The Farm Set in Eaton's Catalogue

For many children of the late 1940's the Eaton's catalogue was a vehicle to dreams, especially the Christmas catalogue which arrived at our house midway through the fall. While we four children fully recognized that for Christmas we would get primarily practical gifts -- books from our parents, flannelette pyjamas from Grandma McEwan, and heavy woollen socks, hand-knit by Aunt Allie -- the Eaton's catalogue offered pages of toys just waiting to be purchased. I didn't spend much time looking at the hockey game that was endorsed by Foster Hewitt, or the Gene Autry cap guns, or the wooden wagon with the label Western Flyer written in white letters on a red background. Instead I spent my time poring over the miniature farm set illustrated in bright colours on the top of one page half way through the toy section. As I remember it, there was a bright red barn overlooking a white farm fence Inside the fence were pigs, both black and cream, heavy round sows and lots of baby pigs. There were also white sheep with short legs and heavy coats, some looking straight ahead but others bending over eating imaginary grass. There were several black and white Holstein cows, and one brown Jersey cow. And, of course, there were several long-legged prancing horses with flying manes and tails. They looked more like the wild horses that roamed the prairies than the heavy farm horses I knew. There was a farmer wearing clothes that made me think he came from somewhere else, maybe England, and a milkmaid in long skirts carrying pails. I know that I didn't recognize it at the time, but I now realize that the Eaton's catalogue -- like Santa Claus who flew through the night in his sleigh pulled by reindeer excited the imagination and allowed us to explore a world that existed only in our minds.

The Christmas when Santa came too early

It was Christmas Eve in about 1947 or 1948 when Gordon and Lois with the four children who ranged in age from 1 to 10 were living in Dickson's Corners. We children were all young enough to share in the excitement of the imminent arrival of Santa Claus. We had finished supper. Gordon had walked over to sweep the school and Lois had already put the baby into his crib, bathed me and put me into my pyjamas. The girls were in the bathtub ( I suspect in the big tin tub which which was placed on the floor and filled with water from the cistern in the heavy cast-iron wood stove.) Suddenly there was the sound of bells and a heavy pounding on our front door. This was terrifying and exciting and very unusual, all at the same time. No one ever came to our front door. In fact it couldn't be opened. To get to it you had to go into the living room, past the potbellied coal stove and down a narrow, cold, and dark corridor past the bags of sugar, and the piles of school supplies that were stored in the passage. We children listened as Lois hurried to the door and called: "who there?" The response was indistinguishable but the sound of bells definitely became louder. Then we could her our mother calling: "Santa, the children aren't in bed yet. You had better go down to the Dicksons and then come back here." (The Dicksons were our closest neighbours. We could see their house down the hill, past the stream and near the highway.) Lois continued: "The children will be in bed by the time you get back." And she was so right! I remember racing across the living room to my bedroom, pulling the covers over my head, and willing myself to sleep because only with sleep could I get myself into the wonderful excitement of the next day.

Women's Institute Circulating Library 1935

The Women's Institute -- like the Orange Lodge before it -- is disappearing as a fixture of rural life in South Western Ontario. For many years, however, the WI played an important educational and social role in the lives of farm women. In 1935 the Downie Township W. I. to which Gordon's mother Beanie belonged, established a circulating library for the use of its members. Likely individual members contributed books from their own collection to be part of the library. Sunset Pass, a Zane Grey novel published by Musson Book Company in 1931 and owned by Mrs. Jack McEwan was one book in the circulating library. Glued to the inside cover of the book is a pinwheel circulation list. Anyone who knows the farmhomes on the Centre Gravel leading to Avonton can visualize the path taken by the book as it moved in a biweekly path through the neighbourhood. From Mrs. Jack McEwan it went to Mrs. J. Boyes, Mrs. W. Robertson, Florence Aitcheson and so on until it reached Mrs. Robt. Thompson, Charlotte Simpson, Mrs. E. Erb where it was then returned to Beanie McEwan. (You remember that if you double click on the image you can enlarge it.) It is somewhat ironic that only the single women retain their individual identity on the list; the married women are all listed as somebody's wife. I wonder how good these women were at keeping the book moving in the rotation and how many of the books ended their lives in someone else's house. Evidently, this particular book found its way back to its original owner. From the one page that appeared when I opened the book, it is obvious that Sunset Pass was not complex reading. Nonetheless, I am sure that it provided an important source of relaxation and imaginative escape for many women.

