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The Victoria Community Development Corporation

William Stephenson

"I think we had one of the first radios back in the 20s."

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There were twelve of us counting Mom and Dad. Ten children: Seven girls and three boys. The eldest girl was Irene, next was my eldest brother Alex, Rosalie, myself, Ann, Don, Jen, and Mary. How's about that? My father was a busy man!

My parents were James and Amelia Stephenson. Dad was a miner and a carpenter. He worked in Nova Scotia in the mines and he also had a sawmill most of his life. He stated the one that is here today. The other one was closer to Bill Little's house in there. He also had one down by the track when the train used to go down there, right where the ball field is now. That's where he had the electric sawmill back in the ‘30s I guess. My grandfather was dead before I came about but my grandmother wasn't. She died in 1941. Susanna was my father's mother.

When I was nineteen, I went to work in the mess hall in Argentia in 1941 during the war. I mostly worked at mechanic work and I worked with the same company for forty years.

What was the old house like? I don't know. Two-story with a flat roof, you know, like some houses today. Four bedrooms you know. Like Cec Vater's house out there. There was electricity but no running water. I think we had one of the first radios back in the 20s.

There wasn't very many chores to do, get the wood and water, go to the well with buckets and bring enough water for the night. I also used to milk the cow.

We planted potatoes, carrots, cabbage and turnip. Dad always had pigs to kill in the fall. Always had a cow for milk. Oh, Grandmother used to make butter, home made butter. I could never eat it. I didn't like it. We always had a horse, goat and sheep.

Never had much recreation then. Played horse shoes. My dad used to have an accordion and we went to church.

The school building had three rooms in that old building. The one that burned down/ that was the old foundation (on the corner of Church Road and Main Road). When they rebuilt it, it was much bigger. When I was going there, there was only three rooms, one upstairs and two downstairs. Three or four different classes in one room. It would be grades one to four in a class and probably eight to ten in each grade. We mostly used a slate and a pencil. Sometimes we would have a little bottle of water and a piece of cloth and when you'd write something, you'd wipe all that off and write something else. You had to bring a junk of wood to school every morning and if you were bad, you would get a strapping.

My dad never had a car. He had a horse and cart in summer and a horse and sleigh in the winter. Sometimes he'd go down and get the younger ones in winter if it became stormy. That was after I finished school.

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