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The Victoria Community Development Corporation

Fanny (Vaters) Inniss

"He would put the radio on the window sill and we would all listen."

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When I was growing up there were three girls and two boys in our family. My parents were Lenora and Mark Vaters from Victoria. My father worked in a coal mine in Sydney, Nova Scotia and my mother was a housewife.

I was a housewife and I did domestic work. Most wives and women stayed home and the men went away to fish or to work in the mines. I never went to the Labrador but my father did when he was younger for the summers. He also worked on Bell Island building a school.

The house I grew up in was a two-story with a peak roof. They were built better back then than they are now. I never had a radio but I used to go down to Nick Clarke's to listen to the radio. He would put the radio on the window sill and everyone would sit around and listen to it. I especially liked the Irene B. Mellon Show.

For my chores I had to bring in water in buckets. I also had to help out around the house and do normal everyday things. We had to wash clothes with a scrub board. When the well went dry in the summer time I would have to walk in the road and lug out buckets of water.

We planted such vegetables as turnip, parsnips, carrots, and cabbage. During the winter we would go the Heart's Content to get turbot and caplin. We kept our vegetables in the cellar and we never had the problem of them freezing. We kept hens, goats and horses and in the summer I would have to help rake the hay.

I played hopscotch, marbles, hoops and whip toys. I went sliding and skating during the winter and I also hooked mats and knitted. We didn't have any musical instruments but there was a band at the lodge. Church was a very important part of our lives. We always went to church and Sunday school. Each Sunday after church my father would take me to see my grandparents over in the Rattles. There were organizations within the church and there was the lodge.

During Christmas there would be a concert down at the lodge and one New Year's Day there would be a parade with the band from the lodge. During Christmas we would go mummuing but back then it was called jannying. Christmas is not much different now but people don't go mummuing like they used to.

The school was a two room building with a pot belly stove. There was nothing on the floor and there was long benches and desks. Everyone would have to bring in a junk of wood and the boys would take turns lighting the fire. There was about twenty people in my class and to do our work we used readers, speller, slates and chalk. After slates we used exercise books and pens. We would have to dip our pens down in ink to get them to write.

The only other source of transportation was a horse and cart. Other than that you had to walk. John Edger Vaters was the first person around here to have a car. There were no paved roads until Confederation. When the taxi started for a round trip to Carbonear it would cost fifty cents. I didn't ride the train myself but I used to go down to the station every Saturday to get an ice cream cone. During recess tine at the school, the boys used to jump on the train for a ride.

There was a doctor in Carbonear by the name of Dr. Standford and if you needed surgery or you were seriously ill you had to go to St. John's on the train. When a woman went into labour you'd call the midwife and the doctor. The midwife would help deliver the baby and then they would help you dress the baby and they would visit you everyday.

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