The Victoria Community Development Corporation
Roy Clarke

"I would deliver groceries with the horse and cart."

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There were 16 of us all together. Fourteen children! There were eleven boys and three girls. I was the oldest.

The women were mostly working around the house. They never went away to work because there were no any jobs for them to go away too.

My grandmother Clarke died before I came along but my grandfather Clarke lived with us and he used to get $12 every three months from the government and that was his income. My grandmother and grandfather Snow lived in Freshwater.

I went to work in 1943 at the age of 14 at R & W Clarke's Store. I was a helper in the store and I would deliver groceries with the horse and cart. At the age of 16 I went to Labrador for one summer fishing. After this I was in the lumber woods for four to five years. I worked in Gander for a year. Then I went to Buchans in 1961 left there and worked in Construction then I went back to Buchans in 1969.

In 1962 I had an accident. After this I went in the wholesale business for twelve years by myself. Then I was a school bus driver for Joe Noel for ten years and that was the end of my career.

Yes, the women stayed stayed home to work. I went away to work and my wife stayed home and looked after our four kids and the house. Yes the men went away to work. All of my employed was mostly away from home. Men mostly went away to find work.

Our house was a two-story house with an old-fashion A frame and a steep roof. The walls upstairs were four feet high then it was the roof.

There was no running water, no indoor plumbing and no electricity but I can remember getting electricity in the later days.

I cannot remember when I got a television or a radio.

I was the oldest of the children so I was basically in charge of things. I had such things to do as cut wood, cut hay, and bring in the firewood. We did the same chores everyday.

We planted vegetables but we only planted potatoes. Eventually it was just as cheap to go buy your vegetable. We had a horse, a few hens, and a goat every Christmas.

I played football, baseball, tiddley, and whip top. The whip top was four inches in diameter.

I never had a musical instrument but my father had an accordion and one Christmas I took it without him knowing. Well, we went to Freshwater jannying and we got caught in the snow and accidently got wet. I didn't want my father to find out so I put it back where I took it from and when my father took the accordion out on Sunday to play it, it fell apart in three pieces. He said, "Oh, my. I shouldn't have kept it in a damp place." And to this day I never told him what happened to his accordion.

I went to church but my parents didn't. They weren't church people.

I was always part of the Orangemen's society. The Orangemen used to have a parades and there would be Christmas concerts.

Christmas was different, back then everyone visited each other. The community was as one. We would go to Flatrock jannying and one time we went to one house eleven night in a row.

There was a United School building here in Victoria and Hector Strong was the principle. There was a pot belly stove in each classroom. I went to Primmer, grade one, grade two, grade three, grade four, and I spent two days in grade five. I was fourteen year old and I left school in 1943 to go to work.

There were about Twenty-two people in a class. Well, there really a class for on grade. There used to be three or more classes in one room.

I used slate, chalk and a bottle of water. For heat each student had to bring a junk of wood and we had to take our turn looking after the fire. When I was in grade two we got coal but we still had to take our turn watching the fire.

There were no indoor bathrooms, there were outhouses and there was five in one.

We had to walk or use a horse and cart. It would take a half hour to walk to Carbonear.

No one in my family had a car or a driver's license. I got my first car in 1959 and it was a ‘52 dodge with a big radio. When I was eight or ten years old John Edger Vaters had a ‘37 chevy and he took us to Freshwater one day. He let me drive his car and this was the first car that I was ever into. There were no paved roads, only gravel ones, with lots of potholes. I don't really know what the cost of transportation was but I know when I worded in the lumber woods at the age seventeen to go from Whitbourne to Glenwood on the train it cost $14. I believe the cost of gas was $0.58 a gallon and the only kind of gas back then was Esso.

I can't remember when the train used to go through but I know that they took up the tracks in 1932.

There was neither hospital this side of St. John's out, we had one doctor in Carbonear by the name of Doctor Stanford and he used to drive a Coupe de Ville.

If a women went into labour you have to call a midwife. Every community had at least two or three midwives.

Some Home Remedies were; steeped juniper for water troubles; dogberry wine for the flu; Epson's salt for cuts, bruises, or a sore throat; Friar's Balsam mixed with molasses and kerosene on the stove for whatever problem you had.

There were harder winters back then and more frost. The snow stayed on the ground for longer periods of time and when we would have a snowstorm it would last for three or four days.

When I was about 12 year old I had a dog which I had to keep out in the barn. One night it got stormy and I had done my chores. I had to go to the barn to get some wood and my dog chased me into the house. I wasn't going to put him back out in the barn so unknown to my mother I kept the dog in the back porch. Early in the morning I heard the dog whining to get out so I went down and let him upstairs with me so mother wouldn't hear him. I happened to look out the window and I couldn't see anything because the window was snowed in and that was 15 feet high. So I opened the window and pushed my arm out to see if I could find where the snow ended but I couldn't. So I went downstairs and the door wouldn't open so I went back upstairs and the dog had crawled out through the snow. When I looked the snow was up to the first bar on the poles.

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Special Memories

The Victoria Community Development Corporation Roy Clarke

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Special Memories

The Victoria Community Development Corporation
Roy Clarke