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If I ever get a dollar I'm
going to save my money
BY: Andy Coulas
I was born north of the village of Barry's Bay. On
the outskirts. My father had a farm a mile or two miles away from
Paugh Lake. And that's where I was born.
When I was only about a year and a half old my dad thought he'd
move down between Wilno and Killaloe, to what they used to call the
Machout farm.
My Uncle August bought that farm first. He was there for a few
years, and he thought he'd sell the farm and move some place else.
And he did well. Went way out to Woodstock. He bought himself a
hundred acre farm for nine thousand dollars.
Some of the family was born at Paugh Lake. I think there were
one, two, three, four: James, Jean, Ambrose, and Winifred were born
at Paugh Lake. And I was born there, so that's five. The rest of the
family was' born at the Machout farm. I was only about a year and a
half old when they moved there. I don't remember all this. But I
often go back to the farm.
The Machout farm burned. The lightning struck the buildings here
a few years ago. Everything burnt right down to the ground but the
old house, and there was an old granary that's left there too.
That's all there is. So that's what happened.
We tried to do the best we could.
In our family there was nine of us. Two girls and seven boys. The
oldest girl is still living. The boy that was born after her went
blind. He must have been twenty or eighteen years of age when he
went blind. My dad took him all over the place to doctors in Ottawa.
They couldn't help him. So he just went blind and that was it.
Then it happened in 1930 that my mother died. She had a heart
condition so she passed away. I was eleven. The youngest was only a
year old. And right in the heart of the Depression. It was terrible.
I often remember that.
Being on the farm we had a good garden. We had cows, we had milk
and so on. We were able to live, but there was no money to be spent.
And during that Depression it was terrible. It was terrible, I'm
telling you.
As far as education, we didn't get much education. But we tried
to do the best we could. Dad never remarried because nobody wanted
to get married. No woman wanted to get married and go on an old farm
with six or seven or eight kids.
We were all happy, and what else can you
do?
We had to look after ourselves, the best we could. If you didn't
look after yourself you were just left out. Everybody paddled their
own canoe.
And when they were working on the highway some of the fellows
that were working on the highway used to board at our place. That
helped a little bit, there was the odd dollar coming in.
We had a hard time, but everybody was happy. Us kids really
didn't realize what we were into. Everybody else was having a hard
time, too.
My dad kept us all at home. And I give him a lot of credit for
that. Neighbors wanted to take some of the family, but my dad said
no. I give him a lot of credit for that.
We were all happy, and what else can you do? We had enough to
eat.
We didn't have anything to spare.
In those days you killed a beef at Christmas time, when the
weather got cold. You didn't have any Hydro or deep freezer or cold
storage. You had to wait until the cold weather came. And we had
pigs. We used to kill them in the fall of the year and salt the
meat. That had to do us the whole winter and the summer next year.
WhenMother was living she got a girl
from Paugh Lake.
We had a hired girl to do the cooking. When mother was living she
got a girl from Paugh Lake. They knew of her because we used to live
back there. They went down there with sleighs, one time in
wintertime, and picked her up. They asked the parents if they would
want to give her up for a while, because they needed help. So the
parents said yes, she could come down. They were poorer than we
were.
On her way back she froze.
The poor girl's mother went to midnight mass one Christmas time,
I remember that well. There was no snow on the ground. Christmas Eve
it was raining. About five or six o 10 clock it started a few snow
flurries. By ten o'clock there was two feet of snow on the ground.
And it got cold.
She went out in the afternoon to go to town and go to midnight
mass, and on her way back she froze. It turned terribly cold and
windy, and she wasn't dressed for it. No heavy clothes. Not like
what people are dressed today. And they didn't find her until she
was frozen.
Fifty cents in my pocket. Oh yes.
Sometimes I used to work for the neighbours down there at the
Machout Farm. On a Saturday when I wasn't going to school, the
neighbour might want to cut a few logs, or some ties, just to make
himself a dollar. He used to come to the house in the evening and
ask me if I wanted to come out and give him a hand. So he'd give me
fifty cents, you know, and I was happy.
I'd put the fifty cents away. Hang on to it.
