Interviewer: Now I seem to remember hearing that ah, for hydro, you used your horses to- Speaker: Yes, I pull line to the hydro. And ah, ah quite a long piece too. With a team of horses and you pull the wire. At that time, the hydro poles went from farm to farm to farm.

... he got a job sharpening steel there for the railroads in- on- on the K-and-P at that time, but then he got off to hydro after that, and then he went to mines and- you-know, up where, where- up where (clears throat) you don't say a word about that Jesse, up- up where I was born, in- with- in- in ah, Schumacher, because Shi-- ah, Miss- Miss, ah, Shania-Twain ...

... if I had have stayed with Ontario-Hydro instead of staying- ... So there I'm saying- if I had have stayed with Hydro, I'd have been retired forty years ago. Eh? ... and now here I am, starving to death for Christ's sake.

He wasn't a great big man but he was tougher than whale bone. ... He worked in hydro and he worked all over. ... Slept with a tent up in, ah, Abitibi-Canyon- ... When it was forty below Fahrenheit, you-know? Oh, he was- he was- he was a good guy. He was a good friend of mine.

One of the guys in hydro said "No," he said, "That's not right, they have a contract right in town."

Speaker: Yes, I wanted to mention that to you also, because I had, ah, I had Melissa-O'Reilley here the other day, and Tim-O'Reilley had married a Cameron girl. Interviewer: Okay. Speaker: And she says, "Well, you'll have to mention the dairy," and I says, "Well, you-know, you're right, I will." Interviewer: Yeah, yes. Speaker: Now, hm, see, ah, God, I must have the dairy- oh yeah, here we are, Cameron's-Dairy, forty-six. Here- here we go. Cameron's milk rig destroyed in nineteen-thirty. (laughs)

And one time- but I- I could talk just like Madeline. Madeline phoned, and I said- "Hello? Is that you, Mallory?" And I says, "Yes. And how- how's your leg today?" "Well, it's not too bad today." And I went right on with her, never knew the difference, (inc) at all.

I met her at the train station, and ah, just, the figures got more than I could handle. And up she come, so- "Well, what are you going to do?" Well I says, "I got to wait 'til Monday or Tuesday, my turn comes." 'Cause they were coming in from the west in train loads and everywhere else.

She said "Oh!" she said, "We got to-" and I- I says (inc)- So I says, "You go home, and ge-- send as many trucks as you can for cattle 'cause I got- they want them cattle the hell out of here."

Speaker: ... If you want to start, Monday morning." Ah, he says, "There'll be somebody here to count, and you pay him. Interviewer: And what day was- and what day was this? Speaker: This was Saturday. So I says, "Good." So I had to buy a new elevator to run the hay out of the barns onto the trucks. We started loading and I hired two men that come up from home to help me. And we loaded barns day and night.

So he phoned me Wednesday morning, he said, "That catch in the flooring, can you cover it?" And I'd put eleven tractor trail loads into a guy at Richmond. I says "I sure can, no trouble," and down I went and got my cheque and brought it back and ah, here we are. I covered it all and went ahead. Oh, them- them barns of hay did me a pile of good.

So I went in to the bank manager was cheery, "Oh yeah, we'll write her up." Oh, he said, "Just a minute Keith, things have changed." I says, "Oh, what's wrong." Well he said, "You owe us thirty-two-thousand dollars. And we're only taking fifty-percent and you've got to get appraised and your appraisal ain't going to be what you think it is because you were appraised-" what was it?

I come in at the dinner table and I just took to cry, I says, "we've lost her all this time." And she says, "You know Keith, I don't feel the damn bit sorry for you." "I- How do you mean?"

I said, "A hell of a way of looking at it, I lost everything I owed this morning if I didn't have this." And "How you're so smart?" Then I says, "I've got good friends." That night, every other person who was- five of them- phoned me that night and offered to- so glad to help me and give me the money. The whole five of them and I couldn't get a dollar off of anybody here.

Interviewer: Well, there are some other memories that you can think of that- want to share? Speaker: (Laughs) Yeah we used to ah- we used to cut ice. ... In the winter and ah we used to fill qui-- quite a few ice houses around the lake. ... And ah we would fill one, two, three- ah we would fill five or six ice houses in the winter. We used to ah get Gary-Nolan down. He had a saw that was on a sleigh with a motor- ... You could push them out. So that ah would take up some time in the winter.

Well, I think- we had the lake, so we were- I know Jay-Padmore and Walt-Neeley, were two that would come to help, so I presume they got their ice too. ... Don't remember them taking it home, but I'm sure they had ice-houses 'cause there was noth-- no other way to keep your food. ... And everybody had an ice-box.

Interviewer: ... there'd be a knock on the door and this man would walk in, and with ah the tongs, the big tongs and a chunk of ice, and say good morning to my mom, and pop it in, and off he'd go. Speaker: See we would just go out to the ice-houses. ... Clean the sawdust off and have a pail of water, and clean it all off, and bring it in, and plop it in the fridge.Interviewer: Undoubtedly this chap (inc) Ottawa or something and brought it in to- to deliver to the homes in Ottawa, then I'm sure it'd been going on for years. Speaker: He would have a big ice-house then some place.

No, we had an old wooden garage, and I think the ice-house was behind the garage. There's still a garage there now, but it's obviously not made of logs ...

Speaker: Well you had ice in the ice-house- Interviewer: And fridge too. Speaker: Covered with sawdust. ... If you were lucky you had an old ice-box (laughs).

Speaker: Did you have an ice house at- ? Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. We didn't- we never had ice.