, and baking powder biscuits served with maple syrup from Grandfathers maple trees, were our favorite supper desserts. I corned my own beef and one of our favorite meals was corned beef and cabbage and potatoes cooked in madly boiling water until they were soft, then drained thoroughly and shaken in the pan until they were snow white and floury, never damp and soggy.

We ate some pork, but beef was our favorite meat. Our ham and bacon came from Grandfather’s farm as did our chicken and eggs.

My Mother made a delicious roast beef surrounded by a tasty Yorkshire pudding. Many baked the Yorkshire pudding in a separate pan, but nothing could compare with the way my Mother cooked it so I always cooked mine like Mothers.

When anyone was ill, I always made beef tea for them. The piece of round steak was cut clean of fat, then the meat cut in 1-inch squares, then put in a mason jar and the top screwed on tightly. No water or salt added to the meat. Then this jar was put in a pot of rapidly boiling water for two hours or so. Then the liquid in the jar was drained into a cup, a pinch of salt added, and you had a cup of rich beef tea. The meat left over was fed to the dog as all flavor and nutrition had been removed.

We all enjoyed beef soup, and it had many varieties. I always used a large piece of meat and the soup bones. This was boiled for hours and then the bones were removed, and the marrow taken from them and the marrow returned to the soup kettle. It was a toss-up which soup was enjoyed the more – thick creamy Scotch broth with barley or the soup thick with vegetables. Mother never used tomatoes in her soups and neither do I.

We had chicken nearly every Sunday. Usually, it was boiled with dumplings or baking powder biscuits and on rare occasions I stuffed the chicken and baked it.

For Thanksgiving we always had chicken with dressing. My dressing was rather plain – onions simmered in boiling water and butter. Then this was added to a big bowl of broken up dried bread and lots of sage, thyme and some salt. To round out our dinner we always had giblet gravy, mashed fluffy potatoes and mashed yellow turnips. For dessert we had mince meat pies. I had made my own mincemeat in the late summer. Our Christmas dinner was Goose, stuffed and roasted. While it was cooking the goose had to be watched carefully and the goose fat had to be spooned off several times as it cooked out. It must not be allowed to burn as it was later mixed with camphorated oil to be rubbed on chests when anyone had a cold. The Christmas dinner was always finished off with English Plum Pudding served with a tangy lemon sauce. The pudding took hours to make as all the ingredients had to be chopped. The pudding was made with suet which had to be chopped, and the candied orange peel, citron peel and lemon peel and pineapple had been candied weeks before. Then there were the nuts to be cracked, and the mints chopped. Eggs and apple cider were added and only enough flour to hold the mixture together. Then it was put in a pan, put in the steamer over boiling water and cooked for about three hours. Sometimes I would form the dough mixture into a big ball, wrap it in a cloth, tying it securely and drop it into a pot of boiling water for three hours. The sugar was not ground up, but we bought it in cones weighing about three pounds each and costing about 10 or 12 cents each. The salt was usually in chunks too and had to be grated before using. All spices were whole also and had to be grated.

We never ate raw vegetables except when we would visit Grandfathers on the farm then the children would love to go the pea patch and eat the peas. Our favorite vegetables were yellow turnips, cabbage and in summer string beans and English peas. Onions, carrots, beets, parsnips and potatoes were the stand byes.

Breakfasts consisted mainly of oatmeal porridge served with brown sugar and cream and toast with jam and, of course tea. We never had coffee and not until we moved to Aurora in 1905 did I ever make a cup of coffee. On winter mornings the children had Cambric tea. A half cup of milk, a teaspoon of sugar then fill the cup with hot tea. On Sundays we had bacon or ham and eggs and rarely pancakes and maple sugar.

On Saturday, Sunday dinner was prepared as much as possible because Sunday morning was spent in Sunday School and Church.

After supper on Saturday night the big wash tub was brought in and put beside the kitchen stove. This was half filled with warm water for the baths. The three youngest ones were bathed first. As I washed the children and got them out of the water, their Father dried them and put on their long night gowns. Then off to bed. Then I would lay out the Sunday clothes and my husband would shine the shoes so that everyone looked immaculate when we set out for church in the morning. Summer or winter the stove had to be kept going to heat water for all the baths.

Sunday was really a day of rest. We did nothing unless an emergency arose. To church all morning, home for dinner then we either took the children for a long walk in the afternoon or husband would hitch the horse to the buggy or cutter, as the season dictated, and go for a ride to see friends and relatives in Mar, then home for supper and to church until 9. A lovely, restful day!

I remember when I was living on the farm near Mar, my husband and I really got our days mixed up. We harnessed the horse to the wagon and went into Mar to do our Saturday shopping. To our surprise the store was closed. Everyone was at church. It was Sunday.

When Darcy was two my husband got a beautiful black water spaniel for the children. We named him “Captain” and he watched over the children like a nursemaid. Every piece of property in Wiarton was fenced in with a picket fence and as the youngsters were too small to open the gate, the children couldn’t stray. Captain had dug a hole under the fence and when Darcy was four, he found the hole and crawled through after Captain. This was a newfound freedom and Darcy started to walk, followed, of course, by Captain. He walked toward the docks and when he went to go out on the dock, Captain got in front of him and barked and made such a fuss that the dock keeper came out, picked up Darcy and brought him home.

Summers were a very busy time as we must prepare for the long, cold winter. There was ever present sewing to do as I made all the girls’ clothes and tailored my husbands and the boys’ suits and shirts.

Then too there was the knitting. All the stockings were knitted, and it took many, many hours to knit a pair of long stockings. They were all black too and I am amazed now that I have such wonderful eyesight. Shoes were the only articles of clothing that we bought. Scarfs, stocking caps and mittens must be knitted for winter also. Most of the knitting was done in the evening when the children were studying, or my husband was reading to them.

We had a fairly large garden and two fruit trees, peach and pear. At the back of the lot at the side of the barn were currant and gooseberry bushes and in front of them, clumps of rhubarb and horse radish. My family from Mar kept us supplied with fresh vegetables and apples and cherries from their orchards.

From the first of July until the frost came, we were busy making preserves of peaches, pears, cherries and rhubarb. We made jams and jellies and put-up gallons of pickles. Ainsley and Nat were good berry pickers as we had a good supply of wild strawberries, raspberries and black berries.

We had a large “Cold Cellar” lined with shelves and by the time cold weather came these shelves were full and the floor crowded with five-gallon crocks of pickles, barrels of apples, sacks of potatoes and cabbage, boxes with carrots packed in sand and turnips (yellow) and onions in bins. When eggs were cheap in the summer, we would buy them and preserved them in water glass in huge crocks. We used these for cakes and cookies all winter.

Besides the work we had a busy social life also. Wednesday was my “At Home” day and friends and neighbours came calling and stayed to enjoy small cakes or cookies and the ever-welcome cup of tea. Thursdays I went calling; sometimes taking one of my little girls with me. They enjoyed dressing up and pretending they were grown up ladies.

