The Victoria Community Development Corporation
Helen Higdon

"There was a potbelly stove and we would all scram up to it to keep warm in the winter. "

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had eight brothers and two sisters. All of my brothers are dead now but my sisters are still alive. My grandfather died at a young age but my grandmother lived with us. He name was Betsy Ann Clarke. My grandparents would discipline us.

We had a big square two-story house with a shop on the end of it. That was eventually torn down. There were seven bedrooms upstairs and no running water but we had a well outside. We had a dining room, a living room, a pantry and a back pantry, which was a cold room where the dead animals such as cows and pigs were kept. I also had a battery-operated radio.

Everyone would have to do chores. I would have to milk the cows, one of my brothers would cut the wood, the youngest brother would bring in the splits and my sister would clean and wax the floor and another sister would peel the vegetables on Saturday. Monday was washday and I had to make sure the water pails were full.

We used to plant turnips, potatoes, carrots, beets, green peas and what food we bought, we bought by the case. We had some animals such as a horse, cows, sheep, goats, hens, and pigs.

I used to play snakes and ladders, checkers, hide and go seek, cricket, handball, tiddly, hopscotch, spin the top, walking on the daddy long legs. Church was very important in our actives. Church was more reverent back then. There was a Lodge and they would have a parade and invite different lodges to participate and when the parade was over, they would serve them bully beef. They called it corned beef.

During Christmas there would be carolers going from house singing Christmas carols. Some others would go mummering but if your boots were dirty, you weren't allowed in the house. We would go to Freshwater and Flatrock mummering. I also went to Flatrock on Father's Day, Mother's Day, and Easter for the programs.

The school was located by the church and it was tipped on one side and surrounded by rocks. There would be five or six grades in one room and we had a teacher by the name of Gordon French who would go around spitting. He was a hard teacher.

Sometimes there would be five classes in one room with one teacher and there would be seven or eight of us sitting on a hard iron grate bench. There was a potbelly stove and we would all scram up to it to keep warm in the wintertime. While I was going to school I used a slate and chalk, but a few years before I finished school, I used s scribbler. For recess I would have a piece of hard bread or a handful of dried apple or apricot.

We used a horse and cart, a buck goat with a cart tied to it and a dog sled tied onto that would haul people around for transportation. There were no paved roads.

I remember there was a doctor here by the name of Dr. Stanford and if you were really sick, you would go to him. If a woman went into labor, you called a midwife. My grandmother, Betsy Ann Clarke, and her sister Aunt Sophie Clarke were midwives. My grandmother born thousands of babies.

I worked at the Waterford Hospital in St. John's as a nursing assistant for 7 ½ years. Then I worked at Earle's Fish Plant in Carbonear for six years. In 1966, I opened my own store in my house. Due to a heart attack in 1990, I had to close it.

The Time We Got Our Pavement, Lundrigan's Construction had all of the roads paved down here. They were doing more pavement and they bypassed Church road. They weren't going to do our road. So a few of us women up this way went down outside the bridge to Leonard and Myrtle Snow's red, white, and blue house. That's where we stopped traffic. No traffic could get through and then the Mounties came. We let them through and then we wouldn't let them out again. The mailman, Mr. Swain, came. We wouldn't let him out. After all day there, we fried the caplin and we fried the trout we brought. We had a feed.

Anyway, by and by here comes the Riot Squad from St. John's on a bus. They had their helmets on but we stood our ground. We would not let them pass they got three or four of us on the bus but we wouldn't let the bus out. Then all of a sudden, they hauled us all aboard the bus. Away, we got up to Harbour Grace Court and they had to bring us home again. The next morning we had a summons. Only one woman answered the summons. We were all up there to support her. Nothing came of it but we got our pavement.

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

The Victoria Community Development Corporation Helen Higdon

Stories

Special Memories

The Victoria Community Development Corporation
Helen Higdon