Algoma Bound

I do not remember any of the preparations for moving out to Algoma. I do remember being on the boat and how my brother, Reuben, and I used to argue. One day we were arguing, "It is, it isn't" and the stewardess came along -- she had a broom and dustpan in her hands. She stopped, looked at us and said, "T'is, tisn't, t'is, tisn't." Reuben had scratched what he thought was a picture of a horse on the rocking chair and was the stewardess mad! Bet she thought we were little demons!

Funny, I do not remember anything more about our trip, nor arriving at Sault Ste Marie. I do remember, however, we stayed with some people by the name of McKinley. They must have been Irish, I think, and I remember my father, mother, brother Reuben and I slept on what they called a shakedown, which was a bed on the floor.

McKinley's residence consisted of a log house. One room downstairs and one upstairs, and one reached the upper apartment by means of a ladder placed against the wall and, after mounting the ladder, one had to ease their anatomy through a trap door in the upper floor. I never did become acquainted with the mysteries of that upper region.

We must have stayed with the McKinley's quite some time, probably until my father prepared a house for us to occupy. I remember one night accidentally kicking my father's sore leg. Prince, a black stallion that my father owned, had bitten my father on the leg. It must have been very painful because when I kicked him he made powerful use of his lungs. Finally, we moved into our own home, which, though in no way a palace, must have been more comfortable than that of the McKinleys.

From the first summer on in our own home, our mother always had a lovely flower garden. Each of us girls had our special rose bush. Mine, I remember, was a moss rose. Then there were violets, pinks, hollyhocks, pansies (which in the spring, as soon as the snow melted around them, would shove their little faces up to greet us). In one corner of the garden stood a stalwart balsam tree; under this tree was a mat of sweet clover and I remember how I loved to lie on this clover and watch the big, soft, white billowy clouds float overhead and I used to wonder if heaven was behind those clouds.

Then along one side of the garden stood three spruce trees, stately and tall. Out at one end of the house was a big pine and our father put a swing up in this tree for us children, and what a grand time we used to have there! At the other end of the house there was a big rainwater trough, hewn from a monstrous tree; I think a cedar tree. In the summer, this tree held all the rainwater required for the house.

One Saturday, in the summertime, father and mother went to town and left Reuben and me at home alone. I do not know where the rest of the family were, but we thought we would be extra smart and we got the mop and broom and raised the window, slopped mop and broom into the rainwater, dragged water, mop and broom in through the open window and proceeded to mop and clean the floor. Was Mother angry! Whew! The next day, being Sunday, the preacher came for lunch and I remember Mother apologizing to him for the dirty state of the floor. The preacher's name was Mr. Church.

Sunday mornings always seemed so peaceful in those days. Everything was slicked up on Saturdays: windows washed, stove polished, all pots and pans shined; no work left for Sunday, only to put some food on the table. We washed only the breakfast and lunch dishes. The supper dishes were left for Monday morning and, after I was six years of age, I had to rise early and wash Sunday night's dishes before breakfast.

On Saturday mornings, it fell to my lot to shine the knives, forks and spoons and shine the Sunday-go-to-meetin' shoes for the family and set them all in a row ready for church. Then Sunday morning we usually had prayers and, after prayers, we had breakfast and dressed for church and Sunday School. In the summertime we walked to church and I remember when the roses were in bloom going to the garden and cutting a rose to wear; how delightfully fragrant those roses were! It seems to me no roses smell since those days.

Sunday School was a happy time to me. I loved every bit of it. My teacher in Sunday School was Mrs. Bruce Yarwood. I thought her the most beautiful creature alive. She had a very long chin, and it rather stuck out. I thought it lovely and used to spend no end of time in front of our mirror practising to make my chin long and stick out like hers. She was so sweet and gentle. She always hoped I would be a missionary when I grew up. But church always scared me to death, except the singing. The testimonial meetings they used to have! Mother and Father always attended these meetings. One old Scotsman, Mr. Michel, always sang, "Son of My Soul," and another Scotsman, Mr. Penman, always gave his experiences and wound up his speech with, "Until we meet around the Whitewashed Throne." I had visions of God with a whitewash brush in one hand and a pale of whitewash in the other, busy washing His throne.

Once in a while Mother would lead into the praying. She usually cried, and by the time she finished praying her voice was a wail. Oh, how I used to pray silently that God wouldn't let Mother pray, but for some reason God didn't very often answer my prayers about Mother's praying.

I used to be afraid to go to bed for fear I should die in the night and go to hell! And, if I had done anything naughty, I could see God's eyes. Great big yellow eyes staring at me on the wall behind my bed. I would cover my head with the sheet; once in a while take a peek to see if the eyes were still there. There couldn't have been much of the love of God instilled in the hearts of children in those days.

