Speaker: The loft was above and you put up a hand, you-know? Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: You'd fork it up to the loft and somebody would stack it back and spread it back in the mow. Interviewer: Yes. This was wild hay. Speaker: Wild hay, yeah. Interviewer: Yes. Speaker: Beaver w-- what they call beaver hay. Interviewer: Yes.

Speaker: Denise went up and she said "Dad, those mattresses are not fit to sleep on. Now you have to throw them out." So she hauled them all out, eh (inc)? And- "Mom? You see Dad gets new mattresses and new bedclothes. It's disgusting-"

Oh yeah. This was the- this was the- their- they worked hard, you-know? And, ah, ah, they used to have what they call bees. Ah, if you had, ah, we'll say a bunch of potatoes you wanted to get out in a hurry and, ah, they neighbours would come over, the men, and dig the potatoes out with a hoe and the women would pick them up ...

Speaker: Oh yes, mother made them, quilted a lot of them. Interviewer: Mm-hm. Did she ever get together with groups of ladies? Speaker: Yes, quite often. Interviewer: Yes, what were the- those parties- Speaker: Quilting-bees. Interviewer: They accomplished a lot too, didn't they? Speaker: They did. Interviewer: And had a lot of fun besides.

Mother used to- ah, fix up, or be patching up quilts, she called, putting a quilt together, certain pattern. She'd work late at night, sewing by hand. And ah then they'd have their quilting-bee, and that was a kind of a little get-together.

Speaker: No I-guess I didn't quilt this one. ... Interviewer: Somebody else quilted it? Interviewer 2: Yeah. She did all the embroidery and put it together. Speaker: And y-- you had to ha-- we had a quilting-bee on it.

Interviewer: What- how did the quilting-bee work? Speaker: Well when we had quilting-bees, there used to be about three on each side. Like- and they t-- then they'd roll, and then go along, and roll another row, and then another row, until we come to the middle, and then i-- it was finished.

And all these women knitted sweaters and knitted scarves and knitted socks and- just constant click, click, click, click, you guess-- oh yeah, and, ah, blankets, ah, they- they always had, ah quilting bee, but I don't think they sent quilts to the army, but you couldn't buy a blanket, so I guess it was just for local use, I-don't-know. And then you see, everything was rationed, eh? Gasoline, all-that-stuff.

And I watched them for years and- and then we used to have a bee- ah, ah cutting wood. We cut wood all winter. Had a woodpile maybe from here to that fence. In the summer it would be ten, twelve feet long. And we'd have two days of sawing. And there'd be neighbours'd come and- and we'd cut wood ...

Speaker 2: They also had bees for other things too. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Oh they used to have threshing bees- Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker: Corn-cutting bees, wood-sawing bees. Speaker 2: So n-- everybody just came and did the work and ah- I- I- I admired that you-know?

Interviewer: He just- he was one of those people who could figure things out. Speaker: He was- he was quite a guy. Interviewer: Well tell us more about him. Speaker: He- he didn't like you standing around. (laughs) Interviewer: (Laughs) Speaker: If you were there and there- this- this one day bee was on, they would raise the walls, put up the rafters, they would sheet the floor and sheet all the walls, and, ah, put the, ah, strapping on the roof. Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: He'd- he'd put the steel on later himself. He wouldn't let anybody else put the steel on. But it- it was a marvel to behold, to watch them.

Speaker: Well they worked r-- if anybody got (inc)- they had their differences (inc) but if something happened- a disaster happened, they- everybody forgot that and they were there to ... Interviewer: Build the bond. Mm-hm. Speaker: Building bees, building bees. They also had bees for other things too. Interviewer: Yeah.

And after you fed the cattle and did the chores in the morning, you went to the woodlot and took the team of horses and the axe and the saw and you cut a load of wood. ... Or two or three, whatever you had time for and you hauled that home and you piled it up and you had a big pile o-- of logs or trees, timber. And then in the spring you had a wood-sawing bee, and the neighbours all came in and helped you saw the wood up. 'Cause basically everybody heated either with wood or coal. Nobody heated with oil back then. There was no hydro heating or-any-of-that.

And then we had um- and of course we had corn cutting bees too the same. They would ah- they cut the corn and of course they put it in silos for insolage. Um and there would be a- all the neighbours would get together and often um maybe three farmers would go together and buy maybe the- the cutter to cut the corn ...

Speaker: It's a wonderful museum for a small place and- and the people that work really, really hard. Interviewer: Yes. Speaker: Well, I used to go in- in the spring to the cleaning bee and help with scrubbing the floors and-stuff-like-that but not for a long time. I'm getting too old for that now.

Then, a little later it was time to put in corn silage and in the winter a bee to cut the circular wood into pieces to be dried and used for firewood after it was piled and left to dry. We all got to know our neighbours as farmers traded work with neighbours. It was a busy time for our mothers as they prepared meals for the hungry men.

Speaker 2: Quilts. Interviewer 1: Yeah. Speaker: That was another thing. They had ah- ladies had quilting bees every winter. Interviewer: Yeah. Okay. And- and you were talking about going into the store to buy things. Now folks I think made a lot of their own clothes. Speaker: Yes.

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.

So- so that ah made it more difficult- you-know and- you lost the ah- like the old farmers use to all work together at bees. You'd have your sawing bee where there'd be twenty-eight people come to your house and you'd- you'd saw up a pile of wood into-into stove-wood length and then you had to split it by hand, of course. Then the next bee was the corn cutting where you'd- when they started building silos you-you'd have twenty-five or twenty-eight men come again ah- they'd just changed hands of course with- with ah the neighbours. And ah the women- there might be two or three women that would help ...