Community 83

mainly a series of hills which gave the place its own particular beauty. Farms for the most part were neat blocks of fifty or one hundred acres. Its land was sandy and of mediocre quality, at least until the wide use of commercial fertilizers. For these reasons, making a living on the farm was never far from a struggle. An agricultural plus for the community, however, was Daly’s farm just across from the church which for many years was an illustration station with its attractive sign at the road. Each summer one would see various small plots of grains and root crops as well as personnel from the Experimental Farm in Charlottetown coming from time to time to check on these and other growth areas. Many summers too there would be a field day at Daly’s with a goodly number of people coming to hear talks by and ask questions to agricultural folk of prominence generally from the Experimental Farm. Usually a large canvas tent was erected for this big event which greatly added to the significance of the day and place.

While farming was Iona’s main stay, a touch of industry was also evident. For years Harry MacTavish operated a carpentry shop with one of his main lines being the manufacture of Windows for customers far and near. In the early 50s Art Connolly returned from Boston and opened his carpentry shop from which he turned out a wide variety and volume of immacu- lately-honed cabinets and other woodwork for churches and schools all across the Island. The Valley farms so poor for agriculture were a goldmine for choice gravel which was trucked far and wide for Island highways. The sight of gravel trucks and their dust was a familiar one on the Valley Road for years. Then for a few summers within view and earshot of our place a gravel washer-crusher was set up to refine much of this Valley gravel for use especially in paving. The plant was a beehive of activity with the finished chips being piled high in the air with lots of noise from the crusher and related machinery and the odor of fumes and oil drifting across the fields. A rich sampling of pollution was also evident with the muddy water from the washer simply dumped into the small nearby stream to carry its sediment downwards on its way to Montague. In addition to the above, Iona had its store or two, Jimmy Daly’s forge and Charlie McGuigan’s butchery.

Iona’s people were almost exclusively of Irish extraction and Roman Catholic. They had a simple faith and it was indeed rare for them to miss Sunday Mass through their own fault. Life centered around the church and pastor. Church teachings were