In Western New Brunswick,in my mothers hometown,there was a lot of change going on.The road from Moncton to Canterbury was still all torn up,as there was a huge dam building project taking place just above Fredricton on the Saint John River.When the new dam came on line,all of the roads above it would have to be located higher up,because a huge flood basin was going to be created.So,while there was no problem getting from Moncton to Fredricton,getting the last sixty or so miles could seem to take forever,and involved long dust waits for moving equipment.
In and around the town of Canterbury was changing too.My grandparents had completed their move into town.At first they lived in the back of a store right downtown.But by 1966,they'd moved up to the top of the first hill,onto Orchard Street.Canterbury,in those days had a lot of old Victorian style houses,the grandest of which were right along Main Street.Orchard Street was the second of three streets branching off the main drag.At it's lower end the houses were big and well tended.As you drove further from Main Street,the houses became less well tended,until at the far end of Orchard Street,they were little more than shacks.My grandparent's new house was about two thirds of the way to the dead end,on the left.It was hardly new,but it was in decent shape.I always thought of it as being large,but,in fact it was small.The kitchen was at first dominated by a huge wood stove,which then got replaced with an oil stove.Either of these stoves took up enough room so that you would have to walk through the room carefully in order to avoid bumping into it and being burned.If there were four or five people in the kitchen,the room seemed uncomfortably crowded.The living room was small as well,and there was another oil stove in there,though it was much smaller.There was a stand with a television,which hardly ever got turned on,and, along one wall,right next to the window,there was a huge old organ,which was in a rather sorry state of disrepair.From the living room, a narrow set of stairs led to a second floor,which contained four tiny rooms,three of which were bedrooms,and one a washroom,which contained only a toilet.No bath or shower. All of the rooms,save the bathroom had sloping ceilings,so that the rooms were only about four feet high where they met the outside walls. At the very front of the house,there was a long, narrow glassed in porch,that was always very nearly the same temperature as what it was outside. Beneath the porch,there was a bit of a crawl space, with mud walls and floors.You could crawl into that space by opening a trap door,but there was hardly enough room to stand about,even for a small child such as I was at the time. Occasionally my grandmother would go down there to get potatoes or some other food item that was stored there. And, as far back as I can remember, there were always mousetraps set about on the mud floor.
My grandparents were hardly the only people to have moved in from the country in those years. In fact, they were very much a part of a larger migration. Nearly all of my mothers family had moved somewhere by the mid 1960s. For younger family members, there was already a recognition that there was very little future out in that rough, rocky country. A good many of them just moved the few miles into town, hardly a move at all, except that they took up different houses. My mothers brother, Clifford had moved,first into Canterbury, where they lived in the back of the same store where my grandparents first moved, A bit later on,they moved on to Fredricton. My mothers sister and her husband moved into Canterbury as well, where they opened a garage and a store on the crest of the second hill, just before the edge of town. My grandmothers sister and her husband, who by this time were quite aged moved into the house just beyond my uncles garage, just where the road starts to go down hill and back out into the country. Most of my grandmothers other siblings, and their children had moved as well, a good many of them to Ontario, and some to the area around Portland, Maine, where they had established themselves by the middle of the twentieth century. All, or most of those people once lived in a big, old farmhouse that had been set well back from the road, but I cannot recall a time when there was ever people living there. Most of the houses around eventually became just like that old house.
When we visited Canterbury, there never seemed to be a lot of children around for us to play with. There was one boy who lived out back of my grandmothers house, where the two lots shared one large garden.So he ended up being about my only playmate, and he was an agreeable one for the most part.Mostly we would play with our trucks, either in the garden, or even right out on the streets, as there was hardly any traffic at all. I'd often sit down right in the middle of the road, and it caused nobody any concern at all. But, I do recall my mother telling someone once,that the boy I was playing with had bitten me on the hand once. My memory of that is very vague.I do recall coming home once, looking at a bite mark on the back of my hand. However, I have no recall at all of how that mark actually got there.
Visits to my grandparents place, in those days consisted of long days playing in the dirt, usually in very hot weather, and getting very dirty.I would try to climb the apple tree out back too, but I was far too small. The roof of the shed looked inviting too, it looked as though I would almost be able to reach it, by standing on some of the old farm equipment that my grandfather had dragged in from the farm and parked there.But again, I was not quite tall enough to crawl up onto the roof. In the still hot evenings, sometimes with thunderstorms threatening, my mother would fill up a huge, galvanized metal washtub, and bathe her children right there on the front lawn, beside my grandfathers old car, a 1953 Chevrolet Belair. Then it was off to bed, where someone would read us a story, and we would listen to the sound of my grandmother setting the table for breakfast, which she always did at night.And we could sometimes see lightening through the window, and always there was the sound of my grandfather snoring, as he was in the habit of going to bed early, even earlier than my sister and I.