The Silver Dollar Gift

In the spring of 1952, almost exactly 10 years after he first sighted the fieldstone school at Dicksons Corners, Gordon decided to return his family to Perth County. Teaching in the era before unions, was not lucrative, and Gordon, who had brothers-in-law who were aspiring businessmen, decided to leave teaching and to enter business in partnership with Walter Clarke the owner of a thrivings hardware store in St. Marys. Lois, who had grown to love her life and independence as the schoolteacher's wife at SS#3 North Oxford was particularly sad to leave. However, she recognized -- and agreed with Gordon that -- at least financially -- they would be better off in St. Marys. At a presentation in the township hall, the departing family was given a series of gifts. A linen tablecloth decorated with large red bunches of roses was presented to Gordon and Lois. The girls were given a reading lamp for their bed and the two boys were each given a silver dollar. The lamp as shown still hangs on what we call the girls' bed, and the silver dollars were put away in an envelope and only recently resurfaced, somewhat tarnished but never used. Along with the silver dollar was a note from Gordon explaining its importance.

House Flies

The fly strip was a standard feature of kitchens in the 1940's and 50's. I remember a fly strip in our kitchen at both Dicksons Corners and St. Marys. The fly trap consisted of a strip of yellow paper about 3 inches wide and possibly 24 inches long that spiralled out of a thin cardboard canister. Heavily coated with a heavy, sticky substance the paper was attached typically by a string to the light fixture that hung from the ceiling and hovered over the kitchen table. Of course, the purpose of the fly strip was to entrap unawary house flies searching for a respite from their ceaseless buzzing through the kitchen . Once alighted on the surface of the paper, their feet became stuck and no matter how much they buzzed and pulled they were unable to free themselves. Inevitably they died stuck to the paper. In the hot summer these fly papers quickly became covered with the dead bodies of hundreds of flies and when there was no more room on the trap we threw out the paper and hung up a new one. I have no idea how much these fly traps cost or when we quit using them. While, in retrospect, the fly strip with its dozens of dead and dying house flies, was visually unappetising, it was simple device that served a very useful purpose. In previous decades the role which house flies played in the spread of disease was not well understood. Furthermore, the annoyance caused by the dozens of house flies that bred, buzzed, and landed on food, should not be forgotten. Here are two stories that illustrate this point. Lois tells of a technique they used on hot summer days to rid the Riley kitchen of the hundreds of house flies which, attracted by the cooking, had invaded the room. Everyone would gather in the far corner of the kitchen armed with a coat, a sweater, or a piece of cloth. One person would open the kitchen door and the rest, waving their coats vigorously in front of them would proceed in unison to the kitchen door hoping to sweep the flies outside. In the second story Curly Wilson is reminiscing about St. Marys in the 1890"s: "Manure, smells and flies go together and one cannot imagine the difference between downtown then and downtown to-day. Privies were also a problem but health officers were not as aware of the connection of wastes to diphtheria and typhoid as they should have been. A gradual tightening of regulations forced butcher shops to put on screen doors much to the disgust of the owners who felt such regulations were unnecessary and bureaucratic"

The number of flies in our homes has decreased dramatically in the past several decades. Whether this is the result of better storage and protection of food, improved methods of screening in homes, or new insecticides, I am not sure. Whatever the cause, one result has been the disappearance of the fly strip as a feature in family kitchens.