The Victoria Community Development Corporation

Violet Parsons

"In the morning I would get up at 5 o'clock and mix a batch of bread."

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My mother was Hazel Penney and she married my father, Henry Sutton. My grandparents were John and Mary Penney.

I remember when I used to go berry picking with my Mother, Father and brothers, but Mary Jane would stay home and do the cooking. And when I'd get in agin' the little Mill Brook, they used to lug me across, and my feet would be soaking. Father used to make a big old fire in the drives. And then when we would all dry we'd open out, and the sun would shine up nice and bright and warm we used to pick our berries. Oh, what fun we used to have! And then Father would boil the kettle. My Father used to have a tin whistle, and that's how we used to come for our dinners. Then we would get ready to come and sell our berries. I might get 10 cents out of it and that was as good to me as $5.00 is to a child now.

What would you get out of 10 cents? Well, you could get perhaps a pan of bread or something for the next day to go berry picking, but I didn't have to buy that. My Mother used to have everything baked. I used to save it up and get something like cups and saucers for her, Oh it was excellent then. Everyone was alike. So anyhow that ends that. Then I grew up then and I married and then I started having children. I had 14 children.

I worked in Grace Hospital and I worked on Bell Isle, me and Fanny Inniss, doing house work. Then we left that and went to St. John's over to the Grace Hospital.

Well, you know, we used to make not a big lot of money. We used to make $5.00 a month. I tell you, $5.00 a month then was better than $500.00 now. But it was a lot of money then. I was dress to kill! I had a new coat and new shoes. I could go to church all spruced up and on $5.00 a month.

I was working at the children's ward and I was working at the nursery, and I used to go and cleanup the operation room when the operations would be over with. I was a Nursing Assistant. When my sister died I stayed home with my Mother. My sister's name was Joanne and she died with Meningitis. I had 6 brothers and 3 sisters, there was 10 of us all together. I am originally from Victoria.

So then I got married and had 14 children. I stayed home and looked after the children, while my husband was away to work.

I was a house wife. I worked in the garden, mixed bread, I cooked, I baked, I went in the woods, and brought the boughs back. And then we used to take our clothes in a big old washing tub and go down to running brook. Everyone around the road was all alike and we used to go down and wash our clothes, and hang it on the trees and dry it, bring it yo in that evening. Oh, what time we used to have! And in the morning I would get up at 5 and mix a batch of bread. While that was rising I used to mix another batch. I'd have 10 and 15 pans of bread up on the cupboard.

I used to wash the children. We had no bathrooms or wash tubs or foolishness like that. Not them days. There was outdoor toilets. And we used to get a big old galvanized wash tub. I used to wash the maids and wash their hair and clean them up for Sunday School, on Sundays. There was no work Sunday, you wouldn't dear put a bit of clothes on the line.

I'll tell you now what I used to do. I used to wash their clothes Saturday night and put it out and let it stay all night. Sunday morning I'd bring it in before the crowd got up around the road so that they wouldn't see the clothes out on the line Sundays. If my Father-in-law seen the pile of clothes out on the line Sundays, he'd want to know what I was doing because he was some what of a religious man, see. And we used to go to church then and Sunday School, but I couldn't because I had too big a tail left behind me.

If the children cut themselves the first thing we would go for is a turpentine bladder, and plaster the turpentine over the wound. We'd put a bit of cloth over that or a bit of rag, or perhaps a bit of flour bag, whatever was the handiest, as long as it was white and clean. We wrapped their hands or arms or whatever they cut.

If they had a boil or a sore come on their arm, there was pansy poultice or soft bread poultice. We used to put a bit of soft bread and put it in a little saucer and boil the bread. Then we'd put it on the cut and the next day they'd be OK. There's none of that now; you just run to the doctor. And juniper. We used to give children juniper to drink when they were small. It was for cramps in the stomach.

We had to work everyday and every night until 6 o'clock. Then we had out time to our self, but we had to get up at 5 the next morning and go back to work.

When I was working in St. John's and I would get ready to come home for a weekend, I would get a taxi - Jim Burgess, on the South Side; he was a taxi driver. It cost about $1.50 to come from St. John's.

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