As I look back, I find our life was very regimented. Each day certain household duties were done, or you weren’t considered a good housekeeper. For instance, Monday was washday. It was impossible to conceive of anyone not washing on Monday. Sunday evening the tubs and big clothes boiler were brought in, and the tubs and boiler filled with water. Then the clothes were “put to soak” in the tubs and boiler filled with water, was on the stove ready to be heated the next day. Rain, shine or in cold snowy weather I was up at four o’clock to get the washing started. First the fire in the stove must be lit to warm the water, then the clothes must be wrung out of the soaking water, the water emptied, and the clothes put in a tub of clean water. Then the wash board was put in the tub and the scrubbing began. Soap was added to the water in the boiler and when the first tub of clothes was washed, they were put in the “boiler” to boil. Then it was time to get the family up and breakfast ready. The boys hated Monday, and I really didn’t blame them. Every possible container must be filled with water and a pile of wood put on the back step before they left for school.

After boiling the clothes were washed again, then put into a tub with clean rinsing water, then all white clothes into the blueing water for whitening. The final step was starching. “Don’t starch the tails of the shirts, put plenty of starch in dresses, petticoats and bloomer legs and the right starch in pillowcases and table linen.” Now the clothes were ready for the line. In the middle of all this there was bread to be made, pies to be baked and dinner ready promptly at twelve. Then clean up the dishes and go back to the washing. On rainy days the clothes were dried on “Clothes Horses” which were folding wooden racks. In winter no matter how cold it was or how much it was snowing; all clothes were hung outside for an hour or so. Of course, when the clothes were brought in, they were frozen stiff as boards. They were left to thaw out then put on the “clothes horses” to dry. Monday was a long hard day and if the last tubs were emptied and put away by four you were very lucky. Of course, the daily chores were sandwiched in wherever possible. Then bake a cake or cookies and get supper ready by six.

As many of the clothes as were dry Monday night were sprinkled and rolled up ready for morning. Tuesday was ironing day. Tuesday up early again, get a roaring fire going in order to heat the “smoothing irons.” These were put on the hottest part of the stove and covered with a big lid from the roaster to keep them good and hot. Such baskets of clothes. Nothing but the stockings were ever folded without ironing. Sheets, pillowcases, dish and hand towels, tablecloths, napkins, ruffled petticoats, bloomers, all underwear, dresses and shirts all had to be ironed. Then the tailored clothes had to be pressed. When the ironing was finished and put away there were always “horses” loaded with clothes that needed patching, mending or buttons sewed on. I never could figure out how so many buttons could be missing in just one week. After I began using bees wax on the thread, fewer buttons had to be sewed on. This was Wednesday’s morning chore. Afternoons were free. Thursdays I cleaned upstairs and went calling in the afternoon. Friday, we cleaned the downstairs except the kitchen and after the baking was done on Saturday, the floor was scrubbed and the stove shined with “Stove Black.” Don’t forget the “back house” had to be scrubbed thoroughly also with the ever-useful carbolic soapy water.

We were a happy busy family and my husband a successful blacksmith. We worked hard as did everyone else.

When Muriel was three, I noticed my husband was having trouble with his eyes. Soon he had a difficult time reading. He went to the Doctor and was told that cataracts were growing on both eyes. There were no eye specialists then and no one knew how to treat his eyes. He got glasses which helped for a while. The following year he went to Toronto, but the Doctors could do nothing for him. When he came back from Toronto, he had to sell his blacksmith shop. That winter there was a severe depression in Canada and the price of food and coal doubled in price. Hard times certainly hit us and especially because my husband could not work and had no money except what we got when the shop was sold. To make matters worse I contracted pneumonia and was in bed for a month, so I couldn’t take in sewing or do anything to relieve the financial burden. My husband had always been a strong, hardworking man and it was not easy for him not to be making a comfortable living for his family. He did a wonderful job working on a boat and Nat was working in Sarnia and living with my mother. Emma, Ella and George did what they could financially; Bob and Jim helped also but the situation did not improve. I was only 42 but I felt like an old woman. In May 1905 Jim came from Minnesota to see what could be done. Emma and Ella came too and after a great deal of talking and figuring we found only one solution. Bob and Jim were doing well in the store in Aurora, so Jim suggested that he take me and the three children, Margarette 10, Darcy 8 and Muriel 4, back to Aurora with him. My husband was to stay in Wiarton where George and Ainsley could look after him. It was a terrible decision to make and the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life. I was very much in love with my husband and he with me. He was also a devoted father to our three children. At the time we hopefully thought that the separation was temporary, little knowing that it would be permanent and that I would never return to Wiarton.

On June 1st we left Wiarton by train and my husband came with us to Owen Sound. From there we would go by boat, the Athabasca to Duluth. I’ll always remember seeing my husband waving goodbye as the boat pulled out from the dock. I was never to see my husband again. We wrote often but soon his eyes became worse so that he could not see to write. He was never able to work again. So, I said farewell to my husband, relatives and friends and to my life in Canada.

We went to Port Arthur on the Athabasca then changed to the Faston for our trip to Duluth. We spent the night in Duluth then boarded the train next morning for our new home in Aurora. We arrived on June 4, 1905.

I have often wondered if Bob and Jim really understood the great responsibility, they took unto themselves. Bob was just 25 and Jim was 22 years old, yet they were ready and willing to take on the burden of a 42-year-old sick mother and her three children by a later marriage. Then four months later they sent for their brother Nat and sister Lea. Nat was 16 so he went right to work but here Bob and Jim were providing for five extra persons. (Margarette and Muriel both graduated from high school. Jim paid for Margarette’s two years at Mankato Teacher’s College. (Margarette and Darcy paid for Muriel’s two years in MacAlister College).

Bob and Jim were like Fathers to my three McGee children. Not only did they provide food, shelter and clothing, but also guided them in their moral and spiritual life. They did such a wonderful job that at no time did any of us feel that we lacked a thing that would make us happy here. This wonderful protectiveness continued until Darcy went to work at the lumber mills in 1911, Margarette started teaching in Moose Lake in 1917 and Muriel began teaching in Crookston in 1921. Lea was married in 1920. I went to live with Margarette and Muriel in Sault Ste. Marie in 1924. So, after nine years, Bob, Jim and Nat were free of added responsibilities. By this time Bob had four children, Jim three and Nat three.

We will always be very grateful to those two young men, Bob and Jim for giving us their loyalty, support and love when we needed it so badly. God most certainly blessed me with two wonderful sons.

When we arrived in Aurora, I just couldn’t believe what I saw. We got off the train and scrambled over fallen trees, logs and bushes as we made our way to the McCaig house. Granted, the town had been partially laid out but only stakes marked the streets. A road went by the McCaig house terminating on Main Street. Main Street consisted only of a dirt road on the north side of which was the Mercantile store run by Bob and Jim and four saloons on the South side. The McCaig house was on South Second Street. We lived here for two months until Bob and Jim could get our house built on Second Street, one-half block north of Main Street. Bob and Jim had comfortable living quarters above the store but got their meals at McCaig’s.

Surveyors were still busy laying out the streets and workers followed them clearing out the trees and bushes.

