days. Kerosene lamps, wood stoves, chamber pots, and buckets of water carried from a neighbour’s pump, the ponds, or the school yard pump, were the order of the day. Water had to be carried to the house and also to the barn for the animals. Snow was gathered, melted, and heated to wash dishes.

Sterling Lord’s diary tells the following tale:

january 5, 1956: min and freezing rain, around home all day.

january 6, 1956: a real sleet storm, fixing wires all day.

January 7, 1956: very heavy sleet on wires and trees, a terrible lot of damaged poles and wires broken everywhere, clearing wires from road all day.

january 8, 1956: fine, worst destruction in the history of Island, Summer- side in complete darkness, everything from town to Bedeque, all electric poles from Albany to Borden broken and smashed down, clearing the road of wires all day, the ice melted 017 last night, the snow settled tremendous.

january 9, 1956: rain most of day, repaired lines and services.

january 10, I956: rain, working on line, clay road very soft, nasty to work

january 11, 1956: rain most of day, repairing service lines, Victoria road just impassable, pond opened right to dam.

january 12, 1956: mild, working on line, have about complete to North Tryon corner, started to rebuild the Albany line, about 35 men working today.

January 13, 1956: rain all day, got line complete to North Tryon corner, power came on at 9 pm.

A different type of storm caused another six day power outage beginning on Sunday, October 20, 1974. The culprit this time was an early fall storm that began with rain and was followed by snow that built up on the lines. With no frost in the ground, the poles leaned over in the high wind and either fell down or broke off. Mrs. Rex Dawson’s funeral was scheduled for Sunday but was postponed to Tuesday. Hazel Robinson remembers singing at the funeral in the Tryon Baptist Church with no heat and no organ. The Honorable]. George MacKay also passed away on October 18, and his funeral was held on October 24 from the Tryon United Church. Fanners were using tractor driven generators to run electric powered conveyors in their planting opera- tions by 1974. Many of these tractor driven generators were backed up to the house during the outage and supplied electricity through a temporary connection to provide miminal power for heat, water and lights. Although the tractor driven generators also assisted in providing temporary power in the barns, farm work was difficult. Everyone was elated when electrical power was restored. Sterling Lord recorded the week’s events in his diary:

October 18, 1974: overcast, heavy rain in afternoon got gyproc on Donald’s house, went to Summerside in evening; colder tonight. Mrs. Rex Dawson died.

October 19, 1974: overcast, froze quite hard, sunny, around 40 degrees. Working at Donald’s house, down to funeral home in evening.

October 20, 1974: snowing real hard, very high wind, power went ofl around 9:30, a lot of poles broke, got generators going; had a lot of trouble with

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