The Victoria Community Development Corporation

Leonard Inniss

"I remember the earthquake on the South Coast. The ground started to tremble and everything was shaking and rattling"

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

I was born in Fortune and I moved to Victoria after I got married.

I remember there were seven children in my family plus my mother and father.

Now the women they would do the gardening and making the hay and setting the vegetables. Them days they never had washers and dryers you would have a big tub and scrub boards. That's the way they'd wash their clothes. Then they'd hang it on the line. They also used to bring in water to wash clothes. As the boys got a little older they'd bring in the water for their mother's to wash their clothes. Now if you didn't do it, you would get punished.

My father used to go to sea. At the time, he wasn't a fisherman. He used to go what you call ‘foreign going'. In other words they would go to Portugal and Spain and places like that with loads of fish. They went on sailing boats and they'd be gone six months sometimes before they got back.

My grandmother would be around the house quite a bit. She used to knit mitts and socks for us.

I worked with McNamara, a construction company in Torbay. I used to get shifted around to St John's, Seal Cove, Deer Lake, and Gander, wherever the construction jobs were going on. I got tired shifting around so I applied for a job at the railway. I got the job and after that I worked with the railway 36 years. I went with the railway in 1952.

In March, the schooners would go out to the Grand Banks fishing. It would carry about 24 men and they would go about 3 weeks or until they would get a load of fish.

I remember we had two houses when I was growing up. The first one was a big house, painted brown and it had a veranda on it. Above the veranda was what was called a sun porch or a balcony where you could go out and sit down. We would go up on the top story and watch the sea or whatever. It was nice.

The house was situated on wet ground and when it froze the house used to heave. There was no basement then. They were just put on concert blocked and it wasn't down to the bedrock. So we moved from that house to another house, which was on more solid ground. It was high house right on a cliff. You could look out the window and look right down at the sea. And in the night you could see the rough sea hit the cliff. The house used to shake and if the wind was on shore, you'd have a heavy sea. There would be a lot of foam on the beaches and it would get on the windows and freeze and we'd have to scrape it off. The wonderful noise of the sea used to put me to sleep. I missed it when I moved to Victoria because I used to listen to the waves coming in. I would hear the stones rattling on the beach. I'd be in bed and it would be like music.

Now the water wasn't tap water, either. We'd go to the well or the spring and bring it home in buckets. They'd hot the water on the stove. At that time there was no electricity and no hot and cold water in the house.

We only had TV and radio since we came to Victoria. In 1947, we had a radio.

Now as I grew older and I got different responsibilities, I used to have to make my own bed. Even a boy in the family had to help his mother. Everyone in the family was given a certain chore and everyone had a part.

Monday was washday. On certain days of the week, the women would do the spinning of wool for the winter. That would usually be done after supper. I was always fascinated how the wool was joined because they never tied a knot. They would twist it and go on.

The youth when they reached 10 or 12 years old they had chores to do. We never had power like we do today. We had to bring in firewood and we also burned coal. We had to bring in splits.

Most generally we grew cabbage, turnip, carrot, and we used to grow our own green peas. Parsnip wasn't too plentiful but we had lots of potatoes and carrots.

We picked our own berries. Partridge berries, blueberries, and mash berries. Every kind of berry we could get our hands on, we picked. They would be boiled to make jam and some were put up in bottles for the winter.

Everyone grew vegetables because they had to do that to survive. There was no work and very little money and everyone worked together. Most people grew their own vegetables and kept their own sheep, goats and cattle for food and cows for their milk. Most people got along pretty good.

There was always one in the gang that could play the accordion. For sure you had to go to church on Sunday. That was one of the rules. Now we had a youth group ‘the mission society', there was a youth group so we could go to the Masonic Hall. They had books there. Any kind of book you wanted to read. The Orange Society also had a place for the youth to go and read books or study. There was no such thing as carrying on.

In the winter, there would be special events in the church like teas and harvest festival and other things. Halloween wasn't that much. We used to have Halloween but it was mostly for the smaller kids we made valentines for Valentine's Day. Now we had mummering at Christmas time. We'd make up a rig. It would take you weeks to make a rig (costume). Back then around Christmas, they'd kill cattle. They'd kill enough to eat over the winter. Some would use the cow's horns to put on their heads or some would use a cow's tail and sow it on behind and get on with al old foolishness.

We'd make horns, the more noise we'd make the better. We'd go jannying from house to house and have a square dance. They would always give us a piece of cake and a glass of syrup. That would be a wonderful thing. We used to enjoy it. Then, at Christmas time the Orange Hall or Masonic Hall would have a dance for the youth and the older people too. Someone would have an accordion. Generally that was what was played. We used to have a grand time. We jumped around and had a good time. The older people, they were sophisticated and particular about how they danced.

Back then we had three schools. One was from kindergarten up to grade 4 another school for the higher classes. Two schools were in one building and one school was all by itself.

There used to be around 12 to 14 students in say grade 7 while maybe 20 in grade 8. Each class had handy about the same thing. There was one big potbelly stove in the center for heat and in the winter everyone would bring in their mitts and throw them around the stove to dry. The person next to the stove was roasted and the person next to the door froze to death.

Up to about grade 4 we used slate and chalk. From there on we used lead pencils and scribblers. Then if we wrote a test, we'd use pen and ink. We'd buy the little nibs for our pens two or three for a cent.

We never had cars then; only the taxi. To go to Whitbourne cost about $2.50 and there would be about 5 or 6 of us. Gas was about 35 cents a gallon.

There were doctors but the only hospital was in St. John's, hundreds of miles away.

People wouldn't go to the hospital to born a child then. The mother to be, she would notify the midwife when she was handy about the time and the midwife would come and everything would turn out all right.

Caster oil was the thing you had to take for bowels and Epson salts if you got constipated or even if you had a cold in the head. If you had a sore throat you used Minard's lineament cause there was no Vicks then like there is now.

Growing up on the south coast, I can remember there was an earthquake. I was out in the yard and all the ground started to tremble and I went into the house. Everything was shaking and rattling. It didn't last too long but it gave me an awful fright just the same.

My advice to young people is : be your own person. Anything you know is not right, don't be talked into doing it. And anything you know is the right thing to do, then do it. My mother used to say, "Lenie, watch your cents because the dollars will look after themselves!"

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