Life in Algoma

As usual, I am away ahead of my story. This should have been related much sooner. The summer or two following the Christmas when I received my beautiful wax doll, my sister Maggie curled my hair (by the way my hair was red), dressed me up in my Sunday-go-to-meeting dress and took me along with my beautiful wax doll across the Sault Ste Marie river to the American side and had my picture taken. Me sitting on a chair holding my doll. It was a tintype and I kept one of the pictures for years and years. I do not know what became of it. Wish I had it now. For ever so long I remembered the man's name who took it but have forgotten. I remember the man and his wife were very dirty. They were working out in their garden when we went to their place but came in and proceeded to make preparations for the taking of the picture. I remember the woman picked up her skirt and wiped (some) of the dust off the chair before I sat down.

Taking pictures then was not the instantaneous trick it now is. I had to sit very still it seemed for all of five minutes and did I itch' Every place on my body and in my head' All because I couldn't move.

We went across the river in a sailboat operated by two half breeds. They laughed at me so because every time the spray would splash over us I would have a spasm.

We stayed on the American side for a couple of days at a Mr. and Mrs. Conlins. They were real Irish. One of these days while there we must have gone down town because I so well remember seeing a woman walking down the street wearing a big bustle. She would reach behind with her two hands and give her bustle a hitch, looking over her shoulder to see how it looked. And the funny part of it was, a few paces behind her came a soldier with his gun over his shoulder, taking in the effect of the bustle hoisting with both eyes.

There was a fort - a military fort - there at the "Soo" and I remember seeing a prisoner walking with a big ball and chain on his foot, so I suppose there were bad men in those days too.

That was the time I tasted my first orange and grapes. Tessie Conlin bought me an orange and a little bunch of grapes. Were they heavenly' Yum, yum.

Never has any fruit tasted so delicious since.

After we went to Algoma to live - near the Canadian Soo or Sault Ste Marie, the railroad had not been built in there and everything had to be brought in by boat. The shipping season was very short, from May, probably including

May to the first or maybe the middle of November, at the very latest. When finally the railroad was built in to the Soo, and I think it must have been the Canadian Pacific, though I am not sure about that, there were great doings. My father and some of the boys went to town to take in the celebrations. Father told us one thing about the speeches made that day which I remember, and also remember them reading the speech made by a Mr. Appleby who was then 80 years of age and who, in his speech, said he was present at the Ceremonies held when George Stevenson ran his first engine (or train) and that there were pessimists there in that day who said "it would never run." Funny, how I remember some of these things, isn't it?

When Maggie and I were having my picture taken we also went to see the "locks" on the canal and watch a boat taken through. Young as I was, it thrilled me to watch the water churn up and, if I remember right, those gates at that time were operated by horse power. I distinctly remember a horse being there and doing some work when the gates opened and closed. I do not now know whether those locks at that time were the first that were built or the second. Each time boats or shipping were larger than the locks could accommodate (of course years between) why a larger canal or locks were built. This must have been in the year 1880. A long time ago.

Later, boats that were built for Canadian commerce were built in Scotland; traveled across the Atlantic, up the St. Lawrence, St. Mary's River and through the St. Mary's canal at the "Soo" and on up through Lake Superior. The first three large ones to make this trip were the Campana, the Athabasca, and, oh me, I have forgotten the name of the third one. Anyway, I believe the third one was burned on one of her lake trips.

There used to be terrible storms on Lake Superior in the fall of the year and at certain times all lake traffic was suspended. One year I recall our folks talking about a captain of a lake steamer defied the elements and swore he would make one more trip up the lake in spite of all the warnings. He started out but never came back. A terrible storm came up and he and his boat (or ship) - with all hands were lost.

There were great rapids on the river between Lake Superior and the St. Mary's river. As I remember, the Indians used to "shoot" these rapids in their canoes. My brother, William, painted a picture of some Indians "shooting" these rapids in their canoes for a judge in the "Soo." I have forgotten the judge's name. He paid William one hundred dollars for it. Quite different to Miss Todd.

One time the Marquis of Lorne, who then was Governor General of Canada, paid a visit to the Soo. What a great day. Mother spent all day the day before, cleaning, pressing, washing and ironing clothes for those of the family who were going to town to see the Marquis of Lorne. Father, Johnny, Annie and Ada went to see him. Mother, Reuben and I stayed home. I cannot remember if we had Harry then or if he was born later. I do remember how sick we all were that day.

Poor Mother, she was so deathly pale. We had eaten new potatoes that day and for years after I hated the sight of them.

