The Victoria Community Development Corporation

Maxine Vaters

"We enjoyed going in the road and Father would boil the kettle."

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There were a lot of changes in the community since we were growing up. When we were growing up there was mostly one school for all grades usually from kindergarten right to grade 11. I can remember one time there was a big school called the Hector Strong School and then down below across where the community center is now there was a little Church of England school there. I attended that one and I attend the school on the neck too. There were three schools in this area one time and there were a lot of businesses going. There's not much here now.

There was R & W Clarke's store there for quite a while and that's where I did most of my shopping and then we had a post office. The post office was across from where Irving's is now. We used to call it the old post office.

Like I said, the schools were crowded. They wouldn't have the convenience like they got now like hot air furnaces and electric heat. Things like that. We usually depended on the wood and coal stoves, same things in the churches.

I remember growing up, my father used to be an usher on the church door and once a month or probably twice a month Saturdays after supper you would go up and take some wood some splits and some coal for my father to light the fire in church on Sunday morning. That was our usual routine just about every Saturday and we would enjoy Saturday nights up at the church with father. We would sweep up the church and that before we'd leave and go home. We enjoyed that to the fullest and we spent a lot of time with our father doing things like that.

My father and mother were hardworking people. They reared their own vegetables. Seems there's no one really interested in that now. There were an awful lot of changes. My father used to have two gardens right up on the top of the hill in Victoria and my mother would go up there and she'd read her own vegetables enough to keep us going till the next fall and she used to grow pumpkins. Oh, they'd be huge.

I was from a large family. There were eleven of us and we enjoyed Saturdays. Well, not every Saturday. Usually every couple Saturdays we enjoyed going in the road and my father would boil the kettle and you know we enjoyed all that. But it seems like now there's no enjoyment for the children. There's no where for the children to go and that's one thing this town is lacking today.

Years ago after you'd go to school, you'd pick up a job in a store. I worked at R & W Clarke for quite some time and I'd say a good many like me worked there in Victoria.

But there have been an awful lot of changes. There was no such thing as phone services when I was growing up. There for a while we even had a clinic in Victoria, but that closed down. We had it for quite a while. That was a real convenience because if you wanted to go down for a checkup, you'd take your time and walk down. Now you probably got to pay a taxi to take you out to the clinic. We missed the clinic when it moved.

There was no street lights or nothing when we were growing up, and you know things have changed. There is less employment here. Employment is very scarce around the town but the council is doing a good job, I appreciate the council. You know picking up my garbage and then snow clearing during the winter months. That's a privilege in itself. But the tow itself, to be honest with you now, I wouldn't live anywhere else but in Victoria.

When I was growing up, I played skip rope, and I used to sit for hours playing cricket with two rocks and two sticks. I played cricket. I enjoyed that. It wasn't all that many sports around like there is now. We enjoyed outdoors playing them kinds of games. I used to go swimming summer times and I really enjoyed my holidays when summer came around.

When I was growing up there were only one doctor and clinic and that was run by Dr. Stanford, and he had patients all around, from Western Bay to Victoria. He had to see to them all. There were two medicines. The two druggists were Mr. Legrow and Mr. Oscar Howell. If a woman went into labour years ago, you'd call a midwife. Most of the children born at my time were born by middies.

Some home remedy they used was senna ten for coughs and colds. Friars' balsam. I imagine you can buy that now. You'd get the stream from it and you'd inhale the stream. There were no Vicks inhalers and things going then and mostly if you had a cough. I can remember my Mom would boil molasses on the stove and we'd drink that for a cough.

People in general enjoyed life. They didn't have much of what the young people get now but what they got they seemed to be contented with and they seemed to be a feeling of contentment.

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