Joe Sickles & Harold MacLean
siderable amount of African blood, owned the next
farm. He came from the Georgetown region. He married an aunt of Alex Stewart. Joe was a fairly heavy drinker and when drunk used to beat up his wife, which was not a common thing in those days. They had four girls and two boys.
Finally she got tired of getting beaten up, and she bundled up all her children and headed to Boston. When Joe arrived home one day they were all gone. He jumped on the train and stopped them at the US border. I do not know what happened then, but he arrived home with Minnie and Willie. He was always good to the children and used to take Willie around with him when he went driving.
I went to school with Annie who was in my class, and Alice who I remember with her blond hair. They were of a deep tan colour. My sisters knew them quite well, later, in Boston and always spoke very highly of them.
Willie was my age and we sat together in the double seats, and fought about every time we met on the play- ground. No doubt the bigger boys would start the fights. There I first learned the art of defence.
Years later, when I was a doctor in Eldon, a Visitor
C ontinuing to the east, Joe Sickles, who had a con-
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