inches; then they sawed it and pulled the blocks up using ropes and tongs. Men would come from all over the O'Leary area; often twelve or fifteen teams were used in this operation. Men loaded the ice onto bobsleighs and hauled it to the ice house behind the meat market (an aside, proper ice houses were built inside out). There the blocks were piled twelve feet high and banked with sawdust. In early sum¬ mer, the blocks were pulled out, the sawdust was washed off, and the large blocks cut into smaller chunks, that could be handled with ice tongs. These chunks were delivered to local customers' houses and placed into their ice boxes. All this for ten cents a chunk. Jack ran his meat market business singlehandedly until 1949 when his son-in-law, Roland Turner , joined the business. The old market is now Stanley MacDonald's storage building. This story was told by Roland Turner . Also very active in the ice business, although not cutting ice was Jack's wife, Ellie Pate , who provided the dozen or so men at the pond with hot meals prepared at home - numerous huge meat pies, many hot biscuits along with lots of stews. In addition she fed another dozen men that were pack¬ ing the ice in the icehouse. She was up early every morning getting all this cooking done, lunches wrapped in newspaper and placed on hot bricks for the trip to the ice pond. By the time the dishes were cleared from the men's meals at home, the dirty and frozen pots and pans arrived up from the pond and again the chore of cleaning these till on into the evening. Mrs. Pate 's task was a hard and continuous one. Along with this there was always a cutter or two who slipped from the edge of the hole into the icy cold water. She would have to dry and warm these unfortunate ones when they arrived home on the last trip of sleighs for the night. One noted gentleman, Robert Ellis , known better as " Bob ", would always each year manage to have his annual dip. However, the men never feared of him drowning as Bob always wore a very large and very long fur coat which continued to act as a life preserver and always kept him afloat. A pike pole was put into the hole and hooked into his fur coat while others would pull him in much as one would a fish. During the first experience I had with ice, I thought poor Bob would never get out of his cold bath but I found out these old boys knew just how long to leave him immersed. 61