Stewart MacDonald, M.D.

school at night for a couple of months and then took a contract to plaster a J ew’s house from cellar to top floor including all the doodads that the Jew required in deco- rating the ceiling. When he finished and walked out with $700, which was more than a first teacher could get on PEI, he said to himself “no more of that.” A friend from home, a former teacher, and he decided they would start at carpentry work. They bought old tools and began to make a living at carpentry.

The contractor was building a long string of houses in booming New York in the late 20’s. His first job was hanging doors and his friend was putting in windows. He said he watched the carpenter across the street and as Jimmie was very clever he soon learned somewhat slowly but within a few days he was putting them in faster than across the street. The boss told him that his friend did not seem to be a very good workman and Jimmie said “give him a little time.”

Jimmie then went into heavy construction work and stayed in New York for seven years with no sign of the asthma recurring. When his father died in 1929, just about when the boom busted and the Depression started with a flurry, mostly due to the great stock crash, he returned to the farm, afraid of his asthma returning but it never did, although he wore a mask around the barns for awhile.

He met his wife, Helen, in New York. She was from Long Creek, PEI. They had two daughters. Ardeth came to my school, and the first day she was in Grade I, the next day in Grade II, and the third day she started in Grade 111. Her Grade X she studied at home and was able to get through Latin, French, algebra and geometry with no help because her parents had not studied in higher grades. She was high in her class at PWC , the same year

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