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Photos of Sand Beach Area Taken Feb. 28, 2004 Photos of road & beach Taken July 7, 2004

Date: 2/23/2010 Comments: Horton House, Sand Beach in early 1930s My two brothers and I were ages 5, 3 & 1 when our family moved into the Horton House in Sand Beach in the Spring of 1934, and there we lived, explored, grew up and learned new things until May 1941 when our father was transferred to Halifax by Canada Customs. Someone said a Mr. Fisher had been living there before us, and he had a little store in the front room facing the dirt road; the room with the ‘store’ was at the north side of the house.  The large empty room still had some removable shelves standing up against the rear wall, and on the bottom shelf we children found a delightful surprise, a small flat box that contained new green packages of Doublemint gum –a whole boxful!  We had never seen gum before, but my elder brother and I liked the minty smell and taste. We chewed but it would not dissolve, so we swallowed gobs of it and went for more –until our mother caught us with the empty wrappers, and our new-found fun vanished in an instant –never to be repeated. When we were older our dad made spruce gum from trees which made for healthier and stronger teeth. ~~~~~~~~ There was so much to explore, inside and outside.  The house had three exits and two entry ways: front door toward the road, side door toward the back yard, and another exit-way from the back porch down to the woodshed where winter wood was kept and where kindling wood was cut each evening, also a 3-seater outhouse –a lower seat for small children.  Still under the same indoor passage-way a little further on, there was a milking stall with place for milking stool and milk pails. There was a “hennery” (a place “used to house domestic fowl”), which was a long well-ordered building that held our dad’s several dozen Plymouth Rock hens of which he was so proud -- some gray and some white-- and it had special round incubators for hatching chicks, and places for gathering fresh eggs, sometimes double-yolked ones, to our added delight. There was a separate larger barn down toward pasture, with spaces for a horse stall, cows, pig pen, garden plow, grass mower, scythes, cart, wheelbarrow, and whatever else came with the place.  The hennery had many windows all along the south side of the long structure. How tempting it was for a child heading to the meadow for blueberries, long-handled dipper in hand, to bat out several of those more reachable small panes of glass!  And how keenly felt, a few swats with said dipper across a small boy's corduroy covered bottom! Part of his restitution was to help soften with his little hands, lots of smelly putty our father used for securing replacements.  At times on rainy days we would play in woodshed, or inside the entrance to the hennery, but our most fun was inside the house itself on those days.  [There are still some places “Up the Bay” around Church Point and those older places that have a covered structure from the house to the main barn, all under the one extended roof, and over the decades those structures always reminded me of the Horton place in Sand Beach in the early 1930s.] ~~~~~~~ In season, the stonewall that separated the back yard from the pasture and meadow, was covered with beautifully perfumed climbing Honeysuckle, and later on, large juicy blackberries. In front of the stone wall was an apple tree that produced a profusion of sweet-smelling apple blossoms every Spring. Often I climbed on top of the stone wall and studied the blossoms very closely for a long time. I came to know the beauty God gave these simple creatures, not only their beauty in shape, structure and colour, but especially their captivating scent. These were all new experiences for us children; the universe was opening up to us a little at a time and it was so beautiful and exciting, inspired in us such wonder and awe.  Before long we were old enough to notice our first yard full of yellow dandelion and later on an abundance of daisies and then golden buttercup.  The meadow was almost carpeted in spots with lovely purple violets, and down along the rocky and dusty road the ditches were lined with rainbow shades of tall and majestic lupins! They looked like slender princesses in their glorious pastel gowns.   [In case the reader thinks my description is too one-sided, too idyllic, I must say there were the uglier experiences too, such as getting hen droppings on our clothes, or worse, that of cats! sneakers stuck in cow flats, June bugs upstairs in the house, mouse in the porch in a rubber boot! Spankings for disobedience, mischief, or for fighting with one another, for being “sassy” and for sticking out our tongue at a temporarily un-favorite adult after some confrontation, and so on! But everybody goes through that other natural side of life, so that here we portray some balance, perhaps.] When we were old enough to go to school, we saw in places along the roadway long stretches of friendly alders from which some very fine whistles and pea-shooters were made. The ‘peas’ for the shooters grew by the wayside as well, little “bee-bees” the tiny seeds were called, and most boys kept a pocket full of them. Some called them “mouse peas”.  (Picture is of Beach Peas) ~~~~~~~ Continued..   Click  To Enlarge Picture The boy on the pony was one of the Jenkins children. Zeno and I visited them and that's the time they gave us some of the rose bush, and Mrs Jenkins kindly gave us this lovely picture. It shows the back of the big square house Grandpa Theodore Doucette lived in and where my father, Wallace, grew up, so I was delighted to have this picture.  That picture was given me in the 1970s by Mrs Jenkins, whose family was living in the big house in Sand Beach that my grandparents had lived in from 1912 until the onset of the second world war in 1939 Horton House, Sand Beach in early 1930s Part 2 Our Jersey cow gave all the milk, cream, butter and buttermilk needed for our family. We children watched in awe while our father, and sometimes our mother, milked the gentle "Bossy" who looked at us with her big brown eyes. We children were taught to respect the three-legged stool that our father kept hanging way up high on a spike ever since the day he had to hunt for it. We had taken it for our makeshift play house in the woodshed. Other spikes there held an interesting assortment of old horseshoes, pieces of rope, leather harness and whatnot. ~~~~~~~~~ Our dad had an iron "last", or shoe form, for repairing leather shoes for all the family, and many a time we watched as he tacked on a new leather half-sole over the old one that had a hole worn right through it. The iron last had two sizes, one side for adult shoes and the other end for children's and ladies’ small sizes. It was such a treat to have new soles on our worn shoes, and new hard rubber "lifts" put on the run-down heels. For us it was better than having a brand new pair. Mostly everything one can name, that was in every day use, was hand made in those days, including furniture, and clothing, so every homestead had tools and whatever was needed to work with in order to produce all that was required.  Meals were cooked at home and ordinarily all the family ate together seated around the kitchen table, which was so welcoming with its pretty flowered oilcloth. But on Sundays in summertime and during Christmas time and special days, our family usually ate in the dining room with its large table covered with a special linen tablecloth. Both parents were good cooks, but especially our father who, at a young age, had apprenticed at hotels and restaurants in Boston,. For dessert on Sundays our mother would cut up a bowl of orange sections and sprinkle sugar over them, a very special treat. Other special days there might be each a piece of cake or dish of bread pudding, all made in the oven of our big iron kitchen stove.  [I cannot resist stating an opinion now, in 2010, that no cake or pudding of today, in fact no meal whatsoever, tastes as good and rich and wholesome as those made in the 1930s. In fact, nothing we call food today tastes anything like real food as we knew it before the war when everything produced was still pure and simple.] ~~~~~~~~~~ The Horton House must have been quite elegant in its early days, and seemingly built for a well-to-do family. Inside, there were two sets of stairs, back and front. The back stairs off the kitchen led to servants quarters above, while the front led to the master’s quarters. A magnificent front stairway boasted a shapely wide railing –one that we children would find perfect for sliding down! The stair steps ended in a wide curve at the bottom and the fancy railing followed suit. It ended in a circular form, leaving a flat round stand upon which an arriving gentleman could momentarily set his hat while removing his overcoat –or, upon which a child could sit after having slid down the rail to the bottom, before leaping with a thump to the hall floor. Under the front stairway was a spacious closet with large shelves but no light, so when the door was closed it was very dark inside, and a nice hiding place. Former tenants had stored there several dozens of wonderful magazines. When I discovered those, I would go un-noticed to sit in there for a long time, leaving the door open just enough to see the colored pictures in those magazines, one after another.  