When we got to Aurora on June 4th, the people coming in from the mining locations and Old Town were talking about the “Fourth of July.” Of course, I knew about it as I was an avid reader of history, but my children knew nothing about it and now that the United States was their new home, it was my business to see that they knew something about the history of our adopted country. Mrs. McCaig had an old history book and with the help of Bob and Jim who had lived in this country for three years, I began my teaching. So, by the time the Fourth of July came my children and the McCaig children (5) understood why we were all going on a picnic to celebrate. Bob and Jim got each of the children a flag and after we got home, they shot off some fireworks.

Aurora was a small iron mining town on the Mesabi Range in Minnesota. It was north of Duluth and about thirty miles south of Virginia. In the summer of 1905, they were in the process of moving town from near one of the mines to a site on the railroad. All summer and fall saw a procession of houses, stores and saloons go past the McCaig house on their way to their new location. The buildings were supported by huge beams. Then they were put on long rollers, then pulled along by teams of four or six horses. As the buildings moved along, a crew of men would take the back rollers and them in front. The rollers were placed about eight feet apart the progress was very slow. Moving could be done only when the roads were dry and even dry, they were full of ruts and chuck holes and thick with dust.

Before winter set in five houses, a hotel and three saloons had been moved.

Mrs. McCaig was an excellent cook, and I helped her as much as I was able to. I had not fully recovered from the pneumonia I had before I left Wiarton. I did a lot of sewing, not only for my children but for the three McCaig children too. We had no sewing machine as all the work was done by hand.

My most vivid memory of the McCaig house was fighting bed bugs. The mosquitoes were terrible, but the bed bugs were even worse. The children were so badly bitten that they couldn’t sleep. When I would light the lamp to take care of them, the walls and ceilings were literally crawling. I washed bed springs and wiped the mattresses with carbolic acid solution, but it was a losing battle. Mrs. McCaig tried her best to get rid of the bugs, but I learned later that there always is an infestation when new land is being opened up. Then too we didn’t have the insecticides that are available today.

By fall our house was finished enough to move in. That was a chore too as everything we had in the McCaig house had to be fumigated so that we wouldn’t carry the bugs to the new house.

Our new home was very comfortable, and we had plenty of room. There were three bedrooms upstairs, a small kitchen, a large dining room and living room on the first floor. A wide veranda ran across the front. At the shack was a lean-to shed to hold the coal and at the back of the lot, the inevitable two holer, a back house or as we sometimes referred to it as a “Parliament”. On the wall of the back house, suspended on by a heavy cord was an old Sears and Roebuck catalog. No fancy toilet paper then, but neither did we ever use the “Common Cob” about which James Whitcomb Riley wrote.

After we moved into the house Bob and Jim sent for Lea and Nat. In October they arrived in Aurora. Nat went to work in the Mercantile store, but when the Postmaster moved away just before Christmas, Nat became Postmaster. He was just 15 years old. Bob was manager of the Mercantile store and Jim was the butcher.

School opened that fall in a room over one of the many saloons. Mr. Graham came to teach and wanted to live with us. I was feeling better, and Charley Graham became one of my family. In the spring he bought a lot and built a house on it. In August it was finished so he went to Canada, was married and then returned to Aurora. That fall Bob and Jim bought a piano. This caused a deal of excitement. There were player pianos in all the saloons, but this one was the first one in a home in Aurora. Lea could play fairly well as she had taken organ lessons while she was living in Toronto. All of us loved music and everyone sang, so our house became the gathering place for all the young people.

In the spring of 1906, the town began to lay the water mains. In the summer Bob and Jim had a carpenter begin an addition to our home. A huge kitchen, bathroom and pantry was built across the back of the house and a side porch was added. Now the original kitchen had became a downstairs bedroom. We could hardly wait for the water and sewer lines to be completed. Never before had we had the convenience of indoor plumbing. No more carrying in water from the well, then carrying it out to be emptied, but best of all no more sitting on the cold icy seat of a back house.

That year the town bought a garbage truck. It was a huge tank like affair with a large hole in the top. So, if you wanted your garbage picked up, you built a six-foot platform near the back of your lot at the edge of the alley. Five or six steps led to the top of the platform where the garbage barrels were placed.

During the first winter after we built on the kitchen, three young men came to town; Ed a mining engineer, later to become my son-in-law, Roy to work in the store and Mr. Hyman to open and manage a men’s store for Mr. Levine. They all became good friends of my sons, and it wasn’t long until they were taking their meals with us. Lea and I were cooking three meals a day for 12 people. That was the beginning. When school opened in 1906 three new teachers came and join us, and I ran a successful boarding house until we left Aurora in 1910. In the fall of 1906, they built a four-room schoolhouse one block behind our home. Aurora grew by leaps and bounds. New mines were opened, roads, such as they were, were built and a double railroad track was laid between Virginia to the north and Duluth, the port on Lake Superior on the south. There was a never-ending line of ore jammers passing on the way to Duluth with loads of ore or on the way back loaded with coal to be loaded again with iron ore.

Mine workers and their families came from Wales, Norway, Sweden, Austria and Italy, so houses had to be built to accommodate the new arrivals. The mines built homes near the mines for their workers. These groups of houses, all built alike and painted a mudish brown were called “Locations.” Mr. and Mrs. Hill opened a hotel and as their children were about the same age as mine, we became fast friends. Fred Hill and Nat were inseparable and years later Eleanor Hill was engaged to marry my nephew Ray Martindale when he died during duty overseas in World War I.

More saloons were opened as were some stores but there were three saloons to any other business on Main Street.

The same fall my sister Mary, husband John and three children came to Aurora from Ontario. Ethel their oldest daughter had just married Charlie Kyte and he went to work at the town water works. John, and their oldest son Stanley went to work at the Miller Mine and they lived in one of the location houses. Ray and Mattio were in school. It really was wonderful having my sister and her family living nearby, and my younger children enjoyed seeing their cousins again.

Of course, we had no church building or minister but every Sunday morning I had Sunday School in my home for any children whose parents wanted them to come. Lea taught the younger ones in the dining room, and I had a class in the living room. Later an itinerant Methodist Minister from Duluth would come very Wednesday and hold evening services in my home. Catholics attended along with the Protestants.

That winter we started raising money to build our church. The town gave us a lot one block north of our house. Everyone in town worked together to get that church built. Catholic, Protestant and even one Jewish family contributed and purchased food from our bake sale and bazaars. Once every two weeks a family would have a dinner in their home and there would be thirty to fifty adults who came.

There was no set charge for the dinners so the people gave what they could afford. The families supplied the food and then all the money went to the building fund. The men built the church in their spare time, and in the summer of 1907 our church was usable. Reverend Suver came to Aurora on Saturday night, stayed with us, and preached on Sunday morning, then went on to his other churches on the Iron Range. We were so thankful to have a place now to hold our Sunday School, as we had some 50 children attending.

The following winter we went through the same program again raising money so our Catholic families could build their church.

This was a wonderful environment in which to raise children. There was no room for prejudice here. Everyone had a great respect for the others nationality and religion.

One day Margarette and Darcy came home from school and told me of another new family that had come to town. They had come from Finland. The oldest girl was in their room at school. They kept calling her “Limpy.” I sat them down and told them that instead of making fun of the little lame girl they should treat her with compassion and kindness instead. They looked at me with a puzzled look and said, “Mother, she isn’t lame, Limpy is her name”. Her name was Lempe, but I never heard her called anything but “Limpy” – Fourth of July 1907.

