Speaker: Ah, there was a lot of high grading going on. Interviewer 1: A lot of- Speaker: Hi-- Interviewer 1: High-grading, that's stealing gold. Speaker: Stealing. Interviewer 1: Is that right? Speaker: Stealing. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah and then it went on after the bar closed I guess it was you-know delegated to whoever was buying it or-whatever, yeah. Oh yeah, used to be a standard routine. There was a lot of high grading going on in Kirkland. Used to be bad. but it got so bad that the Kerr-Addison- that the guys had to strip right down- they were examined right in the...

Speaker: Well the guy that take the high grade ore, they find it, shove it in there and then when they brought it up to surface, they'd just take it- "Oh yeah, jeez thanks a lot Bob." They take it and they go to a room, wash it out and take the high grade. Interviewer: Oh so they must have had a lot of (inc). Speaker: Oh yeah. Oh. God. Well the- Interviewer: It's called high grading? Speaker: That's high grading. That's what they call high grading. It's taking the choicest of ore- like most of your rock today is- is ah what they call gunshot it's- you can hard- just specks of gold throughout it.

Interviewer: Yeah, okay. No I know what that is. I've- Speaker: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay I don't know the word I'm word I'm sorry. Speaker: Yeah. And the O-P-P had their high grade squad. Interviewer: Okay. Speaker: Yeah. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: But you ask somebody from Nova-Soctia what a high grader is and they haven't- they don't.

Interviewer: 'Cause packsack, but packsack is a Northern-Ontario slang- Speaker: Is it really? Interviewer: Word, yeah. Speaker: Yeah, so is a high grader. Interviewer: Even- even what? Speaker: High grader? Interviewer: What's that? Speaker: You don't know what a high grader is? Interviewer: I've probably heard it, but. Speaker: You've got to be kidding! That is true Northern-Ontario. Interviewer: What's a high grader? Speaker: A high grader is a guy who takes the high grade gold out of the mines and there used to be a quite a- quite a business. Interviewer: Oh they steal it! Speaker: Yeah. Interviewer: Yeah, okay. No I know what that is.

To move in. Now I think there was kind-of like a- I don't where- we- it was kind-of like a little revolution over in Quebec at the time. And those families for some reason or another, they had to hightail here and this is where they ended up.

And I think ah we were the- I-- I'm going to take credit for it because we were sitting in the- the- the um kitchen, we'd put a barbeque on for us. They do a big hip- hip of beef on a nice afternoon and- and we'd eat outside and the girls would be over and we'd sit in the quad and um a bunch of us were sitting on the steps that face the quad.

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.

But, like, during the summer we'd have a big garden. Mother always had a- ah, when we were smaller she had a- a- a maid. And my father, he kept a hired man. So that there was really a whole house full of us. And they bought apples by the barrel. They'd never go and buy a few pint of apples the way I do.

Speaker: And you'd have- instead of just having a three or four-pound roast, you'd have a whole oven full of meat. Of course that didn't last very long, there was- there was seven children and mother and dad and all of those hired men, hired girl. So that made- Interviewer: Yes. Speaker: Quite a table for everybody.

Interviewer: Would all of these men you speak of um- be neighbours? Speaker: They were all neighbours, yes. And we usually had a hired man, because um, well Dad liked to be at home to do the chores. And then of course you had to go back whenever they were- Interviewer: Yes, return the favour.

And of-course you-see what I remember is um Dad mostly always had hired men, and the hired men had this room here, ah Cathy, that's my sister, and Mac and I, we slept in here, ah Colson slept out here until Mac was too big to sleep with us and then Mac slept out here with Colson, and Cameron and Earl slept over in this room here ...

My- My grandfather had a farm at- At Sheppard-and-um-Birchmount mm-hm. And we lived on the farm with ah- There was a little ah- There was a little h-- hired help ah building that my grandpa built and ah it was supposed to be for the hired men but um my mom and dad lived in it when they were younger.

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.

... 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.

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.

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.

It makes an awful difference. But I was amused at the neighbour, not far from where Christina lives. Very against hunting. Anyway, the coyotes come in the area. Then they were so scared the coyotes would get their dogs- they'd some wee pets. So they got their hired man, see if he could get permission to go and hunt where the coyotes were. It makes a hell of a difference for what's involved.

And she'd carry in pails of water and heat it in the boiler to wash clothes with. And she had to use a hand washer. We'd come home from school some nights and she'd be still washing, had washed all day. Because we had a hired man. And ah both of our grandfathers passed away at our house. They were there for some time.

And ah another friend come in and helped a bit, but we were responsible for the children and for the meals for their dad and their hired man and-so-on.