My father never took any part in public praying or giving his testimony but I often wonder if maybe he wasn't just a little nearer the pattern of our Saviour in his daily life than some of those who did so much shouting and wailing.

One naughty thing which I did, and which has always remained in my memory, I will now relate. Evidently we had to carry our water from McKinley's well for some time, because I remember Mother telling my sister Ada, who was three years my senior, to take a pail and go to McKinleys for a pail of water. Ada coaxed me to go along but Mother objected to my going for some reason and, of course, I knew Mother meant "no" when she said no. But after we got outside, Ada said, "Aw, come on; if you walk close up in front of me going down and close behind me coming back, Mother will never see you at all." So I proceeded to act accordingly, and was so successful that Mother never did know I had disobeyed her. Had she ever found out, I would have had what Paddy gave the drum, if you know what I mean. Nevertheless, I always felt guilty about disobeying Mother, and often wonder what made Ada tempt me to do so as she all her life was so honest and truthful.

We were not rich in those days, I am sure, and they must have been hard on both Father and Mother.

When I was five years old my brother Wesley died and was buried on the northeast corner of our farm under a balsam tree. A balsam is an evergreen tree. This plot of ground my father gave to the settlement afterwards for a burying ground for the community. I remember the morning Wesley died. Early, early, before daylight Mother came to my bed and wakened me to "hurry and dress: Wesley is going home to God, and to come and say good-bye." I put on a yellowish flannel dress which Mother had finished for me -- one which she had spun and woven the material with her own hands.

Don't you think it rather too bad for children to experience such a sight as we did on that mornin. I think it must have been in January. Wesley had remained behind in Collingwood; also had Maggie and William when we left for Sault Ste Marie. No doubt they had work there.

Then, shortly after Wesley's death, Harry was born. About a year after Wesley's death, our brother Alex, was buried beside brother Wesley. He had been working in a lumber camp near Marquette and, after the camp broke up (I believe they were on an island) the camp tried to reach the mainland and had an awful time. The ice was breaking and many of the men were badly frozen from being in and out of the water. My brother, Alex, was so badly frozen that he died in about a month. I remember a man coming with the news and my father took my mother away to nurse Alex. I can still see Mother when the man came with the sad news. Her face was ashen white. The man called Father outside and told him. Then Father came in and told Mother. Mother was at the long kitchen table molding bread dough into loaves. Her face was perfectly white.

Father went somewhere and secured a young woman by the name of Miss McGill to come and take care of us children, myself, Reuben and baby Harry, and Father and Mother left us in her care. They must have sent for William because I remember him being there after they left.

So many times Mother has related her terrible experriences while nursing Alex.

Well, one day we received word that Mother and Father were bringing Alex home and they expected to be home for Christmas. William went out into the woods and cut cedar boughs and decorated the walls to make things pretty for Alex's homecoming. But Alex did not come for some weeks and when he did return, Mother and Father brought him home in his coffin and they laid him away under the balsam tree beside his brother Wesley. They both were so young -- only 21 years of age.

There were plenty of hard times in those days. We had very few pleasures other than what we made for ourselves. Fortunately, some of us were too young to realize the seriousness of sorrow and privations. The older children, that is George, John, Annie and Ada, attended school but I was not strong enough to plow through the snow in the middle of winter, so Mother taught me to read at home, out of the newspapers. In the mornings, after the other children went to school, it was my fate to stand on a chair and wash dishes. I learned to braid my hair, which previously had been kept in ringlets. Mother said she was very glad when I learned to braid my hair; it was that much less for her to do, and goodness knows she must have had plenty to do what with six children at that time and a husband to cook for, butter and bread to make, washing, ironing, and mending, knitting, sewing, gardening and soap making and a house to look after. How did she do it?

I remember the picnics we used to attend. I used to be excited for days; before the big event I would have such funny creeepy feelings in my tummy for days and days. Really, I used to think there must be a mouse down there. I felt so funny I couldn't eat. Then would come the great day. By the way, this was when we lived near Sault Ste Marie, which people called the "Soo." And here and now, let me say our township was name Tarentorus.

Well, the great day would arrive at last: Father, or one of my brothers would have the team of horses all shined up; curried and combed until they shone. We all would have on our next to Sunday best; baskets packed in the wagon. And, last of all, but most important, all the family would climb into the wagon and with a "gid-ep" away we would go. Father always had the nicest and best groomed horses in the community and they were the envy of all the neighbours.

I was always afraid something would happen which would prevent the picnic from being a reality and was all of a-quiver until we were actually on the grounds. We so often held our picnics at a place called Garden River. If I remember correctly, this was on an island in the St. Maries, or Mary's River east of the Soo.

There were a number of Indians in this vicinity; not like the Western Indians. I do not know to what tribe they belonged. One time the older children who were grown up went to a celebration which these Indians gave (they must have had a reservation there). They had a christening or baptism because they - the Indians - gave each white person an Indian name. The only one I can remember was brother Williams' -- it was "Wam-way-ash." At one time I knew the meaning of the name but I have forgotten it long since.