I would go over there, maybe two or three miles, while it was
still dark, and I'd give them a hand. I was able to chop, to help
them saw, to use the cross cut saw. I was happy.
They would ask me if I had breakfast. I would say no, because we
didn't have that much to eat, and whatever there was wasn't up to
par, you know. Well I'd get a good meal, good lunch, good supper,
then I'd go home. Fifty cents in my pocket. Oh yes.
After I finished school I went to work for a farmer in Brudenell.
I worked there for five dollars a month, doing haying. There was
no other work. And out there you got fed. And you got five dollars a
month and you put that in your pocket. You took the Eaton's
Catalogue out, and looked to see what clothes you had to get, and
what was the price of them, whether you could afford them. Then you
filled out an order and bought yourself something to keep warm. You
had to have clothes. You had to buy clothes for yourself and you had
to manage. You had to learn to manage your money.
So that's the way the ball bounced in those days.
I liked farming. I often wondered if I wanted to buy a
farm. But I wouldn't buy one around here. I'd go some place where
there is tanning. Like Woodstock. I went to work for my Uncle
August, way out in Woodstock. Boy, it was a big change for me.
My aunt died here in the month of March one year. And of course
Mrs. August Coulas came down from Woodstock for the funeral. So she
asked me, "What are you doing out here?"
I said, "Not that much. We're at home and there's nothing to
do in the spring of the year."
She said, "We're looking for a man. Do you want to come with
me?"
I said, 'Sure."
"We'll give you fifteen dollars a month."
I said, "Of course."
She said, "We'll pay your way down."
I said, "That's good, for I haven't got money to pay
my way down there."
But anyway. I thought I'd go and I did.
I went on the train. Oh that was something! I was on the train
before, of course, but never that much. You had to buy a ticket for
fifteen cents. You didn't have fifteen cents, or you didn't want to
spend it if you did have it. So you walked.
Many's the time I walked from home to Barry's Bay or Killaloe,
and didn't think anything of it.
Woodstock was different looking country
altogether.
Mrs. August Coulas bought me a ticket and then she had to leave
the train and go on another one. I was kind of upset because I was
all alone. And not familiar with going so far on a train. But when
it stopped at Woodstock, they were there with their old car. They
picked me up, with my small little club bag of clothes that was all
I had.
Woodstock was different looking country altogether. We came to
the house at night. When I got up the next morning I went out to the
barn-there was all kinds of cattle and horses.
The place was altogether different. Rich country and all kinds of
farmers. And she gave us good meals, she was a very good cook. That
was something that I wasn't used to at home, good meals. At home we
had to bake our own bread and often it was sour.
What did we know? We did things like kids.
So I was there all summer. He had two team of horses. I liked
driving horses. Driving horses and looking after them, I could do
that. I wasn't afraid of horses.
And the milking had to be done by hand. So they had another young
lad there with me and we worked on the farm.
I stayed there all summer and then I came home in the fall of the
year. Somebody said to me, "I got a letter from home saying
that some of the lumberjacks are going back in the bush. They told
me that some of the lumber camps were starting to open up. "You
better come here and get more money, " they said.
Well I thought I'd go home. But I was sorry.
I was kind of used to Woodstock.
There was a lot of hard work in the
lumber camps.
Oh there was a lot of hard work in the lumber camps. And you had
to stay there. There was no getting out. Today people drive to work
in the bush in the morning-, and come back in the evening. And they
get holidays and all.
In those days there was no such thing as holidays, only Sundays.
You never saw the building until Sunday, any other day you were out
to work early in the morning until late at night.
It was a poor life, but that's all there was around here. Even
now the lumber industry is still here, but the bottom is starting to
fall out. I don't know what's going to happen. Well, there is
no bush anymore, you know, it's all cut, or ruined with skidders.
But I remember going at the bush for J.R. Booth, way back in the
Park. I stayed there for six and a half months. And I was happy! And
I came home with two hundred and twenty dollars.
Of course! Cash the cheque, put it in the bank!
I figured I was going to make myself a
home.
A lot of fellows went back home, and in two week's or three
week's time they were broke from buying drink and things like that.