In 1908, my sister Martha, her husband Jim Pringle and two children, Gordon and Pearl moved to Aurora from Sarnia where he had been a butcher. My Bob managed the Mercantile Store, my Jim enlarged and managed the hardware department and Jim Pringle took over as butcher. The butcher did all his own butchering, smoked the hams and bacon and made all his sausages. The butcher was really a talented man.

The store did a tremendous business, and they supplied all the mining locations. Every day the big wagons would deliver orders to the homes at the mines and pick up orders for next week’s delivery. There wasn’t anything you couldn’t buy in that store from nails to mining machinery, meats, groceries, hardware and dress goods ranging from the coarse cotton sheeting to bolts of batiste, satin, laces and fine linen. Twice a week the wagons would deliver in town and you either gave the driver your next order or you took it to the store when you went to pick up the mail, the Post Office being at the back of the store.

In 1906 before the water and sewer were put in everyone got their drinking water from the town well. Somehow it became polluted, and we had typhoid fever epidemic. Muriel was just recovering from an almost fatal attack of scarlet fever and as her resistance was low, she caught the typhoid. She was a very sick little girl but we

thought she was out of danger when she developed a kidney infection. Bright’s Disease as it was then called was almost always fatal. By a strange coincidence her best friend Elinor had the same kidney infection.

It seemed as though the Doctor practically lived for nothing except saving the lives of those two little girls. Bob sent to Duluth for a nurse and a steam cabinet. I don’t know where Muriel got the energy to fight but fight, we all did. It broke our hearts to hear that little blue-eyed blonde girl crying as she begged not to be put in the steam cabinet again. It was the only way to remove the poison from her system until the infection was cleared up and her kidneys began functioning again. She had to be in the steam cabinet one hour and out one hour, twenty-four hours a day. She had long hair, and it never had a chance to dry. Doctor Pearsal wanted to cut it, but I said as soon as she was out of danger, I would cut it. I never got the chance because a month later, the Doctor cut it. That was a wonderful day for all of us. We were saddened a few days later by the death of little Elinor.

It was a long time before Muriel could be considered out of danger. She drank four quarts of milk in a 24-hour period and nine months later she had her first solid food, a one-inch square of boiled chicken. While she was sick, she wanted to be read to all the time and read we all did. Bob, Jim, Nat and Lea read the novels they were reading. The Count of Monte Cristo and such. I read Shakespeare and Margarette and Darcy read fairy stories and nursery rhymes. She loved the “Merchant of Venice”, and before she was allowed out of bed, she had practically memorized the whole play.

She learned to read early, and we taught her as best we could. She did not start to school until she was eight years old and by the end of the year, she was passed to the fourth grade.

In 1907 Aurora had grown so that we had a volunteer fire department. The city hall had been built late in the summer of 1906 next door to our home. It housed beside the offices, the fire engine and hook and ladder truck. Their equipment was pulled by the firemen. We also had a mayor, city council, a chief of police and on officer. Many buildings had been built and now our Main Street was three blocks long. Beside the Mercantile Store, there was now Levine’s store for men, the Candy Kitchen where they made all their own candy and se cream, Hills Hotel, a dress making shop, a small grocery store and innumerable saloons. We also had board sidewalks on Main Street and on a few of the side streets. We also boasted of a “hospital” which was nothing but a doctor’s office really. These three blocks were our parade route. Of course, preparations for the Big Day took weeks of planning and hard work. The girls had to have fancy white dresses. Beside the dresses trimmed with lace and ribbons, petticoats had to be made to match. Every girl wore a hat, so I bought plain Leghorn straw hats and made the flowers and bows and trimmed them. They were tied on with wide pink or blue silk ribbons. Of course, the boys and men had to have new shirts also. No one had a sewing machine, so all the work was done by hand. My biggest project was Lea’s dress. It had a large “Bertha” collar trimmed with insertion and lace, Leg of Mutton sleeves, the cuffs of which were made entirely of lace and insertion. The skirt was long, just to her instep and.it was made with 18 gores. It was really beautiful. While Lea and I were sewing the men and boys were planning the decorations. Every house and store were gaily decorated with flags and bunting.

Fourth of July 1907 was a lovely sunshiny warm day. We were awakened at dawn by the firing of the town cannon, ringing of bells, blowing of whistles and firecrackers exploding. Everybody was up, getting breakfast and their chores done before it was time to dress and go to the parade.

The parade was led by the Mayor on horseback followed by the council and the police chief, fire chief and volunteer firemen pulling the fire engine and hook and ladder. Then came men dressed as ragged clowns (calluthumpians) and finally half-grown boys pushing decorated wheelbarrows followed by the children. At the end of Main Street, the men had built a platform and here the parade ended. The Mayor read a bit of the Constitution and one of the council men gave a speech. Then I had to hurry home so I could have dinner on the table at 12.

At two o’clock the real fun began for the children. There was the sack race and potato race enjoyed by both girls and boys, then the wheelbarrow race and three-legged race for boys only. It was all very exciting. At three o’clock the baseball game began. Aurora had organized their team in May and were fairly good. The baseball diamond if you could call it that was just an open field on which home plate and the bases, made of bags of sand were placed. The base paths were ill defined and had never been smoothed out. The opposing ball team came from Biwabik, another small town nine miles away. They came on the morning train and left on the seven o’clock train. Nat played on the team and as they were all about his age, we knew them all well. Aurora won the game.

Home again to get supper ready so we could get on Main Street for the closing events of the day. There was the Fat Man’s race followed by climbing the greased pole to retrieve the five-dollar bill that was on the top of the pole. Then such screaming as the men tried to catch a greased pig. The firemen put on a demonstration and by this time it was rather dark. Now came the fireworks. Roman Candles, skyrockets and who would ever forget the “American Flag” or “Niagara Falls.” What a day, with memories long to be cherished.

In 1907, Nat went to work as cashier in the branch bank in Aurora and the following year was made cashier in the main bank in Eveleth. He was 20 years old. In 1910 Bob and Jim bought a hardware store in Bemidji, Minnesota. Before they left Aurora Bob married Inga Johnson of Virginia. We went by train to Virginia the morning of the wedding. It was a lovely home wedding and Inga had the most beautiful wedding dress I have ever seen. Her younger daughter Betty wore it when she was married and it is now in the Historical Society Museum in Virginia, Minnesota. In October Jim came back to Aurora and with Margarette’s help crated the furniture while Lea and I packed the china, glassware and the rest. So again, I said goodbye to my friends and relatives and was on my way to my new home. Bob and Inga lived in a home on Bemidji Avenue and Jim bought a large house on Fifth Street. We stayed two weeks with Bob and Inga as Jim was having a bathroom put in the house. The house had a large parlor and a living room on one side and a wide hall, and the stairway separated it from the dining room and kitchen and enclosed back porch. There was a large bay window in the parlor and one in the dining room which I kept filled with plants and flowers. Upstairs were three bedrooms and the bath. It was heated by a big Nurenberg stove in the living room, a small stove in the dining room and of course the kitchen range. The stove pipe from the Nurenberg stove went through the ceiling into a “Drum” on the second floor and then to the chimney. The “Drum” trapped the heat before it went out the chimney. There was not a basement under the house, but Jim had a partial basement put in under the kitchen. It was really a cold cellar to store preserves and pickles.