One day my mother tried to punish me for being disobedient, so she sent me into that closet and closed the door –until I would apologize, which I stubbornly refused to do. She said she would leave me there until I conformed, which I was determined I would not do.  I was not afraid, because the place was so familiar to me, and those magazines I considered my friends, so I pulled them from their stacks and spread them all over the closet floor and lay down on top of them and was ready to spend the rest of my life there, I thought.  After a while, my mother. curious about my silence, opened the door a bit and peeped in and saw me lying there contented. She ordered me to re-stack the magazines, which I started doing just because I wanted to. The door remained open and the whole issue was soon forgotten. [The big "issue" was that we children were just beginning to learn English. Too young for school, we had to pick up the language of our neighbours from their children.  One neighbour girl told me my "yes" was too Frenchy-sounding. She coached me: "Don’t say ‘yiss’or "yess", say ya-ass!  So I learned to say ya-ass, but my mother did not like the sound of that pronunciation one bit, so she told me to say "yes". But I would not, thinking it sounded "too Frenchy", and I could not understand her disdain for my way of saying it.  So she would leave me in the dark magazine closet under the main stairs, until I would say "yes". I would not make myself sound Frenchy on purpose, and risk being ridiculed for it by neighbourhood children. I think perhaps children instinctively obey peers rather than parents where there is conflict of popular opinion. Anyway, by the time I was a student at school I dropped the ya-ass and learned to say yes like everybody else.  And in order to be able to read my Acadian history, I had to study hard to learn French (for the first time)–which I did do with firm determination after a fierce struggle with Grandmere Rosalie who insisted I speak in French or she would not talk to me any more. But I could not speak French and she didn’t believe it, so that, broken-hearted over Grandmere’s stubbornness, I, with equal stubbornness vowed to study French one day, which I did do in later years. All my thanks to Grandmere Rosalie Doucette!] I think now that my mother was secretly proud of me for being more stubborn than she was! That is my main and fond vivid memory of the front hall closet under the big stairway. ~~~~~~~~~ While the front hall stairs went up to the large and bright rooms in the front part of the house, a narrow closed-in one from the back porch took one up to the servant quarters toward the back. My parents used some of those rooms for storing trunks and suitcases and other things they were keeping for use at some future time. Also, it was a great place for us children to play Farm, Soldiers, or Chinese checkers and Jacks, or color in our coloring books when we couldn’t be outside. My own favorite playthings were dolls and paper dolls, tea sets and coloring books. My brothers liked what they called "funny books" (comic books) and Big-Little books.  ~~~~~~~~ The Horton house had two fine pantries, the regular large one just off the kitchen, with space for a barrel of flour and large breadboard, breadbox, and all the necessary cooking and baking supplies. Cookware was hung up on special hooks that were fastened to sturdy boards high up on the wall that kept the pots and pans visible and handy, yet out of the way. There was also what we children learned was called a "butler’s pantry". It was between the kitchen and the dining room. We asked lots of questions about butlers and why a man had a pantry, but we still could not identify with any of it, but it was fascinating for our imagination. ? We were satisfied that we had access to this pantry’s two wonderful swinging doors. The door next to the kitchen had a small cut-out door with a slide opener and a small shelf just large enough for a platter of food, The door that swung into the dining room had a small peep hole affair at average height for the butler to peer through to keep watch over every need and desire of his table guests. All this I tucked away in memories, and they are still there, only to resurface now, for some strange reason! Mainly thanks to this wonderful website that gives me such freedom to tell my Horton House Story "as is".  We children heard stories about wealthy people having lived there and were served by a hired butler and at least one maid. Servants could walk from the kitchen and through the butler pantry with trays of prepared meals, right into dining room without having to stop to turn a door knob. They only had to slip through them somehow, tray held high and steady. The shelves in the butler pantry were wide and deep, and in times gone by they surely held a variety of fine chinaware sets, goblets, silverware, linens, white cotton gloves, candles, wines, and so on. The floor had a hatch that led to a small wine cellar down under the floor where it was cool. When our family lived there, the varnished shelves, cabinets and drawers were empty, and the place was dark. There was a light bulb hanging from the ceiling on a length of yellowish asbestos-covered and twisted electrical cord, and the light had a beaded pull chain. But there was no light, no electric hookup when we were there, we had only kerosene lamps and candles. The kitchen had electric switch buttons on the wall near two of the doors, the top button was white, and when it was pushed in, the light was supposed to go on. The black button just below the white one was to shut off the light. Try as we might, we could not get those buttons to work, no matter how many times we pushed those buttons in. Now another story, one of my favorite memories, and it too takes in the butler pantry! When one of the new babies came along –about 1936 in the summertime, our other Grandma, Mary Elizabeth Amirault, came from Center East Pubnico to Sand Beach to stay with us for a few days. During that time a powerful thunderstorm arose, something Grandma did not like one bit, and it made her very nervous. She looked for a place without windows where she could wait out the storm. She took me with her, took a stool for her to sit on and I had the highchair, because I was only five.. Our arms rested on the top of the buffet counter where Grandma had placed a lighted candle that was kept in a metal holder. She put that in front of her and took from her purse a small bottle of holy water and her rosary beads, blessed herself, sprinkled everything with holy water, and started to pray in French while I sat there in silence with her, and without moving. Sometimes the crashing sound would interrupt her prayer and I’d hear her counting, cinq, six, sept, to see if the storm was still coming or going away.  We saw none of the bright flashes of lightning but the thunder boomed and echoed for miles out over the Atlantic from whence it came. I wonder if it was that day when I absorbed her phobia that lasted for several decades, until I decided how useless it is to be afraid of it or to worry about it. That is my most vivid memory of the butler’s pantry in the Horton House in Sand Beach. Horton House, Sand Beach in early 1930s Part 3   The kitchen and dining room had access to each other through other doors as well. It was a most interesting house for us children to explore! The dining room when we lived there was my favorite place, perhaps because it had become our family room. In winter a heat stove called a "base burner" that looked like a pot-bellied stove, kept the whole room, and us, warm and comfortable. My first memory of it was the time my father carried me downstairs wrapped in a blanket, and settled me down in a highchair just a few feet from the base burner. He came from the kitchen with a saucer of warm porridge and placed it on the little tray. As I awkwardly spooned in the porridge I kept watching the little square shaped isinglass windows on the stove door. These were brightly glowing mica squares that brightened reddish and almost to a whiteness when the fire inside the stove was its hottest. That stove could radiate tremendous heat, and we children were taught to keep our distance from it.  The dining room’s main feature was the beautiful bay window. It was a favorite place to stand and watch snow or rain coming down, or on a windy day to watch hundreds of daisies bending over in the fields.  