So my father went and the doctor says, "oh it's only her second one it'll take quite a while." ... "Have a cup of tea." So he sat there and talked had a tea and then just walked up the r- road a little ways back to their house, and by time they got back, the baby was there alive and kicking.

Speaker: Lived in ah tents at forty below zero, had an operation in Mexico in the state of Wahaca, a mining operation down there, which we vacated because ah I guess they weren't exactly being above board if you want to call it that. Interviewer: What, on board? Speaker: above board. The people who were operating the mine in Mexico, eh? You-know, one for you, two for me sort-of-thing.

And ah- I- I- I drove in and instead of putting on the- on the brake, I put on the- the gas, and I hit the abutment and damaged my brand new car.

Speaker: ... I just go just to go spend a day, do some cooking but now I do- since I've been retired, I'm their cook for the two weeks when they come up- all get together. Interviewer: So it's- Speaker: Kind of a family affair.

Interviewer: So, before you had electricity what did you use for lights? Speaker: Well, coal oil lamps mostly. And we had a- I don't know there they got it, they called it an Aladdin-lamp at that time. It was a- a high, like the glass was high and it- just about that round and it had, ah- oh, I can't think of what- it had a kind of a cone shaped thing that fitted over the- the flame.

Whatever you did- we all- them days we all smoked, eh?

Before that, he was also on what they call- in big cities, they call it a tugboat, but here they call it an alligator, and what it meant was that they would get- (clears throat) what they called them- you-know, the- from the bringing up from Madawaska-River. There were b-- what they called booms, and it was never- I-guess in ah- ah- this alligator would bring up- there was, you-know, like a circle, that you'd t-- nowadays, they would put a rubber thing around there to bring the logs in, eh? And they were all there t-- usually 'bout five-hundred, six-hundred logs, and this alligator would bring them all the way up here without a sawmill.

We have an apple-pie-bee, people get together and we have- basically we have um, we have a wonderful little assembly-line going on.

And they- there was tractors and- and combines and hay-balers and- and we all kind of worked up there.

Speaker: Ah it's just like a- you go and cut the hay down obviously and we'd put it in rows, rake it in rows with the machine so rakes it out, and then we have the baler, which- it's like a compactor, takes the hay and forms it and puts it in a ball and makes a square out of it, then puts two strings around it and ties it, and shoots it out the end. Then you grab that, put it and pile it. And we used to do that. You-know we'd make big stacks of hay. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: But now- but now we have the round balers so it's just take th-- well my uncles he cuts the hay and rakes it, then he goes with the round baler and makes these big round bales which I'm sure you've seen along the highway.

People don't know what the name of that apple is, it's a huge tree, huge apple. Ah, we make apple-pies with it every fall. We have an apple-pie-bee, people get together and we have- basically we- we have um- we have a wonderful little assembly-line going on. And we start training as young as four. (laughs)

Speaker: No, no one turns down the pie, no, no. Interviewer: So when did you start doing the apple-pie-bees? Speaker: Oh-my-gosh, oh a good number of years ago. We- yeah, it's a tradition. It's a tradition here. Um, so we've been making- yeah, we- we make eighty pies, you-know, yeah, yeah.

And also, in the- in the winter-time, well she didn't relax all that much. Because I remember they also had what they call quilting bees. In the wintertime, that's all the women- they all get together, and they would quilt. Ev-- you-know, in the wintertime. And it'd take up the- the dining room- t-- the dining room was all- you-know, the frame for the quilt was put on there, and they would quilt, and quilt, and quilt, and quilt.

And the community, a very Catholic community in Combermere, and they just- it just became big-time news and concern and parents were wanting to take their kids out, like it just became a big issue, and so I- I had to do something.

Interviewer: Stone picking, so this was a well-known. Speaker: Oh big-time, for sure. You-know? Yeah I mean you don't- you don't plant a crop ah in- in if you can get st-- like first of all you plough it right?

And ah, in the fall, you would harvest the grain, and it was done with a unit and the horses pulled it, it was a- it was called a binder, which ah the- you- wha-- ah you raked all the grain up with a hay-rake that the horses pulled, and then ah got the binder, and ah went along and it picked- it picked the grain up and straw, and fed it through the unit

Ah yes, we used to swim there. A lot of bloodsuckers though.

Oh we've gotten bloodsuckers on our feet yes, on your toes.

Well there was, you-know, speaking of the strap, I-mean you've heard some stories too where ah ah there- there was the bold kids, and they would get strapped for whatever they they were mischiefing, right? But ah, I know in our culture, the Kashubs ended up getting strapped for speaking Kashubian, right? And that wasn't pretty.

Speaker: For me, I ended up getting the strap because I was bold. (laughs) Interviewer: Yeah? What did you do? Speaker: Well there's just y-- I-don't-know just clowned around, and there was one time I ah ended up ah not listening to the teacher and I- and I kicked my briefcase, I was ah just- and he says, "Now, get your hand out", you-know and just and you, you-know, borderline stuff.