I wouldn't spend that kind of money on drinks.
I figured I was going to make myself a home. And I figured that
if I met a good girl, I could make a living with her and get along.
I was going to get married. Make myself a home.
I worked for a farmer, Jim O'Grady, back here towards Brudenell.
One Sunday afternoon his mother, Mrs. O'Grady,, she said,
"Andy, will you hook up the horse and the buggy and take me
down to Willy Costello's. They have a new born baby. I want to go
down there, they're neighbours."
I said, "Okay!" So I hooked up the horse and the buggy.
Oh, she was a lovely woman, she played a Jew's harp, sometimes,
and sang. Well she said, "You know, Andy, you're a young man.
If you ever run into a girl, you know, a girl, you get
married."
And I said, "My Golly, maybe you're right!"
So I took her down there, and I was around there while the women
were talking.
In the evening, we came back and I said, "I'm
seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years of age. I want to save my money.
If I want my dollar I'll have it." So I saved a couple of
hundred dollars. Enough money to buy clothes and look after myself.
Then I went to work for Murray's at the sawmills and I bought
myself a 1931 Ford for two hundred dollars. I didn't know how to
drive it but I drove it anyway, without any permit or driving
license of any kind.
You could get a license, but you'd have to go to some place where
somebody would test drive you. There was a fellow on top of the big
hill at Madawaska-I went there after supper one time to get him to
test drive me and I got a chauffeurs license.
I'm very lucky I didn't have an accident!
I remember when the Sixty highway, from Killaloe to Barry's Bay,
wasn't open. Of course in those days people didn't drive cars in the
winter at all. People drove with horses and sleighs. And in the
summertime there was no crushed gravel or anything. Whatever little
bit of gravel was on it they drew by horses.
The farmer got something like ten cents a load.
The Snake Hill.
The road was in the same place as Highway Sixty today, but today
it is a highway. In those days it was much narrower. I could take
you out and show you part of the old road that comes down near the
department of highways. There used to be a sharp corner to the left
there.
When you left Barry's Bay you went by the Kaszuby Road, then you
make a left turn and you crossed the highway. Then you took a swing
to the right down to where the airport road is, on top of the hill.
If you are driving west, when you come up on top of that hill, you
see a gate on the right hand-that's the old highway. Then it takes
off around that lake. Over on the far side of the lake it comes out
on the highway and crosses again. Then it goes on the left side of
the highway all the way down to Wilno.
Used to call that the Snake Hill, that.
Everybody wanted to get on.
I was a grader operator and road superintendent in Sherwood,
Jones and Bums Township here for years. I knew the roads. In those
days people wanted to get on the highway. Everybody wanted to get on
because it was a couple of dollars for them. You got a week or two
and then you had to be laid off. Somebody else wanted to get a
chance to go and work in the summertime.
One winter they worked for eighty-some cents a day. And they were
glad to get on. If you had a team of horses you put in an
application. They hired the farmer with his team. They worked from
seven to six. And they worked hard, too.
You might get on for a week or two, then you had to go. Make room
for the next fellow. I don't know just what they paid for the horses
and the man but it wasn't very much.
One winter it was so cold, oh boy, was it cold. The ground was
frozen. They would dump great big frozen lumps and humps on the
road. In the spring, when the frost left, everything caved in. You
would never know they did anything.
They should have given the people eighty cents a day welfare. But
there was no welfare that time. They made them work for the eighty
cents.
Drilling the rock by hand.
They didn't build the roads like they do now. Today they spread a
bunch of sand, and they pack it, and put water on it, and everything
else. Today it is done properly. In those days they didn't do that.
They didn't have the equipment. There was no such a thing as a
bulldozer in those days. So it was all labour. Drilling the rock by
hand.
They hammered down so far and then they blasted. Two fellows
would hammer, one fellow sitting down and the other hammering:
"Bing-bang! Bing-bang! Bing-bang!" And every time they
wanted to clean the hole out of mud they used to shout,
"Mud!" and the lads would stop and scoop it out.
But anyway, that's the way the ball bounced there.
I went to J.R. Booth.