Raindrops made small rivulets on the window pane as new drops clung to other drops and ran down as fast as a mouse could run!  Snowflakes were fascinating to study through the double windows in winter. Jack Frost (we were told) painted beautiful fairy patterns on the glass on frigid days. Everything was so delightful when we were just becoming aware and noticing new and interesting things for the first time. The dining room was the place where we celebrated Christmas and all ‘twelve days’ and more. What a surprise for us on Christmas morning. Without us suspecting, our dad had brought a big tree from the woods, and set it up on the 24th, when he and our mother decorated it with the most fascinating glass ornaments one could imagine! There was shiny tinsel and many pipe-cleaner Santas of all colors. Usually, in those days, gentlemen cleaned their smoking pipes with those sturdy white pipe cleaners, but these small, fuzzy and skinny Santas were made of the same material and came in all colors, purple, pink, yellow, red, blue, green, white and so on. And we found them hiding all over the tree, also candy canes and round popcorn balls that were wrapped in colorfully designed wax paper. On the floor under the tree were a great assortment of new toys, which gave us children great delight. The dining room fireplace must have been connected at one time to that of the parlor or what we called the front room of the house, toward the road. The fireplaces had been closed in, and were back to back from each other on the wall that divided the two rooms. There were two tall and spacious chimney closets in the dining room, one on either side of the fireplace. That’s where Santa had stored in advance some of the gifts, thinking surely they would not be discovered there before Christmas. Both fireplaces had a very large mantle piece upon which sat a special parlor clock that had been wedding gifts to our parents only six or seven years earlier. On the parlor mantle piece stood a couple of naked celluloid Kewpie dolls because, much to my chagrin, a gift that was too fragile to be played with. (That was one of the more sorrowful memories for me,) Christmas time was so wonderful in the Horton House! Barely noticed were the big dining room table that was made to be extended even longer, and eight lovely chairs with their high backs that had been carved in beautiful designs, dark stained and varnished. Two or three oil lamps were placed on that table when we spent evenings there.  Some years, for greater convenience, we had our meals in the kitchen where it was always warm from the big stove. Our parents prepared special Christmas meals, but we children were not very hungry because we had opened our stockings that Santa had filled and left hanging under the mantle piece above the fireplace. We were busy playing with our toys most of the day.  Our Uncle Harry, not yet married then, spent a few Christmases with us, and always he brought a large brown paper bag filled with delicious peanuts in the shells. He would hang the bag high up on the door frame, and we could have some if we could reach them! The highchair was the solution, and down came the bag, peanuts and all. We sat on the big couch with our kind and gentle uncle, responding to his teasing, listening to his stories and spreading peanut shells all over the place, leaving one more job for our mother.  After supper, toward evening when lamps were lit, our mother would take out a box that held many special Christmas greeting cards from relatives and friends from many places. What a joy it was to see those beautifully decorated cards and to hear our mother read the messages and letters! Each one was different and special, some with red velour, lacy paper, cut-out and pop-up cards for children, some with colored crinkled cellophane, sparkley snow, windows, stars, and pictures of all kinds. Some had wonderful big Santa Claus and sleigh on them, also reindeer. Some had baby Jesus in the manger.  I had a special fascination for colored pictures, and for greeting cards, and that trait holds to this day. Every one seems to be, for me, a kind of ‘presence’ of the sender, and they are so special that I cannot throw them out. (I don’t understand what caused me to become so sentimental –but if I were not, I surely would not be sitting here writing all this stuff! ..smile: ). Those memories are unforgettable because of the delight they held for us at that time when we lived in the Horton House. Those are real memories of our time spent there in the large dining room. The front room toward the south side of the house was darkish and seldom used, perhaps only for summer visitors from the States. We children were not allowed to play in there. For me it contained a drab and dark colored velour sofa and two matching chairs, a few uninteresting occasional tables, old fashioned lace doilies, old style lamps and vases, window curtains and thick drapes on both windows, and a square on the floor like a Persian rug –the most boring and uninspiring room in the whole house, I felt. It was all too ancient and too quiet and mysterious, surely a remnant from someone’s musty past. Had it at one time been a smoking room, or what? In its favor, I can say that it was a convenience at times when one wanted to see up or down the road. Across the hall from it had been the delightful shop or store, with the shelves, which our father took down in order to make it a lovely bedroom with new paint and wallpaper, even a new flowered linoleum square on the floor. We are told that this special room was the birthplace of one sibling. ~~~~~~~~~~ continues ...........   Sun, 07 Feb 2010   I received the old picture of Grandpa's house in Sand Beach from Dad's sister, my aunt Rosabelle {Doucette} Snarr.  She and my father were close in age, -two of the younger bunch in the family, so they grew up there, practically. They went to South End School and then to the Yarmouth Academy I think it was. This picture of the Theodore Doucette home in Sand Beach was from the collection of his daughter, "Rosabelle" (Doucette) Snarr.  Grandpere Theodore moved there in 1912, He died in November 1935. Grandmere Rosalie (Surette) Doucette remained there until wartime when she and youngest son Ellis moved to Halifax, where Rosalie died in 1946. The Horton house picture was snapped by my husband-to-be in June 1954. The window that is just above my head in that picture was my bedroom window when I was growing up. The "old" Yarmouth Light used to shine in that window most nights! When it was not shining, the foghorn was sounding its descending moan. My brothers slept in the room with the window at the front, right next to my room. Outside that window there was a high railing around the turret or balcony, and we sometimes climbed out that window, which was several feet directly below the peak of the house. We climbed out on that little roof until our mother would catch us and warn us never to open that window again.  But that railing has been gone for a long time now. On that fenced-in balcony there were two corner posts, each topped with a round wooden ball or cap. When these caps became old and weather-worn , they became like a hollow shell. The wind used to make them spin round and round at various speeds, slowly for a while, then spinning wildly in the stronger gusts and gales. The rattling sound of those two wooden shells spinning erratically on the posts, together with sounds of the howling wind in the trees and past the windows, made eerie and fearsome sounds in our young ears.  Our mother reassured us right away, saying something like, "Oh, Daddy is going out there on a fine day and take care of those loose tops on the posts so you won’t hear them spinning in the wind any more. That’s all it is, now go to sleep."  We closed our eyes, and next thing we knew, we were awakening to another beautiful Sand Beach morning. Marie   This is a picture of the house Grandfather Theodore Doucette's lived in from 1912 until his death in November 1935. It was on the left side of the road going toward town, and about five places up from the Horton House. I forget if I ever knew who had the place before Grandfather moved in from Wedgeport with his very large family. The older ones in the family were adults while the younger set attended South End School in town. My father, Wallace Peter Doucette was age 6 when they moved in there.  A few years ago I met the Jenkins family who were living in that house and they kindly dug up some roots of "Grandpa’s climbing roses" for us and we have those few roots transplanted and growing near our own house in PEI. marie marie Click on pictures below for enlargement   Zeno-marie-1980s.jpg Doucette-Marie-house.jpg Theodore_Doucette_home~1912.jpg 1930s-Grandpa-Theodore &Rosalie-Doucette.jpg Sand-Beach-School-1940.jpg

