The Victoria Community Development Corporation
Ester Clarke

"All the crowds used to come and watch our T.V."

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I had four sisters and two brothers: Gloria, Annabella, Martha, Mary, George, and Willis. My father was Willis Clarke and my mother was Sophia Clarke. My father used to work up in Grace Bay, Nova Scotia, in the mines. My father's parents were Lionel and Belle Clarke. My mother's parents were Jack and Emma Summers. I am the only one in my family who is still living. I am 86 years old.

I worked on Archibald's farm in Swansea picking vegetables. I would plant the seeds in the spring and pick them in the fall. The men would go away to the mines in Buchans and Bell Island and some went to work in Corner Brook.

There was no electricity. We used lamps for a while and then when we got electricity. The flat rate was $1.00 a month. There were no meters. My husband was a professional fireman with the Americans and first when TV's came out in the 1955 he brought one home for me. All the crowd up around the hill would come to watch my TV.

We kept such animals as hens, pigs, and goats. We would make hay in the summer for the horses and pigs for the winter. We would also grow potatoes, carrots, turnip, green peas, onions. You name it, and we grew it. We put them in the cellar so they would not freeze during the winter. In the summer we picked berries for jam and they were 10 cents a gallon.

I played hopscotch and had a scatter fight. I used to go watch the mission band concerts at the school hall. The church would also have Sunday School on every Sunday. The mothers would have prayer meeting in the basement of the church every Wednesday night. They also used to have hot suppers.

We would have a grand time in Christmas. We would have a tree in school and that was the good times. There were no lights like we have now. Then we would have the crowd come jannying. My mother would have a couple of cakes baked especially for jannying and she also had a drop of syrup for them.

I went to the United Church School where we had the usual things students needed. There was a pot belly stove where we would warm our hands in the winter. We used chalk and slates, no scribblers then. We also had a bottle of water to keep our slates clean. There was a big long list of students and there was many students assigned to each classroom. I remember the boys used to copy off all the girls.

There were no paved roads then. Every Sunday evening a few of us girls would have the horse and cart to go for a ride down over Beaver Pond. I didn't know how to tackle my horse, Harry, but I knew how to drive him. I never had a car because I was too busy working at Archibald's Farm. I remember the train. Sure I went to St. John's on it dozens of time. Sometimes we would be trying to get the children to sleep in the night time and this big old train would go through.

Dr. Stanford in Carbonear was our doctor. You never had to give him a pile of money only a bit once a year. When the women went in labor, the men would have to get out so they usually went in the woods.

Click here for a PDF version of Victoria: Recalling Our Heritage.

Stories

Click Below for each story.
Power Plant | Victoria's Birth | Prison Camp | Midwifery

Special Memories

Click below for each memory
Josh Antle | Eva Ash | Samuel Burke | Doris Clarke | Ester Clarke | James Clarke
John Clarke | Nathaniel Clarke | Reg and Emmie Clarke | Roy Clarke
Beulah Cole | Mark Cole | Steve Cole | Clarence Collins | Nina Curnew
James Dean | Helen Higdon | Leonard Inniss | Fanny Inniss | Millie Langer | Virda Layden
Hazel Peckham | Violet Parsons | Norman Penney | Rosalie Penney | Harold Priddle
George Snooks | Sarah Snow | Jean Stephenson | William Stephenson
Lillian Vaters | Maxine Vaters | Annie Whyte | Cyril Whyte