In and around the town of Canterbury was changing too.My grandparents had completed their move into town.At first they lived in the back of a store right downtown.But by 1966,they'd moved up to the top of the first hill,onto Orchard Street.Canterbury,in those days had a lot of old Victorian style houses,the grandest of which were right along Main Street.Orchard Street was the second of three streets branching off the main drag.At it's lower end the houses were big and well tended.As you drove further from Main Street,the houses became less well tended,until at the far end of Orchard Street,they were little more than shacks.My grandparent's new house was about two thirds of the way to the dead end,on the left.It was hardly new,but it was in decent shape.I always thought of it as being large,but,in fact it was small.The kitchen was at first dominated by a huge wood stove,which then got replaced with an oil stove.Either of these stoves took up enough room so that you would have to walk through the room carefully in order to avoid bumping into it and being burned.If there were four or five people in the kitchen,the room seemed uncomfortably crowded.The living room was small as well,and there was another oil stove in there,though it was much smaller.There was a stand with a television,which hardly ever got turned on,and, along one wall,right next to the window,there was a huge old organ,which was in a rather sorry state of disrepair.From the living room, a narrow set of stairs led to a second floor,which contained four tiny rooms,three of which were bedrooms,and one a washroom,which contained only a toilet.No bath or shower. All of the rooms,save the bathroom had sloping ceilings,so that the rooms were only about four feet high where they met the outside walls. At the very front of the house,there was a long, narrow glassed in porch,that was always very nearly the same temperature as what it was outside. Beneath the porch,there was a bit of a crawl space, with mud walls and floors.You could crawl into that space by opening a trap door,but there was hardly enough room to stand about,even for a small child such as I was at the time. Occasionally my grandmother would go down there to get potatoes or some other food item that was stored there. And, as far back as I can remember, there were always mousetraps set about on the mud floor.
My grandparents were hardly the only people to have moved in from the country in those years. In fact, they were very much a part of a larger migration. Nearly all of my mothers family had moved somewhere by the mid 1960s. For younger family members, there was already a recognition that there was very little future out in that rough, rocky country. A good many of them just moved the few miles into town, hardly a move at all, except that they took up different houses. My mothers brother, Clifford had moved,first into Canterbury, where they lived in the back of the same store where my grandparents first moved, A bit later on,they moved on to Fredricton. My mothers sister and her husband moved into Canterbury as well, where they opened a garage and a store on the crest of the second hill, just before the edge of town. My grandmothers sister and her husband, who by this time were quite aged moved into the house just beyond my uncles garage, just where the road starts to go down hill and back out into the country. Most of my grandmothers other siblings, and their children had moved as well, a good many of them to Ontario, and some to the area around Portland, Maine, where they had established themselves by the middle of the twentieth century. All, or most of those people once lived in a big, old farmhouse that had been set well back from the road, but I cannot recall a time when there was ever people living there. Most of the houses around eventually became just like that old house.
When we visited Canterbury, there never seemed to be a lot of children around for us to play with. There was one boy who lived out back of my grandmothers house, where the two lots shared one large garden.So he ended up being about my only playmate, and he was an agreeable one for the most part.Mostly we would play with our trucks, either in the garden, or even right out on the streets, as there was hardly any traffic at all. I'd often sit down right in the middle of the road, and it caused nobody any concern at all. But, I do recall my mother telling someone once,that the boy I was playing with had bitten me on the hand once. My memory of that is very vague.I do recall coming home once, looking at a bite mark on the back of my hand. However, I have no recall at all of how that mark actually got there.
Visits to my grandparents place, in those days consisted of long days playing in the dirt, usually in very hot weather, and getting very dirty.I would try to climb the apple tree out back too, but I was far too small. The roof of the shed looked inviting too, it looked as though I would almost be able to reach it, by standing on some of the old farm equipment that my grandfather had dragged in from the farm and parked there.But again, I was not quite tall enough to crawl up onto the roof. In the still hot evenings, sometimes with thunderstorms threatening, my mother would fill up a huge, galvanized metal washtub, and bathe her children right there on the front lawn, beside my grandfathers old car, a 1953 Chevrolet Belair. Then it was off to bed, where someone would read us a story, and we would listen to the sound of my grandmother setting the table for breakfast, which she always did at night.And we could sometimes see lightening through the window, and always there was the sound of my grandfather snoring, as he was in the habit of going to bed early, even earlier than my sister and I.
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