for vacations. When Aunt Bine discovered that Kathleen was, at a 
     
     young age, becoming an avid card player, she remarked that Kathleen’s 
     
     father was going to ruin that girl by teaching her to play bridge. In fact, 
     
     Kathleen was taught to play more out of necessity than anything else 
     
    

    
     as very often a fourth person was needed to make up a team. Kathleen 
     
     would agree to play only if her father was to be her partner. Little did 
     
     Aunt Bine know how much Kathleen relished playing cards and what an 
     
     accomplished bridge player she would become. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Kathleen also had many friends. She spent a lot of time playing with 
     
     girlfriends like Kay Farmer and Edith Smith. They skated in the winter, 
     
     and went swimming at Chelton Beach in the summer. Someone in 
     
     Kinkora had a truck, and would transport children and their families to 
     
     an afternoon at the beach for ten cents each. One time, Kathleen went 
     
     with an older cousin by train to spend a week in Charlottetown with a 
     
     relative who lived on Bayfield Street. The two would walk down by the 
     
     hospital where Sister Mary Angela worked and watch roller skaters in the 
     
     nearby park. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Kathleen returned the caring and attention. She had only two dolls in 
     
     her life. One she kept in a wooden plum basket for which her mother 
     
     had made a mattress and pillow out of a piece of dark blue velvet. Earl 
     
     fashioned tiny rockers on the basket, and Kathleen would rock the doll 
     
     in her little bed. One day several years later, a lady came to help clean the 
     
     house, and she brought her two young daughters with her. Kathleen gave 
     
    
   
   
    
     her two dolls to the daughters, thinking the girls would want them more 
     
     than she did. 
     
    
   
   
    
     After her mother died, the family took care to ensure that life for 
     
     Kathleen would carry on as normal as possible. That included the 
     
     celebration of Christmas, not always easy as the Depression wore on. 
     
     One year, just before Christmas, Kathleen’s father John came home 
     
     from Summerside where he told her he had met Santa Claus at the 
     
     Holman’s store. He handed Kathleen a parcel, which she eagerly opened. 
     
     It contained what she recalls as a beautiful red dress. John told Kathleen 
     
     that Santa Claus wanted her to have the dress early, so she would have it 
     
     in time for the Christmas concert. 
     
    
   
   
    
     60 KATHLEEN MURPHY, MAITRIARC