There were lots of hard times in those days. Everything had to be brought in by boat and consequently when the lakes froze over, which they did; nothing could be brought in or taken out. There was no railroad in to the Soo then

I remember Father going to town one day for flour and coming home with only a pound or two in the bottom of a paper sack. Another time he went to town for flour and came home without any. That night we all went to bed without supper. That night both Father and Mother wept.

No grain ever at that time matured. Every year it froze before it was near ripe. Year after year, Father sowed but never reaped except for hay. It seemed everything he tried to do turned to "wormwood and gall." So Father finally sold the place to Mr. Edwards for $800.00. He got a few hundred dollars cash and never did get any more; but more of this later on.

Immediately Mrs. Edwards came up and took possession of the garden. That was a bitter pill for me to swallow: to see her pull up vegetables that Mother had planted and cared for, also lovely flowers, and take them home. It was more than I could bear. The big, ugly Irish woman, and she was ugly. One day I took a bouquet of flowers to the teacher, as so often I did, and Mary Ellen Edwards jumped all over me. Said I stole the flowers, that they (Edwards) owned the place now and I had no right to pick the flowers. I said nothing, but thought my heart would break. Previous to the selling of the place -- it must have been early in the winter of 1885, a peculiar thing happened for which I never have heard an explanation. There was a heavy fall of red snow. The ground was completely covered with it.

The next day at school, of course all the children were talking about it and telling what our parents had to say about it, when Annie Gresel -- the girl who said I was a liar when I said my brother had made the teacher's desk, that only God could make it -- that their priest said the red snow was a sign there was going to be a war soon. Well, be that as it may, and of course Annie's people believed it, the Northwest Rebellion broke out. Louis Riel came across from the States I believe and incited the Indians to rebellion against the British. After the rebellion, he was hanged in Regina and Mr. Freethy made the scaffold on which Reil was hung.

One afternoon Johnny, one of my brothers, came home from town with the news that a rebellion had broken out among the Indians in what was known as the Northwest Territories and that troops were being sent out from Ontario to quell the rebellion. Of course, there was great excitement. It seems the troops were sent from Kingston and I believe they had to march several miles on foot, or sent by transport of some sort other than rail, to some place in what was called

Assinaboia, afterwards called Saskatchewan. I may be wrong about this but I do believe the railroad was built in to Regina in 1882. But more about this later on.

My father used to tell how his father had settled near Brantford in Ontario when he, Grandfather, was a young man and how he carried his first sack of wheat 80 miles to have it ground into flour and then carried the flour back home on his back.

As I have already stated, Father sold the property at the Soo (by the way our farm lay six miles north of Sault Ste Marie) and decided to move to the Northwest Territories, or Assinaboia, in the summer of 1886, the year following the Northwest Rebellion. I cannot recall just how long this rebellion lasted, but I remember how all the neighbors tried to persuade both Father and Mother to give up the idea of going away out there among the wild Indians. But it did not seem to make any impression on any of us and I will say the Indians never gave us a moment's worry from the first day we arrived out West.

Of course, Mother had many things to do preparatory to making the journey, Quilts to be made and ever so many things to be done. I remember she gathered the bark from hemlock trees, boiled it and used the water from the bark to dye material to cover quilts. She carded the wool to make or fill the quilts. The neighbor women came in to help with the quilting. We had quite a few pictures, which Mother decided were too heavy to take with us. Each of us had one of our own. Mine was a parrot and a kitten, one on each side of a bowl full of eggs. There were some books on the table also beside the bowl. The parrot was supposed to be saying "might is right. 11 I suppose because he felt he was stronger than the kitten; therefore owned the eggs. Johnny's was "The best jug to fetch beer in." It was an old shoemaker who was giving a boy a jug to "fetch" beer and it had a hole in the bottom. What the others were I cannot remember. But I felt very bad to think I had to leave mine behind. Annie was a picture of the Royal Family of England.

One near tragedy happened the last day, just before we left the house for town the day we started for the west. I had mended my stockings and they were red cashmere and when I came to put on my good shoes I couldn't find my stockings. In tears I told Mother but she said, "Oh, go along with you, they are around some place." Well, I was desperate. They couldn't be found. Father was nailing up the last box so I went to him and begged him to open the box to see if my stockings were there. Father was always so patient. He opened the box, and her-lay my red cashmere stockings. Mrs. Lamon had picked them up and stuck them in the box. What I should have done had they not been found, I do not know. Gone stockingless, I suppose.