Well, after I went farming I went to J.R. Booth. They were up in
the bush and I went there. The wage was thirty-five dollars a month
and that was good wages, in those days.
I went to the bush the last week in August and never came back
until the twenty-second of March. I stayed there for Christmas. We
got Christmas Day off, but we just lay around and had a good rest.
See, Sundays you had to wash your clothes and do your patching and
things like that for yourself.
You used to take your blankets outside and two lads get together
and shake them and air them out. You would leave them outside all
day, and bring them back in the evening, and they'd be fresh. And
you had to look after your bed and your clothes. You'd have your
woolen mitts to dam. You had to look after yourself. If you didn't,
nobody else did!
But anyway I came home and then I wanted a job, but where do you
get a job? So the drive was going through. They had to drive the
logs from the Park. One Saturday morning I went to the headquarters
and I got a job and I stayed right there. The drive was going to go
up the next week. There were a couple of lads who had a sleep camp
there and a headquarters and a cookery, and there were fellows
looking after the road going in. So I worked with them, we put some
sand down with a truck, we patched holes.
Then it was the case that they needed so many men for the drive.
A bunch of the men were coming up to be hired, but some were drunks
and everything else. Well, they hired some but they didn't hire
some. So they hired me, and I had to buy myself a pair of cork boots
for eight dollars. They had big nails in them, the drivers had to
have them.
It was long days, but I enjoyed it.
The drives used to come down to the big mill here. I went up and
I got in with a couple of lads from here. That was fine. The foreman
put me watching a river below the dam, with the two other lads. It
was long days, but I enjoyed it.
When they put the drive through the Big Opeongo we were just
below the dam watching the river. Then we had to move down to the
Five Mile Point, and wait there until the drive came down.
On the drive you went to the side of the river. There was all
kinds of water. The water was high because they had built dams on
the lakes to hold water.
When the drive came, and the logs were coming down, they'd open
the dam from early in the morning until twelve 0 t clock. Then the
logs would come down from the Big Opeongo to down here.
And you were beside the river, watching.
Nothing but whitewater flying!
You had side piers built and you watched-there wasn't that much
to do. Jump on a big log and go down along the side pier. When it
was going to go into the rapids you'd jump off. They had brought
logs in on the sides of the river and piled it full of rock. They
narrowed the river to make the water high. There were all kinds of
big boulders to force the water high so the logs floated right on
top.
Nothing but whitewater flying!
Eventually the logs come through Madawaska and down through the
Bark Lake dam here. There was only a small dam there years ago, the
lake wasn't that high. Then it went down to Kaminiskeg. That's where
they separated the spruce and balsam and the pulpwood away from the
red and white pine. Then they brought the booms to the big mill to
get sawed.
Well then finally I got a job here too, and then I was thinking I
would get married.
I met my wife one time I was down working for Murray's here. I
met her first in the fall of the year. There was snow on the ground.
I met her at a dance back here on the highway towards Combermere.
Neer Lodge, they used to call it. I was there one Sunday afternoon
and there was a dance going on.
When I came home for Christmas, well, I
met her again.
She and her neighbours used to go there together. So that Sunday
they came in there. Well I kind of got struck on her, I thought she
was a real good looking girl, so I got around her.
But of course I had to go back to work that evening, for if you
missed your job, you lost your job. I was working for Murray's down
here at Cross Lake, south of Madawaska. So I went back to work and
we wrote letters back and forth. And then, when I came home for
Christmas, well, I met her again.
I went to Killaloe and bought her a box of chocolates for
Christmas. Cost me three dollars. Beautiful box! Well, three
dollars! So then we got talking and we thought we'd get
married in the spring of the year. And in June we got married.
And I never regretted. I got a good wife.
When we got married I bought her clothes and I bought myself a
suit and whatever, and when we paid up everything I still had five
hundred dollars to myself Yes. And this old car.
So I went to work and I got a job here at Omanique's Mill. I
didn't go back to Murray's. I got a job here closer to home. It took
me over an hour to walk, but I wasn't having any expenses, I was
able to walk. So I got a job piling lumber here. I was already doing
that up at Murray's, so I asked for the job here at Omanique 9 s and
they took me.
