By Lam! and By Air

Mother used to visit her father on several occasions. This was about eight miles away, which meant very cold drives in the winter months. I remember the comfort of the beech log, which was heated in the stove in Belle River, for our return home. She loved babies, and would go miles to visit newborns. In her later years when she had some time to spare, she would be the woman who would attend births and deliver babies if the doctor was absent. I cannot remember my mother sitting down and resting. My mother learned to speak Gaelic while in the cradle, and all the secrets were told in Gaelic, as were many of the good stories when I was young, but I learned very few words.

My grandfather worked in New Brunswick on the railroad and came home to take over the mortgaged farm, but he was an excellent farmer and ended up with several farms, and many thousands in the bank when he died in 1928. That would be a fortune today. Although he could only make his name with an ”x”, he was able to sell hay by the ton, by weighing it in small bundles, weighed on an old scale and nobody was able to cheat him out of a pound. He sold grain by the bushel. He had four horses and several cows, sheep, lambs and pigs. He used to have a hired man, and they hauled hundreds of loads of seaweed from the shore for fertilizer.

My other grandparents were made up of MacPhersons, Bells, MacMillans, Morrisons and Mathesons, so I can truly say I am Scotch from head to feet. My grandmother told me once that her husband got into many fights by his friend, who, when he would see a fight at parties or stumping frolics, would say ”If Sandy Ronald was here, he would beat both of them." As a result he usually had to take on both of them. Of course, fights in those days were not what they are today - it was more a test of strength, than of anger, and they seldom stayed

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