when 3! was $217? 390mg

(By Margaret Esther - Mrs. Wallace - MacKay - 1964 Centennial Year)

I am in my 88th year - the mother of four, grandmother of seven, and greatgrandmother of five; my story of the days when I was very young will tell of things that happened and a way of life of over three-quarters of a century ago.

I was born at Brown’s Creek, now called Heatherdale, where my father died when I was quite young, leaving a family of four sons and five daughters, of whom I was the youngest and the only one now living. He was a shipbuilder who emigrated from Scotland. We were a gay and happy family neither expecting or needing any of the luxuries which are looked upon as neces- sities today — many of which were not even dreamed of at that time.

Following my parents’ marriage at Three Rivers, my mother came to live with her husband’s parents; her mother-in-law spoke no English - only the Gaelic of the Highlands of Scotland; my mother spoke Gaelic also, but it was the Gaelic of Perthshire, and one was as different from the other as day is from night. Perhaps this made for peace and harmony, as neither knew what the other was saying!

In those days, money was used very little and the settlers traded what they had raised on their land for the few articles that could not be made, in some way or another, in their homes. Almost every thing was made at home. For instance, I well remember of going, when only a child, to the field with my mother to cut the flax from which so many things around the home were made. I often wonder why flax is not grown more today. My mother cut the flax with her reaping hook, making it into small sheaves which she stooked up to dry for a few days. Then I helped her carry the sheaves home and she placed them on a sort of rack made of poles — high over a slow fire which she watched very carefully, turning the flax this way and that. When she was satisfied that it was dried to her liking she placed it on a bench for threshing, which she did with a (Gaelic) skutchak [skutcher]. The flax seed was carefully saved 80 years ago for poul- tices; then she flailed the flax itself, in many small bunches, until it was like wool. It was then ready to be spun on the spinning wheel I still have and which is 135 years old — as the year it was made, 1829, is carved into the wood. After the spinning, it was ready to be woven in our loom into household articles such as tablecloths, towels, pillow cases, dish cloths, flour bags, and bed ticks. (There were no mattresses in those days). How we hated using the newly woven flax towels! They were so rough and course at first, but with a few washings became lovely and soft, and as white as snow. We had no fancy soap powders then — nothing but strong soap made from hardwood ashes added to “drippings” saved from the beef or pork killed for the fam- ily’s use. How carefully we saved the ashes from the hardwood and soaked it in a barrel to get the potash! The soap is still made today — but with Gillett’s lye.

When any amount of spinning was to be done my mother always had a spinning frolic. This was an exciting day for me when I was a small girl, and a wonderful day for all, for besides cre- ating balls and balls of yarn for socks, mitts, blankets, and the lovely old “drugget”, from which our dresses, men’s trousers — and even their suits were made, this was social time which every- one enjoyed. I can still see the neighbour women coming to our house carrying their wheels on their shoulders. As they spun, they sang Gaelic songs to the hum of their wheels, and told sto- ries of the happenings of the settlement. Those who were unable to spin came along anyway for there was another very important job to be done — that of carding the wool into rolls for the spinners. In the evening when the work was done and the teapot had been put away, the men arrived for the dance which always followed a “frolic” of any kind. The floor was cleared and

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