Date: 12/6/2009
Name: marie
Location: pei
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Sand Beach School at Christmas time in the 1930s 

Winters in Sand Beach in the 1930s were fun for children and challenging for adults. I remember lots of snow every Christmas. I can remember looking out our front room window and watching men shovelling banks of snow to break the road open enough to make it passable.  Some men had a car or truck, but not many. I remember in December of 1940 my brother and I getting a ride from church in a truck driven by a cousin who lived down Wyman Road.  When we arrived home we were delighted to learn that we had a new little sister!

Saint Nick and his reindeer never had a problem getting around Sand Beach, and Christmas time was the highlight of winter.  Teachers and parents and the whole school of children were busy and excited getting ready for the Christmas concert.  Children made decorations while adults arranged a stage on the teacher’s platform in front of the one-room school.  All turned to magic for that one event.  We sang carols we had been practicing all month long, and some talented pupils sang solos, while others gave recitations.  Some from the higher grades performed skits and little plays after which Santa passed out gifts from under the beautifully decorated big tree that was cut down from nearby woods.  On it had appeared pretty popcorn balls, candy canes, shiny tinsel and many ornaments including pipe-cleaner Santas and Elves of every color.  It was amazing the excitement when all the community young and old had gathered in that little old school house to celebrate this special time of year. How joyful and cheerful everybody was!