On the back porch was our big ice box, and ice was delivered to us three times a week. We had a large card with 25 on one side and 50 on the other. This card was hung in the living room window and told the ice man whether we needed 25 or 50 pounds of ice that day. Another card hung by the icebox and was punched by the ice man when he made his delivery. The big wagon drawn by a team of horses would come down the street followed by a crowd of youngsters picking up the pieces of ice as they fell from the wagon. Of course, deliveries stopped as soon as cold weather set in and started again in June. We used to go down to the lake in the winter and watch the men cut the ice into huge blocks and store them in the big ice houses. The ice was packed in saw dust to keep it frozen. Bemidji had two huge lumber mills, so sawdust was readily accessible.

Jim had bought a motorboat in which six could ride comfortably and we would pack a lot of food and go to the “Head of the Lake” to spend the day. Evenings we would enjoy the rides or have picnic suppers at Diamond Point. The following year Bob and Jim bought a big gray seven passenger car. It was a “Michigan”, I don’t know what company made it, but it was a beautiful machine. I do remember when the boys sold it, we felt as though they had sold one of the family.

In 1911 my first grandson Robert Johnson Given was born to Bob and Inga. This same year Nat left the bank in Eveleth and joined Bob and Jim in the Given Hardware store. Lea was working in a grocery store and Margarette, Muriel and Darcy were in school. Muriel was well now and attending school regularly for the first time in her life.

Bob and Inga were now active members in the Methodist Church. Jim and Nat had become fast friends with Reverend White, minister of the Presbyterian Church. The church was in the corner of the block in which we lived and Reverend White, his wife and two children lived two doors away. Eva and John were the same age as Darcy and Muriel, so our families became friends also. So, in the fall all of us joined the Presbyterian Church.

The summer of 1912 was an exciting one. The house was just bulging with company. Mother came and stayed a month, then my sister France and her husband and two children came for two weeks; they took Mother home with them. Mother was 70 years young at the time. She loved to be on the go. She always left her cape and bonnet on the newel post by the front door. She wanted to be ready when we went boating or when Bob and Jim took the car out of the garage. The night that eight of us went down the Miller Mine, Mother went along also.

After Mother left, my sister Rachel, her husband and three children came for three weeks from Port Huron and later my sister Mary and two children came over from Aurora. D’Arcy quit school in October when he was 14 and went to work at the lumbermill.

In the spring of 1914, Nat married Sarah Quale in Aurora and Bob and Inga had their second son, Jack. In the fall of 1914, Mother had not been well. I decided to spend a month with her in Sarnia, so on November 20, I took the train for Chicago, Detroit, then on to Sarnia. It took two days and a night to get from Bemidji to Detroit. I left early on the morning of the 20th. I took a sleeper and was most comfortable. There were only nine of us in the car, but the rest of the train was crowded. Sometime during the early morning hours, I awoke and discovered the train was not moving. I looked out the window only to find the windowsill piled with snow and hear the wind howling.

By daylight we were all up and dressed. We were having the worst blizzard Wisconsin had ever experienced. The train couldn’t move till the snowplows came and the snowplows couldn’t get to us till the blizzard blew itself out. The blizzard raged all day, all night and most of the next day. They kept the cars reasonably warm and the snow which was almost window high kept out the cold wind. By melting snow, the cook kept us in hot tea and coffee, but food was not plentiful. I felt sorry for the people in the day cars that had babies and small children to care for. All the women on the train and some of the men also, were helping these women. I told stories and played games trying to make the children forget that they were chilly and a bit hungry. The porter made up all the beds in the sleeping car and we brought some of the children back there with us. The mothers had their hands full with the babies. By getting about a dozen children out of the way they had more room also. We put the children two in each bunk so everyone could get some sleep. Some of the children were frightened too–who wasn’t, as the coal and food were running low. The food we could do without, but we would freeze to death without coal. We were all used to cold, blustery weather and even blizzards, but none of us had ever experienced a blizzard of such intensity.

The morning of the 23rd was clear and bright. Just before noon we saw a most welcome sight. Six men were coming across that snow on snowshoes pulling toboggans loaded with food. They had come from a small town six miles away. It was no easy task pulling those heavy toboggans over the powdery snow. Believe me the food was most welcome, especially the big ten-gallon cans of fresh milk for the babies. Late in the afternoon the snowplow got through and by dark the train began to slowly get under way. This was certainly an experience none of us will ever forget. I got to Mother’s the day before Thanksgiving and as Mother was rapidly improving, I left for home on December 18th to be with my family for Christmas.

In the spring of 1915 Margarette graduated from high school. There were 15 in her class and five went on to college. In September, Margarette left for Mankato, Minnesota to attend “Teachers College” there. She was the first in my family even among any brothers and sisters’ families to attend college. Bob, Jim, Nat and Lea had all gone to work after completing the eighth grade. The last of September 1915 Jean was born to Nat and Sarah and in December, Marguerite, Bob and Inga’s third child was born. In the summer of 1916, Jim and Darcy joined the Naval Reserve in Bemidji. At the time everyone thought that the United States would go to war against Pancho Villa in Mexico. That all quieted down and no one was called to active duty. The following year the United States joined the allies against Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and the King of Austria, and we entered the World War. Shortly after war was declared the Naval Unit from Bemidji was called up and I watched my two sons leave to go to their ships in Philadelphia.

Now there were only Muriel, Lea and I left in that big house, so Bob sold it and bought a small house on Thirteenth Street. Six months later Nat joined the Air Force and left for training in England. Sarah gave up her house and she and Jean came to live with us. Lea was working in Schroeders grocery store and when Margarette came home for her vacation she worked there also. Everyone knitted and worked with the Red Cross. I wish I could remember how many sweaters and scarves

we knit in the years the boys were in service or how many hundreds of bandages we rolled for the Red Cross. It wasn’t easy having three sons in the service while a war was in progress. The ships that Jim and Darcy were on were used to convoy our troop to Europe and so they were in constant danger of attack not only by submarines, but by air also. Nat was an airplane mechanic in England and his base was bombed many times.

While the boys were in Service, Margarette graduated from Teacher’s College and began her teaching career in Moose Lake, Minnesota, a small-town midway between Cloquet and Duluth. On October 12, 1917, a huge forest fire swept through that part of the state. Cloquet and Moose Lake were burned to the ground, and the surrounding country met the same fate. Thousands of people were burned to death and many families completely wiped out. This was the second most destructive fire in U. S. history. Margarette and many others stood in the lake up to their waists and beat off flying flaming branches and and sparks while the fire raged around them. The next day a train was able to get near Moose Lake to bring out the survivors. They were taken to Minneapolis and St. Paul hospitals to be treated for burns. Many that stood in the lake had minor burns on their hands and faces so Margarette was sent to Bemidji by train the next night. She was a very lucky girl to escape with superficial burns.

