During the month of November, the nuns who ran the Kinkora school would pass out yarn to women and girls in the community to be knitted into socks, mitts and caps for children at the St. Vincent’s Orphanage

in Charlottetown. Kathleen’s sister Mary volunteered to knit a pair of mitts in time for delivery to the orphanage for Christmas. Mary, who was teaching at a nearby school, had to devote a lot of her time to prepare for the school’s annual Christmas concert in addition to her regular teaching, and missed the deadline for finishing the mitts. Mary did not finish the knitting until January, long after the Christmas season had come and gone, and she gave the mitts to her young sister. Kathleen still remembers them as the orphan mitts.

Her godmother, Mabel Smith, had made skirts and knitted matching hats for her daughters. She offered to make a skirt for Kathleen as well. Kathleen was delighted to receive what she still recalls as a beautiful — and very fashionable — skirt which she wore to church and on other special occasions. It was a welcome reprieve from the hand—me—down clothes with which she was all too accustomed to wearing.

Before Kathleen departed for university, she bought new material and Mrs. Trainor made her a jacket and vest, two skirts and a dress. That was a large wardrobe for the time.

In some respects, Kathleen was more fortunate than others when it came to clothing. There are many stories told around that time of people converting used flour bags to dresses. They would cut three holes for arms and neck and bleach out the markings, although some flour bags came with floral patterns that were left on for more festive occasions. There

is a story told about a woman from Mount Stewart who used to make underwear out of flour bags for her and her daughter. It was said when the daughter bent over, you could see “98 lbs.net wt” on her backside.

As well, relatives would arrive home from the “Boston states” or elsewhere with gifts of used clothing that had gone out of style.

Kathleen’s well—being was also looked out for by her eXtended family. Aunt Bine, her father’s sister who moved to Boston to work as a housekeeper after she was widowed at an early age, used to come home

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