Santa’s elves passed out little white bags of “hard mix” candies of many delicious flavors: cloves and lemon were my favorites back then.  There was a long school holiday, lasting from before Christmas till about January 7.  When we returned to school we told stories about our Christmas at home, and how we spent Christmas vacation.  We told one another what Santa had brought, and how we spent our day at home. 

But when I asked some cousins from Kelly’s Cove way, I was surprised and baffled to learn that they had Christmas like everybody else, went to church and had a fine dinner and so on, but that they did not receive their Christmas gifts until “Petit Noel” or what some called “Old Christmas” which is January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, when three Kings from the Orient brought gifts to the Christ Child.  That is the feast many of our Acadian ancestors exchanged gifts, the day children received a visit from Saint Nicholas.  This was most interesting to me especially when I began to understand that these were also my own ancestors! I learned all this from my little cousins who lived way down below Sand Beach. 

Children received practical gifts such as home knit mittens, caps and stockings, along with a few toys and candies. 

Most families had a sled or two, usually home made. Some older boys made what they called a double-runner, which seems to have been two sleds, one on each end of a long wide board, making something like a toboggan upon which several children could speed downhill, that is if all could hang on all the way down, but usually some would fall off part way down. It was lots of fun. 

I remember two kinds of sleds, the flat little wooden ones for younger children with no steering, and the higher ones that had handles that one could use to steer right or left.  I remember older children being gone for hours and when they got back home they had been sliding down “Kinney’s Hill” wherever that was, but the younger ones had to stay at home and slide down the big snowbanks in the yard.

Rappie Pie was standard fare for many Acadians, and my Dad being a very good cook, made the best I ever tasted.  I believed he also made the best biscuits and donuts.  My cousins on the Wyman Road made the very best strawberry jam, and Aunt Carrie made the very best hot chocolate ever!
Those were some memories from Sand Beach School at Christmas time in the 1930s . Marie

Date: 10/26/2009
Name: marie
Location: pei
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Comments: Edith Cavell Goodwin
In 1937 my mother had a “maid’ or “servant girl”.  That is what mothers’ helpers were still called in those days. I’m not sure what these workers are called nowadays. I never did take to the term baby-sitter because I would have to be able to imagine that first!  Who was ever able to ‘sit’ while having little children around!  But our live-in “Maid” was Edith Cavell Goodwin.  Even though she came from about a mile away, she made her home with us in the big Horton House. 

My mother always said Edith was the best maid she ever had.  “She could just go right ahead and do what she knew needed to be done without me telling her every move, and how to do it. She just went ahead, she knew how to work!” 

Edith kept us children, and our kitchen and pantry clean and tidy, and lots more.  She made our school lunches and even sprinkled a bit of sugar on our peanut-butter sandwiches.  She shined the little red apples to go in beside them, buttoned our coats, tied my bonnet, and we were off for the day.

Edith helped mom with the wash, which was all done by hand.  Water from the well heating on the big iron stove, large galvanized tub and washboard, small rinse tub, and these fixed on top of two or three old half-chairs from the back porch, blocks of home made lye soap, and a long rope clothesline with a lifting pole from nearby woodlot: those are some vivid memories.

Edith had Thursday afternoons off, and usually she went up town to do whatever business, shopping or visiting she wanted to do. She dressed so prettily to go out. Her auburn hair was a sea of deep and beautiful waves, with tiny curls around the edges. She looked lovely in her lavender sweaters and light gray or bluish skirts.  To me, she was very pretty and she was my pretend fairy godmother; that’s because she was so gentle and kind and thoughtful.  She told us the story of how she got her name. Edith Cavell was a nurse, heroine and martyr. During the first world war she sheltered soldiers and freed a good many by getting them out of Belgium and into Holland where they would be safe. For doing that, she was put to death. The whole world honors her and her heroism to this day.

How secretly jealous I was when I heard that a Mr. Carl Adams was going to marry “my Edith” and take her to his home with him! That’s when I was made to realize that I had a great deal of growing to do! I had clung to her because in my childhood she had been so special and because my mother treasured her so much. And Edith always had good things to say about my mother and about the time she lived with us in Sand Beach.  One more little story before I end this:

The stores in Yarmouth were closed on Wednesday afternoons to give the clerks a break.  One time the Royal Store up town was advertizing “Wetums Dolls” –dolls that wore a diaper and could ‘drink and wet’– for twenty-five cents!  Even though I had two dolls, I really wanted one of these baby dolls! Edith said she would take me with her next Thursday and buy me one. Dolls were among my favorite toys, but come the happy day, we arrived there, myself overflowing with excitement, when the lovely young clerk said “Sorry, there are none left–sold really fast.”  Oh, how sad a time that was, no ‘wetums’ doll! And when we got back home, I remember my mother saying something like “Good, we’ve got enough real live little wetters already, we don’t need to buy one.”

Years later, I found out that Edith was living in Kelley’s Cove.  I was glad that the Adams home was right next to Sand Beach where she would feel at home.  The Sand Beach children used to go sliding in winter with their schoolmates, the Kelley’s Cove children, so it was quite near. 
I know that Edith Goodwin Adams is in heaven with Edith Cavell and all the other angels. May they rest in peace.

In the 1930s in Sand Beach, Halloween was celebrated, but nothing like it is today. First of all, it was spelled Hallowe'en because it is the eve or vigil of the religious feast of all saints.
 