The same fall, Spanish Influenza hit the country, a devastating blow. The main victims were young and middle-aged men, and the death toll was tremendous. I worked long hours at the hospital and after work Lea joined me. There were few doctors and even fewer nurses available as so many had gone into the Service. In the fall of 1918 Margarette went to teach in Glendive, Montana and Muriel was a senior in high school. The war ended on November 11, 1918, and Jim and Darcy were home for Christmas and Nat was discharged shortly after the New Year.

I was fortunate to have my three sons safely home, but my sister Mary lost her only two sons.

In the fall 1919 Nat Jr. (Bud) was born to Nat and Sarah. Margarette resigned from the Glendive School System, the first of March and got home on a Sunday. The next day she started teaching at Lincoln School in Bemidji. This was a spring for weddings. Jim married May McGregor on May 31st. May’s two sisters were married in April and May and Lea married Ed Donaldson in June and moved to Aurora.

Betty Marie was born to Bob and Inga that fall (1919). This same fall, tragedy struck our happy family. Robert, my oldest grandson and a very loving little boy took sick on a Monday morn. The doctors worked over him for three days, but nothing could be done and he slipped away from us. We laid him to rest on his ninth birthday. The doctors thought at first that he had meningitis, but the following week Jack and Marguerite broke out with Scarlet Fever. The Doctors then decided that was what took Robert away from us. He was such a cheerful, loving little boy and no one ever took his place in our hearts.

When the boys got out of Service, Nat went back into the store and Darcy worked for Bob and Nat. Jim bought the Bemidji Laundry and Lea, Muriel, Darcy and I moved into a large apartment over the laundry.

In the Fall Muriel went to McCallister College in Minneapolis to study music. By now she was an accomplished pianist. Margarette went to teach in Aurora, and I went with her. We had a small apartment and as Jean couldn’t enter school in Bemidji, she came over to live with us. The school ruling was that a child had to be 6 before the first of September and Jean’s birthday was September 25. She could already read and write and when we took her back to Bemidji at Christmas, she was far ahead of her class, so she entered second grade in January in Bemidji. We had a happy two years in Aurora, and I really enjoyed being with my old friends and relatives again.

Margarette then went to teach in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Muriel in the Crookston, Minnesota school. Darcy bought a house near the college in Bemidji and I went to live with him. Again, I started cooking two meals a day. Several professors at the college wanted to take their meals with us and so before too long I had nine boarders.

It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed every minute of it. Of course, the shopping was easy – you called in your order, and it was delivered from the store the next morning. We lived here for a year and a half when Darcy married Leona Lapley, a teacher, at Christmas time. I then moved into an apartment at the home of a good friend. Dr. Palmer had died the year before, so Mrs. Palmer had turned her house into a duplex. It was a lovely apartment, but after being so busy all my life, I found it very hard to adjust to a life where I had no responsibilities and really nothing to do. I just was very unhappy and am so thankful that this period in my life was very short.

In the fall, Muriel accepted a position as third grade teacher is the Sault Ste. Marie school, so she and Margarette got an apartment, and I went to the Soo with them. Once again, I felt needed and useful. My life was busy again as the girls did a lot of entertaining. The following year Muriel was made Music Supervisor of the grades and Junior High School and Margarette was made Principal of Jefferson School. I was very proud of my two girls.

Margarette was going with Abe Lyons, and he was wonderful to me. Soon after we met, he began calling me “Mother” and he and Margarette included me in their many outings. He is like a son to me.

Something happened between Margarette and Abe that summer and the following fall she left the Soo for a teaching position in Birmingham, just out of Detroit and Abe went back to Reading, Pennsylvania. In the meantime, Muriel met Earl Closser and another wonderful man came into my life. In the spring of 1929 Abe went to see Margarette in Birmingham and they were married in Bowling Green, Ohio on June 15, 1929, Muriel and I kept our apartment and Abe and Margarette moved into the Blair apartment. Here David was born on April 29, 1930. During the years I had made many trips to see my mother and brothers and sisters in Sarnia, Ontario. My mother always seemed to me to be indestructible, she was such a strong woman, mentally and physically. She was 86 when she died in her sleep the summer of 1930 and two months later my sister Mary died in Aurora, Minnesota.

Then came the depression and Abe rented a large house on Bingham Avenue and Muriel and I gave up our apartment and moved in with Abe, Margarette and little David. This was a comfortable house with large porches front and back. There was a good-sized back yard where Margarette and I could enjoy raising vegetables and flowers and a fine piece for a small boy to play. In the spring of 1933, Muriel and Earl were married. It was a small wedding, but a pretty one held in the living room of our home. Gwyneth Bell Pratt was bridesmaid and Doctor Alec Ritchie was best man. We had a luncheon for the twenty or so guests, then Muriel and Earl left on a weekend honeymoon. They had to be home on Monday, Muriel to teach and Earl as a reporter on the Evening News. Muriel resigned her teaching position in June. On June 17th Margarette and Abe had their second son Charles. I continued living with Abe and Margarette as there was always plenty to keep us busy. Margarette and I enjoyed knitting and sewing so we made all the little boys’ clothes.

In August Abe rented a big ten room house on Dawson Street. When we moved in Abe bought our first electric stove and electric refrigerator. The stove was made by General Electric and the refrigerator by Kelvinator. When we left the Soo, Abe sold both pieces to Earl. They used them until they moved into their new home in 1960, then gave them to Martha, their daughter and her husband. The only repair needed on either piece was new hinges on the Kelvinator door.

The second summer we were in the big house, there was a terrific heat wave that hit Lower Michigan and the Central States. Tourists flocked north to find some relief. There were no motels in the Soo and only three hotels. The hotels could not accommodate the crowds that came, so the Chamber of Commerce called everyone to see if they could find room for these people. Abe, Margarette and David moved downstairs to the big playroom and Charles moved in with me, so we had four bedrooms available. From the first of June until the end of August every room was taken every night. We did this for two summers and had a busy prosperous time. We sometimes served breakfast to the guests who stayed more than one night or to those who were Slow starters in the morning. Some tourists spent several days, and two women spent two weeks.

Across the street and behind a row of houses was a canal which provided waterpower for the Union Carbide Company, the city electric plant. The Canal was wide, swift and deep so a high fence had been built on both sides of it. It really cut the town in two and four bridges had been built across it connecting the north and south sections of the town. In the winter of 1934, David was four and Charles almost a year and one-half, we had an unusual amount of snow, so the top of the waterpower canal fence was not much higher than the snowbanks. The spring was cold, so the snow had not melted much when in April Margarette went to the hospital to have her tonsils out. She only stayed overnight, and the next morning Abe brought her home.

About eleven David wanted to go out and play with Harry, his friend who lived next door. It was a cold day, so I put on his snow suit, helmet, overshoes and mittens and tied a scarf around his neck. The two boys had never crossed the street, but that day they ventured over and into Mrs. Dawson’s back yard. The two boys climbed this snowbank next to the fence and David was on top of the fence when he lost his balance and slid down the steep bank into the icy, rushing waters. Harry came screaming and out Margarette ran. A doctor who was driving over the bridge got out of his can and threw the car seat into the water, then rushed into a nearby house and called the waterpower plant. Mr. Johnson who took the call grabbed a pike pole and rushed out onto the walk above the gates that let the water into the turbines. Just as David was going under the walk, Mr. Johnson reached down with his pole and the hook caught in David’s snow suit and he was pulled to safety. He was put in a car and rushed to the hospital where he was kept under close watch. Two nurses, Mrs. Hecox and Mrs. White were hired to be with him every minute. He ran a high temperature, and we were all afraid of a lung infection. After six weeks in the hospital, we brought our little boy home. David is the only person to have ever fallen into the canal and come out alive. The canal has claimed many, some accidental and several suicides.

