by Dianne Langille
Elections have been completed for the year ended March 31st/06. The executive consists of the following: President-Fred House, Vice-President-Wayne Tucker, Secretary-Leona Assinck, Treasurer-Dianne Langille. We wish to welcome Tom Carlos on board as director, joining Helen Parberry, Alice Liberty, Nancy Goodson, Wes Kruger, Oak Langille, and Doug Reynolds. Past-President-Sally Rayes.
Membership fees are due for the year April 1/06 to March 31/07, and your cards have been prepared. Please see Nancy Goodson, our membership director.
A new Low-Key Aerobics program has been initiated with instructor, Judy Miller. Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9 A.M. to 10 A.M., several members meet for basic stretches and exercise designed for seniors. This is an eight week course which ends mid April. If the interest remains positive, we hope to continue this program with other sessions. Contact Judy at #4553 or Sandy at #2745 for information.
We are having a Euchre Tournament on Friday, May 12th, 9:30 A.M. at the Community Centre. All seniors, 50 plus are welcome to join our club members for a sociable morning, a couple of hours of cards, a nutritious lunch, and perhaps a prize or two. Call Fred at # 3220 to enroll. The new quilt has been set up and started. The bright red backing and beautiful coloured pattern will be gorgeous for this years Xmas Bazaar. Quilters required. Craft days are set up month to month, on a Thursday from 9 A.M. to 12 noon. We are still preparing folk art pieces, but new ideas are welcomed. Join us sometime.
by Gladys Blackburn Wasmund
When my parents [Thomas BLACKBURN and Clara JONES)] moved up to Chamberlain Township in 1918, they bought a 160 acre lot [Lot 2 Concession 3 in Chamberlain Township]. There was just about an acre of land cleared and a small house. Dad had looked at the farm in 1916 when he was up with his first wife, Nellie May McCoy, who took ill and died after they returned to Coe Hill that same year.
There was no stable, so my Dad tied cows to trees at the foot of the hill. He would get up in the morning to find bears and moose sleeping with the cattle, so he had a stable built for them. When he got a herd of cattle built up, he had a better, bigger barn built so he could ship milk to the Dairy (in Kirkland Lake). Then he had a milk house built. It had a concrete tank which we had to keep fresh water to keep eight gallon cans of milk cold. At one end of the milk house, he stored blocks of ice in sawdust. He would put blocks of ice in the tank to help keep the milk cold.
He had some Finlanders cut pulp wood to get the land cleared for growing crops.
I was two days old when a forest fire broke out. A school teacher boarded at our place. He took the train to a Haileybury for a Teachers Convention, but when he got there, there was no Haileybury left.
The T&NO Railroad was built along one side of our place. We would walk up that way to the Post Office to get our mail. The tracks were a short cut. Some folks walked through our place to go to church on Sunday, which was held in the school house. The schoolhouse was on a section of our farm. Some would stop in for dinner rather than walk home to get their dinner, so Mother always had a big dinner every Sunday. We always had a big garden so we grew most stuff for the table.
Dad had three teams of horses, which were used to do farm work in the summer. My two brothers [John and Walter] each took a team to lumber camps in the winter. Once Dad got a horse from a fellow up at Hough Lake, but it was too slow to work with the other horses, so he took it back. The next morning when we got up, the horse was back in the yard - he had walked 25 miles in the dark.
We had a collie dog we called "Watch". Everywhere Dad went, the dog went with him. He was driving through the bush and lost something of the sleigh. "Watch" stayed with it until Dad went back the next morning to get it. Somebody wanted the dog so Dad let him have it but the dog didn't stay there, he came back home. When Dad went to town (Englehart) to get supplies, the dog went with him. He would stay with the wagon or the sleigh while Dad did his business.
There was a gravel pit on the farm. The township and a Construction Company got their gravel there, so we had boarders for a while.
There are just four sisters alive now; Mae McGUIRE in a nursing home in Kirkland Lake, Eva PALMATEER of Tweed, Ont., Alice BOOTH, Etobicoke and myself, Gladys WASMUND of Spruce Corners retirement Home in Apsley, Ont. My brother John died in 1971, my sister, Della DEKKER died in 1996 and brother, Walter, died in 1997.