In those days there were no spooky decorations anywhere, only pumpkins of all sizes and shapes. Children scooped out the seeds from inside their chosen pumpkin, and then cut eyes, nose and mouth to make what was called a jack-o'-lantern. The lantern part was made by a lighted candle inside which shone through the cut-out faces of the pumpkin shell.

[on the Internet I found something interesting that I never heard before. There we read that the jack-o’-lantern is "associated chiefly with the holiday Halloween, and was named after the phenomenon of strange light flickering over peat bogs, called ignis fatuus or jack-o'-lantern."

Also, one dictionary tells us that ignis fatuus is "A phosphorescent light that hovers or flits over swampy ground at night, possibly caused by spontaneous combustion of gases emitted by rotting organic matter. Also called friar's lantern, jack-o'-lantern, Also called will-o'-the-wisp, wisp.

Also, "something that misleads or deludes; an illusion."]

Anyway, as I recall from childhood, this is what we did in Sand Beach to make a jack o'-lantern. After the top was cut off and set aside for a cover or hat for the pumpkin, we took a large spoon and scooped out all the pulp and seeds from the inside, and then tried to cut out a scarey face on the pumpkin shell. 
Parents gave each child a candle about four inches long which they helped fasten to the inside bottom centre of the pumpkin shell. 

After supper, at dusk we would go from house to house with these shining and flickering spooky ghost-like faces and shine them in the windows of our neighbours --who, naturally were nearly "frightened out of their wits!" 

Children wore some kind of mask, usually home made from oilcloth or even brown paper bags and string or elastic, so that nobody could recognize us, we believed.

We went to one another’s homes to do this, and a big part of our great fun was that none of us goblins spoke aloud, all was done in spooky whispers, moans and groans like ooooooo-ooo. The adults inside their kitchens at the windows were great performers in those days which greatly heightened our childish delight! 

As opposed to today’s Halloween, there was no such thing as today's "trick or treat," and no thought of receiving anything from those we visited. There were no decorations in yards or anywhere. Our fun was to pretend there were ghosts and goblins going around the neighbourhood, causing chills and excitement and lots of fun. 

When everyone was back home there might be milk and a cookie or warm cocoa and a piece of bannock, and soon it was bedtime which was later than usual, about eight o'clock for this one special evening, 

It caused us to wonder next day how some real mischief had come about, soap on windows and overturned wagons or outhouses: were there real ghosts and goblins in our neighbourhood after we were safe in bed? 

In those days our jack-o'-lanterns were really quite spectacular because there were no outside lights anywhere and homes did not have electric lights, only rather dim oil lamps, so to see a little group of children parading around with lighted pumpkins was quite sight.
 

Also, whenever the adults thought we should be on our way, they would pull down the big old green window blind and cover the window, so we could no longer see them and went on our way. 

It was exciting, simple and innocent as it was! 
Very fond memories of 1930s Hallowe’en. 
 

Marie

Comments: In 1938, the Grade two pupils at Sand Beach School, under the tutelage of Miss Clarke, answered an invitation by radio station CJLS in Yarmouth, to write a letter to Uncle Bob. Grade Two children in all the schools within listening distance were asked to write a letter and Uncle Bob would read a select few over the radio at a certain date and time, so all families were urged to listen-in, especially families of the young writers.  Excitement in all the local schools was mounting by the day to learn which school would win the top prize. I was in Grade Two and all of us in that grade had written to Uncle Bob and Miss Clarke sent our letters to the CJLS station. 

Our family had no radio at home, so Mama asked Bob Calquhoun, and we three listened –sort of-- to this special Uncle Bob program on his battery radio.  The radio was up on a shelf so Bob lifted me up on his knee so that I would be better able to hear, but I age seven and was so shy to be sitting on his lap that I began to squirm my way down to the floor. The more I squirmed, the tighter he held my torso and the tighter he held me, the more I squirmed.  Uncle Bob was busy reading letters and making comments, none of which I heard. Mama was trying to listen and was embarrassed at my behaviour. I kept saying to Bob, "Let me down!" But he tried told me to listen, which I was not able to do, I was that shy and embarrassed at being on his lap and being held there.  So I resorted to telling him if he didn't let me down, I'd pull up his pant-legs, which I was already doing, and showing my beautiful young mother his skinny legs covered with long black hairs! Then HE was embarrassed and my poor mother was totally humiliated, and so was I, yet felt defiant and vindicated when he did finally let me down.  Just then MY name was given as the writer of the best letter and the honor went to Miss Clarke at Sand Beach School.

The prize was a book called "Ruffles and Dandy" which I took home but never read, because I had not yet learned to read, and my French-speaking parents were not ready to read me something that was so foreign to their culture, so it remained unread.  That was the very beginning of my writing career, and, even yet, in my old-age, I still have a great deal of embarrassment as I try to write --for whatever reason. I hope someone gets a chuckle, at least, out of this – and my sincere apologies to my latest literary hero, the kindly and generous and most patient Mr. Bob Calquhoun of Sand Beach.

Comments: In Sand Beach, in the 1930s, one of the regular peddlers who came around every week with his truck selling meat, was a Mr Patten (or Patton?). The truck would stop in the middle of the dirt road and neighbours would gather and make their purchases while everyone caught up on most of latest news from a radius of probably five or ten long miles --who had illness or any misfortune, who had a newborn, who moved away, who returned, how bad the storm was, who lost what by lightning, whose boat capsized, and so on.