Where the High School is, right out to
the Laundromat.
It was the Barry's Bay Lumber Company, but they sawed Booth's
logs. They sawed the pine that was cut through the winter and
floated down here.
Where the High School is, that was all a lumber yard. Right out
to where the Laundromat is. That was the spruce yard.
They used to pile the spruce and the pine in sheds, beautiful
pine boards a couple feet wide, three inches thick, and not a knot.
They had them in the sheds. Piling it was heavy work but I was able
to do it. The lumber was piled on lorries by the rails. The shunter
came down and brought up five loads of lumber for the five gangs of
pilers. Everybody knew their load, they put their load wherever you
wanted it, and you had to take the load off and pile it.
That was okay. That was fine!
There were three men. And you went in a circle with the jobs. One
week you looked after the water pail, go and get water in the
morning, get out early, before seven o'clock, go over to the ice
house and get yourself a chunk of ice and water from the well. The
next week maybe you drove the horses, looked after the horses,
harnessed them in the morning, took them in in the evening, and took
the harness off before you went home. The next week you were
carrying the jack. There was a jack that you put out against the
pile and on the load and you looked after that.
You know, you went in a circle with the jobs. You were never
bored. And the next week you got another, different type of lumber.
The work was okay. And every two weeks you got thirty-two
dollars. That was okay, that was fine!
And then I got a job with John Drohan, driving a truck and
hauling lumber. He was buying and shipping. He had the lumber yard
right in town, in back of the bank. That was all a lumber yard years
ago. I worked for him, and I was happy because it was a job close to
home, and it paid every week. I thought that was good. I stuck right
to the job.
And we were fine at home, but, oh, it was so cold! Well, we had
got fifty-some dollars wedding gifts from the people. So we saved
that money and bought ourselves a stove.
We had that stove and we were very
happy.
Years ago they had a Master Climax stove that you could buy from
the catalogue. We bought one of them and we had that stove for a
long time. They were a good stove, with a big fire box and a good
oven. They baked well. We had that stove and we were very happy.
And then the war broke out.
Of course I had to leave.
I was in Ottawa for thirty days, and then I had to go to
Brockville. Then I enlisted, and then I got turned down. I never
liked the Army, and I got turned down, so I came back.
So then I was able to work and I bought the house I live in
today. I paid five hundred and some dollars for the property. I
thought, 'I have to have a home. I have to have a place to hang my
hat. I'm not going to go around and drink my money and bum around
the street. No no."
That isn't the thing. You've got to lead a life. That's what
makes politics click.
Think if everybody did that, what would happen to the country?
Anyway, that's the way the ball bounced then.
When we bought this place it was in bad shape. But we were happy.
We came in, and worked here, and put on gyproc, and cleaned it. And
when we got the house kind of fixed up we put on siding. It was old
clapboard, it was shabby and ratty looking, but mind you, I paid
five hundred and fifty dollars for it and I paid for it cash. I had
the money. See? See how the money come in handy? I didn't have to go
to the bank.
You have to be worth something.
Nowadays you can go to the bank and if you have good security,
and if you have a good story, you can get money. But in those days!
No! You couldn't get money. There was no money.
Well, wages were thirty-five and forty dollars a month. The banks
are not going to lend you money. You have to be worth something.
What are they going to take on you.?
So I paid cash for the place and we were both happy.
My wife wasn't extravagant, and she saved a little here and
there. And we were very happy together. 'We're still happy.
I did it myself.
So then I started to repair the house, fix it up a little bit,
put on the siding. I got a carpenter to give me a hand to start the
siding and then I did it myself. I had a job with Jack Drohan, and I
had a job at home. I worked in the dark, in the evenings, putting on
the siding and whatever I could do myself. I couldn't hire. If you
hire somebody you had to pay them. How are you going to pay them?
You haven't got that much money.
So you have to do it yourself You learned the hard way. And it's
a good lesson. I had that when we were at home, because I said, "Boy,
if I ever get a dollar, I'm going to go to work, and I'm going to
save my money."
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