In the spring of 1935, I went to Detroit. It was a very special occasion. Nat, Sarah and family from Bemidji were there too. I stayed with my sister Rachel who lived in an apartment there. Nat had been afforded the highest honor a hardware man could receive. He had been elected National President of the Wholesale, Retail Hardware Association. Such a busy week as we had teas, luncheons and sightseeing trips, ending in a big formal dinner at the hotel on Friday evening. We were all so proud of Nat and his acceptance speech was very inspiring. He even had his picture on the cover of a national magazine.

In the August of 1928 my oldest granddaughter Jean was married in Bemidji to Charles McCony of Minneapolis. Jean had graduated from the University of Minnesota the year before.

This was the first large church wedding in our family so there was much ado getting ready for it. Abe, Margarette and the two boys and I drove from Sault Ste. Marie to attend. I bought a lovely rose colored lace dress for the occasion. Jean was a lovely bride. She was a tiny, beautiful girl and her dress and veil were exquisite.

The church was crowded as was the reception at her home after the ceremony. As “Grandmother” of the bride I received a lot of attention also. I was a very proud and happy woman.

The little boys were very near and dear to me. I had been with them all their lives and we had a wonderful relationship. They were very different, and I loved them for their individuality. David was more sober of the two and a most responsible little boy. Growing up seemed so easy for him, you just had to admire him for his attitude toward life. Charles was a gay little fellow, always getting into mischief and then trying to wriggle out without the inevitable punishment. He disliked sleeping alone and from the time he was two years old he decided to sleep with me. I guess that was the beginning of a very deep love and respect we had for each other. He came to me for love and attention the same way David turned to his mother. We still have a special something between us. Muriel said, “I only hope I have a grandchild that loves me the way Charles loves his grandmother.”

In 1935 Martha Lea was born to Earl and Muriel. The boys loved that baby girl and always thought of her as their little sister. Muriel and Margarette are very close, so it was natural for the children to have a relationship that has lasted down through the years.

In the Fall of 1936 Abe rented a house trailer in Lansing and brought it to the Soo. In October Abe rented the house to three young fellows for six months and I went to live with Muriel and Earl and Martha. Abe, Margarette and the boys left on a trip through the United States and Mexico. In November, Muriel, Martha Lea and I drove to Bemidji to visit my sons, Bob, Jim and Nat and their families for two weeks. Martha was now two years old and was a joy to be with and Muriel was expecting her second baby the last of April. I enjoyed making baby clothes and as I had so many friends in the Soo, I was busy and happy, but I certainly missed my two little boys. The winter passed quickly and the first part of April, Abe, Margarette and the boys came home, and we all moved back into our home. The end of April, Rachel was born. Muriel had a very bad time with phlebitis afterward, so Martha stayed with her Grandfather and Grandmother Closser and Muriel and baby Rachel came to stay with us. It was almost two months before Muriel could go home.

In the Fall of 1937 Abe decided to leave the Soo, so they had a sale and sold practically everything and taking Tippy, the dog, we drove to San Antonio, Texas for two weeks. After living in the north all we life where houses were all painted in shades of brown or gray. I was surprised at the houses being painted in lovely pastel shades. Every house looked like a little gem. Of course, the people in San Antonio didn’t have to cope with soot and dust from industrial plants. One day we drove over to Tyler, Texas which was then the rose capital of the world. I’ll never forget the acres and acres of blooming roses. We also visited the Alamo. Even in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to see this famous Fort. We then drove south to McAllen, Texas which was to be our new home. Abe and Margarette knew quite a few people as they had spent almost a month in McAllen when they were on their trailer trip the winter before, here we were surrounded by fruits and vegetables of such variety we were amazed. Every other day we went to the packing houses to get fresh fruit and vegetables. One day we were out driving, and the vegetable trucks were dumping their loads of vegetables in a vacant area not far from the railroad. The price had dropped, and the farmers could not afford to ship their loads. Eggplant, cucumbers, carrots, turnips, cabbage, corn etc., were being dumped. People by the hundreds were picking up good fresh vegetables for nothing. Of course, we joined the crowd. It is hard to imagine anything like this happening. Everything here in the Valley was so different from anything I had ever known or even dreamed about that each day was a thrilling experience. We drove to Reynosa, Matamoras and spent an exciting two weeks in Monterey. At that time of year, the Rio Grande is almost dry and as the new bridge over the river was not yet completed, we drove down to the riverbed. We had lunch on a boulder and then drove up the other side. After the spring rains that river is a raging torrent. There were orchids, gardenias, coral vines and hibiscus in profusion and mangoes and avocadoes about which I had only read.

While in Monterey we drove up the mountain to Chapinki and Saltillo. Here we saw them weaving sarapes and making the lovely tiles. The climate of the Rio Grande Valley did not agree with Abe, so in 1938 we moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where Abe went into the grocery business. This was my first experience in the “Deep South” and some of the people were still fighting the Civil War, which was hard for me to understand. We made many friends here and enjoyed our stay in Birmingham. We had a lot of company, and we were on the route the people from Minnesota and Michigan took on their way to Florida for the winter. Birmingham is a beautiful city. I had lived in relatively flat country all my life and here we were living on the side of Red Mountain. Roses had been planted along the reads leading in and out of the city. The city had a nursery where they grew roses and gave the people all the bushes, they had room to plant. It certainly was the “City of Roses.” We enjoyed driving and picnicking in the mountains and learning the names of the trees, shrubs and flowers that were new to us. After two years beginning to put the pinch on small operations, he decided to accept the offer and once again we were on the move. We packed everything and Abe got a truck to move to Lakeland, Florida. Abe drove in the truck and Margarette drove the car taking the boys and me with her.

Here Abe was very successful in the bag business and three years later bought a beautiful home on Jefferson Avenue. We spent the hot summer months in Marquette, Michigan with Earl and Muriel and their three children, Martha, Rachel and Bruce who was born in 1944.

Many Soo people we knew were either living permanently in Tampa or spending the winters there. The Detroit Tigers had spring training camp here in Lakeland as were all baseball fans, we never lacked for entertainment. Our home was always bulging with company from January through April. We never knew whether we were going to have five or ten more for meals. There was so much to see and do around Lakeland that entertainment was no chore.

Margarette decided, that as long as Florida Southern was only a few blocks away that she would go back to school and get her degree. She went in the Fall and Springtime as we had too much company during the winter term. Martha came in September to spend the winter with us. She was eight years old, and we all enjoyed having a little girl in the house, Abe adored her and they had such a good time together. Such a busy household. The two boys were in high school and Jr. High and

Martha in grade school. Margarette’s classes were from 8 to 12, then in the afternoons she studied. There never was a dull uninteresting moment. We spent many weekends at either the Atlantic or Gulf beaches and we all enjoyed the water or picking up unusual shells. Margarette got her degree in June 1945, she had spent long hard hours on her work but had wonderful grades to show for it.