My two brothers and I would follow Dad to the road, and most often the kindly Mr Patten would press a big Newfoundland cent into the palm of our hand, each one! When he came around in the fall with barrels of apples to sell, we excitedly emptied our piggy banks to help make up the three dollars to pay for the beautiful apples, barrel and all!  Those were the days!  How could one ever forget such a p;lace and such neighbours! Blessed memories. 
marie
 
 
 

Date: 6/3/2009

By the way, I forgot to tell the story of the time Clyde Wyman, our good neighbour, took his little sister and me ('me' is correct in this case) with him in his new little coupe for a Spring drive out to see the new construction of the airport. The drive was most enjoyable till we got stuck in deep mud to the axles!  Clyde soon had a circle of friends around the scene and by some effort "got us out of the stuck" --as we little girls later described the scenario.
It was fun and exciting --for two of us anyway. Fond memories, 

 And I mustn't forget to mention a special gentleman, a Mr LeCain, who drove a nice car, a 1930s model, and his car would go by, heading toward town, as I would be on my way down to the Sand Beach School. Mr LeCain never failed to tip his hat to me each and every time!  That's how I learned a little more about refinement and respect for others, making no distinction.  I felt honored by him. One time he gave me a ride part of the way home from school on a very cold February day.  "Did you get any Valentines today" he asked. 
"Yes, I got nine."
"NONE! no Valentines?" he asked in a kind of sorrowful tone.
I thought he was teasing me, so I said, 
"Yes, I got NINE, n-i-n-e!"
And he smiled in a voice of surprise and said, 
"Oh, NINE< well that's a LOT of Valentines."
He let me out at the end of our lane and I went into the house with a happy story to tell my mother about getting a rid in a car, and she knew him and told me his name was Mr LeCain. 

marie

Entry Date: 5/29/2009

Comments: From 1934 to May 1941 our family lived in the lovely Horton house in Sand Beach, and now I want to relate a few memories of neighbours we had at that time. I've already mentioned the friendly Cosman family next door.  Down from them was Tracy Goodwin and his wife who was a Knowles. They had a lovely family of hard working truckers, mostly of coal in those days, and it was Tracy with his big truck who moved our family belongings to Dartmouth when my father was transferred there by Canada Customs in 1941. My mother and Mrs Goodwin and I decided to walk to make more room in the car for my siblings.As we climbed Silver's Hill to the lone farm house at the top, Mrs Goodwin kept repeating with every breathless step, "Last place on earth, Mrs Doucette, last place on earth!"  In Sand Beach, her youngest son Carl was my brother's best friend.
On the south side of the Horton house was the family of Gordon Colquhoun. His daughter Thelma married Ralph Martinelli who drove a motorcycle and lived in a little bungalow onWyman Road.  I remember Gordon with a back brace he had to wear from his broken back.  Down from him was Ken and Jane Poole. All I recall about Ken Poole was that he was so tall, his trousers barely reached down as far as his ankles, and he was the best in the neighbourhood at playing the game of horse-shoes. His wife, Jane, had a little Kindergarten in her home, and how I longed to go to her classes, but was too shy to mention my longing. The Pooles also grew a lovely patch of cultivated strawberries. Some of us learned, as we reached in under the fence at the edge of the road, that it took only one of those great big strawberries to almost fill a child's hand! I know because I had one, and it was delicious, although I was guilt-ridden as I gulped, and worse, was never able to share the delectable story with anyone, especially my strict and law-abiding mother!

Straight across the road from the Horton house, was Mr MacKenzie's little store. When he was not there it was Kathleen Wyman behind the counter.  Mr MacKenzie was a Boy Scout Master and was often seen in full Scout uniform with the large brimmed felt hat.  Mr macKenzie had a Scottie dog named Angus. He also drove a Beach Wagon, and it was the prettiest station wagon I ever saw. Its sides were panelled with beautiful light grain wood. [The only other similar vehicle I've heard of would be the truck owned by a Mr d'Entremont, and the picture reminds me of Mr MacKenzie's beach wagon. He used that for transporting his supplies. 
When Mr. MacKenzie was having a new house built a little south of his store, the workers blasting rock and all the neighbours were cautioned to beware of flying rock! Some of us younger and more timid ones hardly dared go outside.  I remember the sound of exploding dynamite and one time I saw a piece of rock lift a few yards up into the air and straight down again, but no more. We were glad when that was over. How anyone could plow a garden in that rocky terrain puzzles me to this day. 

Down from Mr MacKenzie were the Rogers ladies, Mae and Winnie, and they sold lovely candies they made themselves.  They had a wide variety of flavors of taffy kisses and some made into longer sticks and canes. They made a reddish cocoanut chewy log called a hunkadory, and then a flat white candy with yellow blob on top called a fried egg, and those were creamy and delicious.  There were others but those mentioned were the favorites in the neighbourhood.  At Christams time our family received one of their pound boxes of "ends" of candy and those were as yummy as the more perfect renderings of the original stock.

The Purney family lived next door and every fall at Halloween they gave us children a box filled with beautiful chestnuts!  Oh,the games we made up with these treasures!  The Sand Beach school teacher boarded with the Purneys or with the Rogers, both beautiful large homes. 

The teachers there in our time were a Miss Clarke who was succeeded by Mr Lawrence Doucette from Quinan, and he had a large family of his own. He travelled by motorcycle and went home to his family on weekends. 
On the north side, going toward town, there was a railroad crossing, and just before that was a little place where lived a Mr Bushell (like Bush-Shell)  He was fond of children and liked to make them little toys from wood and especially popular were his little soldiers made of moulten lead. He would melt the lead and pour it into little soldier moulds and out would come a shiny soldier. He gave those fo children who did erranes for him. He was a kind elderly gentleman.
Not far from his place but across the road, was a Mrs Walsh, for whom my Dad would get her mail from the post office up town and take it to her.  She gave him a Christmas gift in the 1920s, a book she signed "Wallace, from Mrs Walsh," a book by T.C. Haliburton of Nova Scotia, Sam Slick the Clockmaker.  That book is still in the family.

