I ended up pissing in the ticket booth all hammered without noticing it. ... I was like- I was like, "What's this thing?" I walk in it. "Oh well, I'm going to the bathroom here." Then I found out later it's the ticket booth. I was like "My bad."

Speaker: And wondered if I would like to go to a hockey game, whatever. I said, "Oh that would be nice." So Shauna and Ben-Timothy were- were- Jack- he- his nickname was Jack. They went to O-A-C together. And they were friends here you-see? So they came up to call for me, when I opened the door and saw this good-looking man with a raccoon coat and-all-that. "God, who are you?" (Laughs)

Speaker: I was his campaign manager when he ran federally in nineteen-sixty. Interviewer: Wow. Speaker: And Tomlinson ran. Interviewer: Oh. Speaker: Yeah yeah. Interviewer: Well if- if they're any old- Speaker: Old goats (laughs). Inteviewer: Goats. (inc) Speaker: (Laughs) Oops.

And he had trouble with his brother. There were in partners. The old man- the old man didn't have any money and his brother was taking trips to Greece. So the old man got out of it and come up here and open it up.

Interviewer: And he wasn't paying my father for what- for the bill and the business he got from him. Speaker: That's the old man on the bottom. Interviewer: Oh yeah. Speaker: With the cue-stick- he liked to play pool.

Interviewer: Now why did your family come to K-L? Speaker: Well the town was booming. Interviewer: Ah yes. Speaker: And the old man was a carpenter. So things were going here pretty good.

Interviewer: She worked in the restaurant that was in North-Bay but not in Kirkland-Lake 'cause she wasn't old enough. Speaker: The old man had a motel in North-Bay with a restaurant in it.

Mum was from Almonte and the old man was from up the Gatineau there above Ottawa in Quebec.

Speaker: Yeah like there were (inc). They're- they're supposed to tear that down. And her dad's whole restaurant- it's all in one building. Interviewer: We had a good business there. Speaker: But the old man practically lives there twenty-four hours a day.

And- and ah they- they were all bringing cowboy stuff and-that and I thought well that's not my bag.

But the one- that was my mom's. I di-- I did that for her. And the one out there. I-mean I've got oodles of them but since we re-did the house, they're in closets.

And on my mother's side, they ah- ah the family had an English background. And ah, they were more farmers and settled out west, and ah, ah, I can remember traveling with my grandparents ah probably in nineteen-fifty-three?

And ah, traveling, by car, ah, out west to visit, ah, my grandmother's brother and his family, who had a farm. And staying on the farm for probably two or three weeks. ... And the road- Trans-Canada-highway was not the same then as it is now.

Interviewer: And how about- and where did his people come from? Speaker: Ah well my- well he was born out west in Manitoba actually but the Ellis's were settled down in Barrie in the eighteen-thirties, I believe it was. And ah in nineteen-O-five my grandfather went out west. He got married and went out west and ah my father was born there. And that's in Swan-Lake, Manitoba.

It was really quite static. Static place and you- you'd have (inc) what's coming in off and on. But ah I know Paul who- who was there before me, he- he left and went out west and I ran it for five years and I said "Okay that's enough." But what stimulated me to go back was I had ah some customers come in and this gentleman who was bringing his wife back to Kirkland-Lake.

Interviewer: Did you go to school anywhere? Speaker 75: Oh, yeah, I went to K-L-C-V-I and then I went out west. I went to Nanaimo-University. ... In B-C, on the island.

He and his cousin um, Jake-Mitch, his second cousin learned carpentry, um in Scotland. They came out together. Months before mother and the two children, came out on the boat. They ended up- arrived in um out west, next to Edmonton. What's the name of the place. Not Athabasca.

Kat-Free was very active in volunteering and so-on. And I think she is currently out west, if she's still living. I-don't-know.

... I was married in nineteen-forty-one. October the eleventh, nineteen-forty-one. And we went right down to Barrie because he had just got his pilot license out west. And he came, proposed to me on the seventh step of the- on the seventh day, which was his birthday in May.

Interviewer: That's crazy. I can't believe you can do that. Can you go s-- you can go to school for that kind-of thing? Speaker: Yeah there's like- like computer graphics in like Montreal. There's some here. Some like out west in like British-Columbia.