The winter of 1944 Rachel spent the winter with us. It seemed Muriel and Margarette were always exchanging children. Charles spent six months in Marquette when he was in the 8th grade, and he went to school up there his junior year in high school.

In the winter of 1947 Margarette went back to teaching for two years. I really hadn’t felt so well in years as I was in the busy time. David graduated from high school in the spring of 1948 and joined the navy in the Submarine Service that fall and left for San Diego, California. He served for two years, stationed most of the time in Key West. He spent some time in Norfolk going to Radar and Sonar school. He was able to get home often, or we would drive to Key West to spend the weekend with him. On one of our trips, we were able to go aboard the Swordfish, which was the submarine on which David was training.

David entered the University of Florida in the fall of 1950 and Charles graduated from high school the spring of 1951. It was a great joy to see my two boys mature into such fine young men.

The years were slipping away, and I am now 88 years of age. I won’t say old, because I do not feel old. I am still in possession of all my faculties so I will continue my story. My eyesight is still good, and I am wearing a hearing aid. I don’t get about as quickly or as easily as I once did, but I have no aches or pains. God has been good to me. There are so many things ™ wanted to do but couldn’t find the energy to do them. I guess I was expecting too much but I’m not the type to sit and let the world go by. I had not been too well the last year as Muriel came down and spent a month with me while Abe and Margarette went to the mountains for a vacation. I soon got back my vim and vigor, at least some of it and I kept very busy and happy. After a year at the University of Florida, Charles decided to join the army and was stationed at Camp Stewart in Georgia.

That winter I kept busy knitting, embroidering, reading and mending and of course playing bridge. Knitting had become a fad in Lakeland and many of Margarette’s friends needed me to help them. I also taught a good friend to do Italian hemstitching and cut work embroidery. My eyesight was very good, so I also enjoyed reading and writing letters. How does anyone keep happy and contented if they can’t lose themselves in a good book? I really enjoy historical novels best of all, but I

never turned down a chance to read good detective or mystery books.

In the spring of 1953 Muriel and Earl wanted me to go to Marquette and live with them for a while. I was 91, but still was in good health, so Abe got my reservations, and I was off to another new home. Abe worked every day, Margarette was teaching again, David was at the University and Charles was in the army, so it was lonely in the big house. I didn’t want to leave Abe and Margarette, but my sense of adventure was still strong, and I knew I would find a new meaning to my life. Again, I was in a home bustling with activities, and I was caught up in all the excitement. That fall Margarette went to Bemidji to see Bob and Jim who were very ill, then came and spent a month with us in Marquette.

Martha, Rachel and Bruce really made life interesting for me. As I had lived so many years in a home with David and Charles, being with Martha and Rachel was certainly different. They were very interested in my early life and they and Bruce would sit for hours listening to me reminisce and I loved to hear about their joys, frustrations and hopes, growing up in this modern world. Nearly a 75-year gap in our lives, but the girls and I had no trouble bridging it with love and mutual respect. Bruce was a happy little boy and loved to play games with me. Earl and Muriel are both fine pianists with very different techniques and I enjoyed their music very much. Earl is a very talented reader also and would spend many hours reading to me.

The year 1954 was saddened by the death of my dear sister Rachel in June. Abe was seriously ill in the hospital for two months in the summer. Then in July my oldest son Bob passed away in Detroit Lakes and in September my second son Jim died in Bemidji. Had I been younger such tragedies would have been almost too much to live with, but I knew that I had not too long to wait until I joined my beloved sons. Also, as one grows older you see the Hand of God in all things, so you do not question His wisdom.

In 1955 Charles was discharged from the army and got home just in time to be David’s best man. David married Connie Wise in April in a lovely formal wedding at the Methodist Church in Winter Haven. Abe retired and Charles took over the business. David had graduated from the University of Florida and was with the Florida Citrus Commission with his headquarters in Atlanta. Abe was feeling better again so he and Margarette celebrated their 25th Wedding Anniversary by taking a trip to Panama and South America in June. In August they drove here to Marquette to spend a few weeks with us.

I didn’t get up and get dressed any more as it seemed as though I just didn’t have the energy and inclination. My room at Earl and Muriel’s was large and very comfortable. I had my own bathroom and there were several easy chairs for comfortable visiting. I still was keeping busy darning and folding socks, embroidering and knitting. I made two Christmas tablecloths put together and hemmed by feather stitching. I wanted to do some Italian hemstitching, but I had forgotten how to do it, maybe Margarette will remember when she comes. She does a lot of lovely cutworks, embroidery, knitting and crocheting but she never could learn to make a decent buttonhole.

I still loved a good game of bridge and rummy and am still quite good at both. When Abe and Margarette were here there was always four of us around the table playing bridge.

I had a lot of company and enjoyed every minute of my life with this wonderful family. I saw more of my family now than I did while in Florida. Distance does make a difference. Nat and Sarah and D’Arcy and Leona came often, and Inga and her daughter Marguerita visited also.

My family have always been close to me and to each other. I have been so proud of them all. Muriel and Earl’s friends were always very thoughtful and kind and visited me often, so I never felt time hanging heavy on my hands.

This fall, I feel myself growing weaker and get out of bed only rarely. I know there is not much time left. I have no aches or pains, and I am continually planning what I want to accomplish next, but this body stands in my way. I am so thankful that my mind is keen and alert even if this old “house”, can’t keep up.

Darcy is coming over from Appleton next week and Margarette is coming also. Earl is going hunting so my three McGee children and I will have a good visit.

All my children and their families have always been loving, kind and considerate. I had seven children, two of which are gone and twenty-one grandchildren of which we have lost two. Robert at the age of 9 who was Bob and Inga’s oldest son and Bud at 24 who was Nat and Sarah’s oldest son. My grandchildren also have brought me great joy.

Margarette writing.

I spent ten days with Mother then had to return to Lakeland as Abe and I were selling the big house and building a home on the adjoining plot. My nephew, Jack Given, his wife Muriel and three boys were in Florida and were to spend Thanksgiving with us in Lakeland. Thanksgiving evening, November 25, 1955, Muriel called and said that Mother had passed away in her sleep that afternoon. I flew to Marquette the following day. On the next day Earl, Muriel and I drove to Bemidji. We laid Mother to rest on November 28 in the cemetery in Bemidji beside her oldest son Bob and her two grandsons, Robert and Bud (Nat Jr.). Jim is buried nearby. Mother would have been 94 years old on Christmas Day.

APPENDIX 1977

And the places that once knew her will know her no more, but she will live on in the hearts of the people to whom she gave so generously of her sympathy, understanding and boundless love.

Her advice to her family was “You can do better Don’t stop at what you think you can accomplish but push on and do a bit more. There are higher goals to reach, and you have the ability to do anything in this life that you really want to.”

Mothers attitude toward life can best be summed up in the words of Jack London, “I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than it be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor every atom of me in a magnificant glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not exist—I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them—I shall use my time.”

Darcy and I, Margarette, are her only two living children, but twenty grandchildren still survive. We would each of us like to add a memory or two to her story.

Margarette McGee Lyons