Various peddlars came around, some with apples, others with fish and meat, and yet others with a great variety of goods, such as Watkins or Raleigh products so well known all over the place, but Sand Beach has many more stories of back then when there was no pavement anywhere and where the Beach was a favorite summer attraction and the harbour and Bunker Island and Cape Forchu with the beautiful old light house where many went for a picnic. i remember the nasty experience I had on Bunker island with a group from school, when I was stunned after being bunted by a ram! I learned something new that day! 
Bless y'all, Marie

Thank you again Marie...  G.J.LeBlanc

When I was a little girl living in Sand Beach in the 1930s that beach down there where the roses line the lane almost to the water's edge, there were banks of white sand! tons and tons of it, but it's been cleaned out to the rocky bottom!  Ages and ages created that sand and put it there and many went there every day all summer to play on the beach. Seaweed was not up on the shore as it is now. Only when the tide went out did we get to walk on the seaweed and see some of the rocky bottom. There were treasures in those days coming from a long and glorious-- and always tragic -- history of fishermen, sailors merchants and the sea.  There is a haunting tale of a woman who lost her husband at sea and when the tide went out she would go to the beach and walk out as far as she could, in her nightgown, and call her husband through the fog and mist and with the foghorn blowing, it was even more eerie. Police had to rescue her when neighbours would report her out there. She had practically lost her mind over his disappearance at sea and in her sleep she would sleepwalk to the beach and go way out and call him at low tide. This was the REAL woman, not a "ghost". There was no ghost to it, unless it would be her husband calling back from the deep--who knows, but I never heard of any. This poor woman never got over her terrible loss and ended up in someone's care. So tragic and sad! (If I remember right, her name was Scovil, but it's a long time ago, but that name always stuck in my mind after hearing older people telling about Mrs Scovill being rescued from the flats at low tide down at Sand Beach.) That story always stayed with me because it's so tragic and sad. 

Marie

That's the kind of story older children told us little ones about that very same house as you have pictured on your website! i was so amazed to see it that I was almost trembling looking at it, this old 1930s house! Here it was on my computer seven or eight decades later! (to continue:)

--So whenever we came close to that house, we almost held our breath until we were past it.  We looked briefly , and way up at it, as we wondered silently, and kept on going toward home.  Always we children kept that place of "Mrs. Scott's" in awe and her too, although we never saw her.  But we were certain that she was watching us through her lacy window curtains, any time we walked past her house.

The house looked different from any other we were familiar with. It was not like a box but rather reminded me of a castle or what had once been a palace.  It was gray or unpainted in those days and tall weeds or grasses grew all around the house, back and front. and on both sides of the many steps that mounted to her front door. When I was a few years older I believed it had been the home of a seaman because there was a "widow's walk" where his wife could climb the turret to watch over the horizon and the ocean.

This website gives me for the first time in my nearly eight decades of life some facts about that mysterious  residence. So it was an Inn, yes, i believe it.  And also we were told that Mrs. Scott at night would go up into the widow's walk and watch the harbour and she could see sailing vessels way out far in the distance.

Sand Beach children had amazing imaginations and they loved to tell yarns to us littler ones! Such delightful and sometimes scary dreams and memories they gave us!  Their parents must have read them many wonderful books when they were little to instill in them such imaginations and fantastic little stories!  Such memories!

Thank you! Marie

On the old houses of Yarmouth from the museum website I think and I learned it was Ellery and Margaret Scott so the lady in my letter below must have been this dear Margaret M, widow of husband Ellery S. Scott.  Amazing what one can learn on the Internet, the REAL story of this house that the children  thought was spooky. I also found some Scott history and genealogy. Mr. Scott and his ancestors were great people according to records.

Why does it seem to me almost a violation for me now --a once timid child passing the Scott house so often-- to have now invaded the privacy of that dear widow who had been so reserved during the years we children were passing by, looking but not daring to stop to greet her, and to bring her mayflowers?

Nevertheless, this great lady is speaking to us now, opening up some of her family history for us and giving us a real tour of her mansion there at 7 Main Street!  May she rest in peace.

Marie

Large families and very little money was the norm, but some did have a camera which would be used only on very special occasions, first Communion, last day of school and so on.

Freddie Burke used to come up from way down the road to walk to catechism lessons with us on Sunday afternoons up at St Ambrose. He was a very kind and gentle and humorous young man in his early teens, much taller than my brother and me, so I really looked up to him.  One wet day while walking up toward town on the dirt road, I spotted a leather wallet in a shallow puddle and mentioned it to Freddie. I was seven or eight then, the wallet was soaked and I didn't want to get dirt on my hands. Freddie asked me if he could pick it up and I said yes, and if he could have it, and I said yes, and if he could have anything that might be in it, and since I liked him so much I said yes, so he opened it and exclaimed ONE DOLLAR!  And I was glad he found a dollar inside because he was so thoughtful to have asked me first. There was nothing but respect from him for everybody. He was so friendly and kind to my brother and me, and he had a much longer distance to walk than we had, to and from church, so i wanted him to have it. 

Finally, those bundles of high quality clothing that were sent "Down East" from "the States", I have leaned since, came not only to Sand Beach, not only to Wedgeport and other Yarmouth county villages, but also to all parts of the Maritime Provinces from relatives working "Across".

Later, when I went over to work for five years, one aunt said to me, 'Now it's your turn to wrap and tie parcels and pay the postage, and was I ever grateful for the honor of following in the footsteps of these hard working relatives in the "Boston States". 
[Now, I wonder why I suddenly am able to imagine the scent of mothballs?  marie :)

Thank You Marie