| Summary: | Oral history interview with Beverley Ann Butler conducted by Dale Jarvis. Beve Butler talks about her father's work with the railway; her family moving to Lethbridge with her father as station manager for the Bonavista branch railway; memories of the school in Lethbridge; a one room school with no electricity or water; grades one to eleven in one room; difference between life in Lethbridge and Grand Falls; describes how families got houses in Grand Falls; design of houses in Grand Falls; condition of the railway station when they arrived; mice and cats; description of station manager’s house, office, and station, bathroom and toilet; need for station to be refitted, and renovation work on the station and house; memories of living in a railway car while work was completed; gravity flow 500 gallon water tank to provide running water in the house, operated by a pump; difference between life then and now; children’s recreation and play, fishing from the wharf; church life in the community; Salvation army tambourines; helping with a local dairy farm; sliding in winter, using sheets of canvas; games that children played - King William Was King George’s Son - ring game; Little Sally Saucer; Red Rover; a version of baseball; losing balls into the marsh; Christmas memories; Janneying and Mummers; 12 nights of Christmas; fruitcake and syrup; wearing her father’s long johns; wearing curtains to cover the face; disguising one’s self for janneying; janney voice and silence as a way to hide who you were; guessing game with adults; description of Christmas Eve church service; differences between Anglican and Methodist churches; United Church service; music; hymns; decorating the Christmas tree with glass ornaments; gifts; food traditions; fish or chicken for Christmas meal; date squares and desserts; memories of her mom’s cooking; her father’s piano playing; parents going to a party in Clarenville, leaving the children behind, and then getting stuck in Clarenville for three days during a snow storm, leaving the children in ...
|
|---|