George McKinley drove Ada and me to town to take the boat. How the rest got to town never bothered me; I never gave it a thought. Father must have had the neighbors help him because he had loads and loads to be shipped. He had a team of oxen with the longest horns I ever saw. He had cows and a pony named Dick and one named Jack.

Maggie remained at the Soo. So did sister Annie; by that time Annie had her teacher's certificate and had a school on Manitoulin Island. George was in Detroit or Buffalo, supposed to be learning the shipbuilding trade with his uncles Will and George Robinson, who were in the shipbuilding business. William had work at the Soo also so he remained there. The bunch of us who made the trip was composed of Father, Mother, Johnny, Ada, myself, Reuben, Harry and Ettie. What a gang for a man and his wife to start out with to an unknown (to him) land, to make a fresh start. Mother was 44 years of age when by sister Ettie was born.

Father must have been fifty years old or more at that time. He was thirteen years Mother's senior and Mother was 48 years of age. She married my father when she was only fourteen years old. Only a child. She had a hard life when she was a child. She told me her mother, my grandmother Robinson, was an invalid, confined to her bed for, I think, two years before she died and my mother, though a child, had taken care of her and also of the house and younger children. However, Grandmother must have been able to be up at times because both she and Grandfather had gone to church on Sunday morning and when they came home from church, Mother had gone. Grandmother looked in the box where Mother kept her bonnet and it was gone so Grandmother knew indeed that Isabella, my mother had taken flight. Aunt Mary, in Portage La Prairie, told me that Grandfather and Grandmother did not forgive Mother for two years. So, it must have been after Mother and Father were married that Grandmother was confined to her bed and Mother must have gone back home to take care of her. But Mother told me many a time that when she was only nine years old she did the washing for the whole family and she had to wash the clothes by rubbing them between her hands. One day, a neighbor loaned her a washboard and when Grandmother found out she was terribly angry.

Grandfather Robinson and Grandmother Robinson were of the old Methodist style. They were so devoutly religious yet were so harsh with their children. No wonder Mother was so strict with her children, and yet maybe it was best for we surely were trained not to lie, steal or cheat. Not that we were model children or perfect when we were grown up; we were just ordinary children in every sense of the word. Most of us had talents that were never developed, or I might say were never allowed to develop. When I used to do something which I thought worthy of notice, Mother would never encourage me, she would just say, 'Em-hmm."

She used to tell us children should be seen and not heard.

How well I remember one morning while we lived at the Soo some man came in to our house and was talking to Mother. Reuben and I evidently had been talking between ourselves while they were talking. After the man took his departure, Mother laid me across her knee and walloped me, then treated Reuben to some of the same medicine just to teach us to keep quiet when she was talking or when people were in the house.

Another time when Mrs. Bradley was in and she and Mother were talking, Ettie got a pin stuck in her mouth and couldn't get it out. I was distracted, tried to gain Mother's attention to the situation, but she paid no heed to me.

Finally, Ettie swallowed the pin. At last, Mother said to me, "Minnie, what is the matter with you?" I replied, "Nothing -- Ettie just swallowed a pin." Then was there a to-do.

Well, do I remember the first money I ever made? One bitter cold morning some men came in to get warm on their way to town. They must have come in from some of the mines. Anyway, one of them as afterwards I learned was "three sheets in the wind." He had a funny smell on his breath, and he had bleary blue eyes. He came over to the breakfast table where I was having breakfast, put his arm around me, his face down to mine and asked me for a kiss. I wouldn't kiss him. Then he took a bright shiny coin from his pocket and said he would give it to me if I would kiss him. That was too great a temptation to me. It was twenty-five cents! Immediately I kissed him' I wanted the money so the bargain was clinched; but I hated the smell of his breath. Never did remember what I did with the money, but never forgot that kiss. I must have been about six years old at that time. The money lured me and I did kiss'

About this same time Father butchered a cow that Reuben and I had always called our own. Do you think we - Reuben and I - would eat any of that meat?

No, indeed! We wept every time it was served on the table.

Mother must have been out of patience many a time with me when I was a child. She had to almost swear that meat came off the ribs before I would ever touch it. She must have perjured her soul many times in order to get me to eat meat. And porridge I wouldn't eat it unless it had been standing for a time in a bowl and then turned out in a dish to that the shiny side was up. Well, I did not like the stuff anyway.

When Mother was going to have chicken for a certain day, she had Father cut their heads off and then she had them waiting in bloody silence for us girls to pluck when we came home from school. How I hated that operation.

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