One time my sister Maggie, my brother William and a Mr. and Mrs. Boles, their little girl, Della, and myself went to Garden River to pick blue berries or huckle berries. They are a small blue berry growing in low bushes. The ground was a solid blue carpet for acres. Della and I were made to stay in the wagon. Why, I do not know; and we were terrified! We suffered all the horrors of a bloody massacre in our imaginings! The Indians would not have harmed us in the least had they found us. But we put in a fearful time until the gang came back with their buckets, baskets and pails filled to overflowing with delicious blueberries. There was a bountiful supply of wild berries in that country, and in berry time all hands were kept busy picking strawberries, raspberries, both red and black, blueberry, gooseberries, and wild black currents. One time I went berry picking with my sister Maggie and ran into a wasp's nest and did I yell. I ran straight home howling like a wildcat all the way, and when I reached home there was a Mr. Manning there of whom I was very fond. He took me on his knee and petted me up and said he was going to call me "Wasp-Runaway."

My sister Annie was a dare-devil and a tease. She was always scaring me, telling me the bears would get me, and so on. She was always up to some devilry when Mother was not home. One time, on Ada's birthday, Mother and Father had gone somewhere in the evening (to prayer meeting, I suppose), and as a final ceremony to the birthday celebrations, just before we youngsters got into bed, Annie made Ada come outside and she (Annie) poured several buckets of cold water over poor Ada's head. Ada was meek as a lamb. Guess she was glad to get off without having to suffer more indignities. Looking back over the years, the realization comes to me how it feels to be an odd one in a family. Annie and Ada were older than I. They must have been born closer together than the most of us and seemed to been able to go places, while poor me seldom got to go anywhere. Annie never wanted me along and, if by change I did go, she always ran away out of sight and hid somewhere just to frighten me. Well she was successful, sure `nuff.

One day they two were going picking rasberrries and to my joy I was permitted to tag along. We went back in the woods and mountains, of which there were plenty, and after climbing a short distance up the side of what seemed to me quite a mountain - I suppose it wasn't so far as it seemed to me - Annie exclaimed, "Oh, I left my pail down by the creek! Minnie, you will have to go down and get it for me," and she shouted, "Don't let the bears get you!" Like a goop I went back. I had no difficulty getting down, found the pail and proceeded to climb back up. Both girls were watching me. Annie giving directions as to how I could successfully make the grade. Annie kept saying, "Hang onto the tree roots; stick your toes in the little pieces of rock that stick out." Well I did as I was bid when all at once the root to which I was clinging gave way, and I rolled down and back to level ground. I cut one of my knees badly and to this day carry the scar of that fray on my knee. You should have seen my sisters when they saw me fall and saw the blood pouring out of my knee! They carried me back to the creek, bathed my knee and Annie took one of my arms. Ada, the other, and with their support and my hobbling, we arrived home. Never again did I go berrying with my sisters.

This creek of which I speak was so pretty! It was probably twenty feet wide and flowed over pebbles and pretty stones. There were lots of speckled trout playing in it, big trees and lovely green grass on the banks and my father and brothers used to catch fish there and bring them home for mother to cook. I liked them fried. For some reason, Mother would never let me go along when any of the family went fishing. Reuben could go, though he was three years younger than I, but poor me! Home was the place for me, or so it seemed.

There were a beautiful maple sugar bush on the farm and every spring Father and the boys would tap the maple trees and make sugar and maple syrup. Father would make wooden spiels, or so he called them, hang a bucket under them and each morning would collect the sap, pour it into a big iron kettle under which he would have made a big fire, and then he would boil the sap and make a thick syrup. I so often saw them coming home at night, each with two pails of maple syrup. Then, when they had made what syrup they needed for Mother, they would sugar off. And, oh, the cakes of maple sugar they would make! They made them in big milk pans, and when the cakes of sugar grew cold they would turn the pans upside down and out would come the sugar.

We kids were forbidden to touch these sugar cakes. Why? I do not know, unless it was discipline. But when Mother would go away anywhere, Annie would immediately help herself and give the rest of us a nice big piece of maple sugar! Sometimes she would bite a piece out of a cake; then Mother always said she knew Annie had been a thief because she could tell who had been at the sugar by the print of the teeth. Annie never was punished for her misdeeds and in the matter of stealing the sugar, she didn't much care anyway. She had the sugar and so why care if she was called a thief.

I always had to rock brother Harry just when I wanted to go out and play so badly. Babies in those days were rocked to sleep in their cradle. I would sit on one side of the cradle, place one hand on the other side, rock and sing to the baby and sometimes it seemed he never would go to sleep, especially if all the rest were out sleigh-riding.

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