Interviewer: So you were in thirteen when the school closed. Speaker: Yup they announced um they were considering the school closure and ah that was a big challenge for all of us in grade-thirteen. Um because you were the big man on campus or ah you-know the ah ah the seniors in the school, and the prospect of your- your home being taken away- because you were basically there from six-thirty in the morning until nine at night, just never dawned ...

The grain runs out in bushels- bushels ah on the side of the mill and (inc) you have to have a man carrying them to the granary as they come out.

No, I haven't done...what I've been doing, I used to knit, crochet afghans and they were the small squares, the granny-squares and I always crocheted enough and made a pillow cover and always sent a couple of those or one of those anyway each year and this year I'm sending, I've already done it, three long scarves with a fringe on the end you know.

Interview: What was it like sleeping in a classroom with ah thirteen other guys and two coaches? Speaker: It was funny. Watching our coaches come back late nights, not super-hammered or-anything but drunk nonetheless. Ah ah them being mad at us 'cause we were still awake.

Both ah for food and- and ah clothing and- and-so-on and so there was a lot of cooperation like there is today ah it's um- there were food-lines all- quite a few food-lines, there were a lot of people on relief that literally had to- nothing that- lived- lived from hand-to-mouth and they needed these places and ah luckily ah we- we were able to scrape through and- and ah as a family and-so-on and- but there was a lot of families that didn't have that support.

...so he and I worked in this hospital and our combined years were ninety-one- ninety-one years. And it was- it was a happy ship, and we- we had a wonderful time with people like Bill-Alman and John-Lowell and Stan-Marks and Jack-Bishop and-

So we didn't have to spend a lot of money on rent and- (inc) and we had a- a happy family and the hospital was a happy ship in those days. So many people that were- we were all good friends.

Well, it had its effect. There were students that were coming from homes that were pretty hard up. And the effect it had that we had a lot of students in school that we normally wouldn't have had you see.

Yes, I have heard tell that they came with the United-Empire-Loyalists.

Oh yes. I have heard tell of those but I never saw one.

I never heard tell of him doing any dynamite in his life.

And I don't know if it's because they're like ignorant to learning, or- they're just so stupid, they can't learn, I-don't-know. You-know, like I hate to be hard on them but, the- a lot of hicks around here and a lot of just like low-life people that just follow I-guess in the footsteps of what they came from, you-know?

Um, between Deseronto and the reserve there is, I don't think there is so much in Belleville. 'Cause Belleville is such a like- it's such an integrated town already, like it's so cultured, and Deseronto's kind of like a step above hick.

Interviewer: ... you remember any particular incident in this area where anyone was known to be sick or...from the milk? Speaker: Not until... well that was about twenty-six or twenty-seven, we had an outbreak here of typhoid fever and out here in the fourth concession there was a farmer and a hired man and he was a carrier and they was a long while catching-up with it but I don't know how many cases of typhoid fever...there was two died with it.

And they did have a couple of hired men at that time too, who lived in our home, which it was an older type home. It you-know, was ah, I guess you'd call it a just a wooden siding type house.

Interviewer: What about summer activities? Or were you mainly taken up with the, as you say the tomatoes and the milking the cows. Speaker: Well, I guess probably a lot of it was taken up with that sort of thing. I know with the hired men around in the farm, dad would never let me venture near the barn too often because of the fact that not knowing at that time I was rather upset with him, because, you-know, "I wanted to know what was going on there" you-know.

... I didn't have any brothers or sisters. So it was sort of lonely in a way. So I had to entertain myself. And ah, you-know, I did get stories read to me occasionally, but my mother worked on the farm just as much as a hired man did, so you-know she- I was at her side maybe or whatever out in the fields, and in the barn she helped do the milking lots of times in the winter when dad would be at that woodlot, logging and that, and her and a hired man would have the responsibility of milking the cows, getting the milk to the factory and you-know, making meals and that.

And your Old-Henry chocolate bars and ah, that was one of the things that also comes to mind when I was young in our first home. So I would be under eight years old, um, our hired men, they looked forward going out on Friday night too or Saturday night, but usually it was Friday. They would bring me home a chocolate bar. So you-know, I really looked forward to them.

Oh none of them were holy terrors, but they- they were good. I-mean Jimmy-Trumbull now he was the one- he was suppose- he wasn't a swimmer, like we- they had a raft, and I was out the raft and ah the other two were in watching the kids in shore, and Jimmy just started swimming out to the raft.

Interviewer: And, ah, what sort of things did he sell in his store when he first set it up? Speaker: Oh, when he first started it was ah china toys, notions, patent medicines, tea, coffee- Speaker: Interviewer: Blankets. Speaker: Blank-- horse blankets and blankets, and- pails, all kinds of alumin-- granite and-things-of-that-type.