The Victoria Community Development Corporation
Beulah Cole

"On Halloween we would cut up people's clothes lines."

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There were seven of us: Mother and father and five children. I had two sisters and two brothers and I'm the baby! My mother was Wesleyn (Wareham) and my father was James King.

I was seven when I lost my mother. My father worked in the mines on Bell Island so my sisters, Minnie and Annie, would keep house and they also looked after me. I didn't know my grandparents.

I worked at a service station and would make $10.00 a month.

We had a two-story house with no running water, an outhouse and an outdoor well.

We used to go to Uncle George Clarke's to watch TV in 1966. they was the only one with a TV then.

We would all take turns doing our chores of bringing in water and the wood. The boys were mostly into that. The girls would do the washing.

We had our vegetable garden. We planted potatoes and we used to dig them.

The only animal that we had was a goat.

In my past time I would play Hide and go seek, hopscotch and skipping. We'd take a piece of rope off the ol' fence.

We went to church every Sunday and they would have picnics. We'd go down on the track and have a garden party. In school ts would get together and take a crowd of us down. There were no community organizations back then.

We used to long for Christmas to come to get a few candy. We'd get an apple, perhaps an orange and a few candy. Oh, my, we thought we were on cloud nine then. We had a tree decorated with popcorn, beads, apples and oranges. Christmas we were lucky if we had a piece of fresh meat for Christmas dinner or a roast or maybe something caught in the woods like a few birds or a rabbit.

The school was one room building with about ten or 15 of us in the one room and there were two or three different teachers. We would use chalk and a slate. To erase it, we would use a rag and some water. There was a pot belly stove used for heat and we would take turns putting the wood and coal in the stove.

We would go to school with four or five splits in under our arms. One would go with splits,someone else would bring an armload of wood and more would bring a bag of coal. My father would get up in the morning and have splits claved and ready for us when we would get up and get ready to go. I quit school when I was nine or ten.
If we wanted to go anywhere we would have to walk or travel by horse and cart. When I would go to Carbonear to get my groceries I would go by horse and cart.

I remember that Uncle Ambrose Cole had a car, and that I was never on a train.

There was a doctor in Carbonear and sometimes when a woman went into labor they would carry her out to the doctor on horse and cart, but most of the time there was a midwife around to deliver the baby. Lillian Parsons delivered most of my children. She would use a pair of scissors, a clean rag, hot water, and cotton for the umbilical cord.

Some home remedies included Friar's balsam - this opens up the breathing tube and helps the person breath better. For a cut you would use turpentine from the woods.

Back then I remember the snow being way up over the house and we used have to crawl out of the stairs the window and dig ourselves out.

One time Swansea Road was once a swamp and Rattles Road was once a empty barren.

We would wear long coats, bell bottoms, blue and white shoes, gaiters and spats. We didn't care what were wore only that we were covered.

There was not a lot of crime on the go and what crime there was it was hushed up. The only crime that was in the go were the kids who would go around playing pranks. Such pranks would include robbing the hen's pen, switching people gates and on Halloween we would cut people's clothes lines. The only punishment would be the kids' parent would spank them and then you would get put to bed for a week.

Some things that I have now that make my life easier than before are running water, heat, and an indoor bathroom.

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