The other fellows from your regiment you-know, would bring your rations over and she'd look after you. You'd lay on the chesterfield while she tended to you. They were very good to us like that you know, very friendly like that.

Yes, well that’s where we always had the living room. It has a red linoleum floor on it, and a big chesterfield sat in the middle of the floor and I can’t remember the sideboards and the different things around but it was heavy furniture, but that’s where they lived there. The east drawing room was closed most of the time; they only opened it if they were having a part.

Interviewer: And so your generation sounds different from my generation, but not that different, you-know? And one of- you-know, for instance what- what do you call this piece of furniture? Speaker: A chesterfield. Interviewer: Yeah? And do you call it a chesterfield? Speaker: Yeah.

Oh yes, there was a chesterfield shop on- on Yonge-Street, just above College. You-know it was the chesterfield shop and so (inc), but I do think American terms have come into our vocabulary.

Interviewer: That 's an interesting little fact. We- we study things like that, you-know, Canadianisms. What do you call this. Speaker: Sofa? Interviewer: Sofa? Not chesterfield? Speaker: Um, I guess I would have said chesterfield once upon a time. Interviewer: Apparently that 's a term only used in Canada.

Interviewer: No, I can 't remember what it 's- Speaker: Chesterfield. Interviewer: Yeah yeah, chesterfield, yeah. Speaker: Chesterfield. I grew up with all those Italian Canadian words, you-know, the (inc) you-know? The (inc), the backyarda, you-know, that 's what I grew up with, 'cause we had to always- we had to talk and it 's our way of saying (inc). My mother was like, "Fine, fine I know what you 're trying to say. It 's fine," you-know, "You 're- at least you 're talking some Italian," right?

Interviewer: Can I ask you what- just out of a curiosity, what do you call this? This- Speaker: Chesterfield. Interviewer: You call it a chesterfield as well.

...and then there was a novelist, she was writing about murder-mystery in the Victorian era of Toronto, and that 's when the discussion of chesterfield versus couch came up.

Interviewer: ...what would you call this that I 'm sitting on? Speaker: Chesterfield. Interviewer: Chesterfield right, yeah. And that 's a Canadianism, because most people call it a couch. Speaker: Or sofa in The-States. Interviewer: Or sofa in The- States. So you do call it a chesterfield? Speaker: We call it a chesterfield. Yeah.

But the next day he- no I-guess he came up and somehow he was sitting on the chesterfield and somehow money dropped out of his pocket back underneath this chesterfield cushion and I thought, "Gee, I rather like that chap." You-know, it was- yeah. So I phoned him and I said, "Jack, you left a nickel here and, you-know, I just wanted to tell you." And he said "Oh, I'll come up after it."

Ah off the kitchen was a bedroom with bunks because that's the only the thing that would fit in the bedroom. My sister had one, and I had the other. The living-room ah that held a big overstuffed chesterfield, two chairs, the piano, and I don't know how they ever got all that in there (laughs), and the coffee table.

Interviewer: Um, do you notice any words that you're parents use that you don't use? Speaker: Not so much my parents but my grandparents. Interviewer: Oh yeah? Speaker: Like my grandpa says chesterfield a lot for couch

Interviewer: Was there any like words that like people used to use back in the day, like chesterfield for couch that they don't use anymore- Speaker: Oh sure, yeah, chesterfield, yeah.

And he was played out. He went downstairs and laid on the sofa and that chesterfield for a little- a little couch we had. And ah, 'til mother called him again.

I'm sorry I couldn't (laughs) be more of a help with that word, chesterfield. My dad uses weird words though sometimes. He'll- he'll use big words and he'll just slip it into everyday conversation.

And when she got home, she got up on the- on the chesterfield, she (laughs)- she wanted to fly.

Interviewer: Before I go, I wanted you to remind me, what- what is the piece of furniture that you're sitting on here. Speaker: Chesterfield. Interviewer: Thank-you. Speaker: I spend a lot of time here.

Speaker: You-know as far as education is concerned, education that I got you can stick down underneath that chesterfield.

And she says, "Well it's not that I don't like my daughter-in-law," she said. "But" she said, "He m-- she makes (laughs)-" um "sleeps sometimes on a chesterfield and it's not a leather chesterfield, it's one of those um plastic things and I think it's giving them piles."

And they made all the little doilies like all- like they would doilies all made up and all starched up with them standing up perfectly to ah- you-know when you- in the center of a table there would be a doily and it'd be all perfectly starched, standing up looking like- like little loops going around. And the back of most chesterfield had a doily on it that would protect the back of the che-- chesterfield. And parts of the house would only be used at certain points of the time and it would closed off in the wintertime. Certain parts of the house b-- 'cause it'd be harder to heat.