Peat as a Fuel Source in the 1930s

Peat was the fuel burned in the kitchen of Jack and Beanie McEwan. Each Fall Jack would drive out to the Ellice Swamp where he would purchase a load of peat. Peat came as round cylinder-shaped tubes of densely compacted, dry vegetation. Jack would store the peat in the cellar where it could be brought up in a kettle to be burned in the kitchen stove throughout the winter. Of course they had no furnace. The pipe from the peat stove which went up through the ceiling to the second floor provided the only source of heat for the remainder of the house: small wonder that everyone gathered in the kitchen on cold winter evenings. Lois remembers that the peat burned very hot and that resulted in problems for the grates in the stove. Lois' second recollection was that peat was a dusty and dirty fuel. According to a recent article in the Stratford Beacon Herald, ( 7 Jan 09) William Leasa was producing peat in the Ellice swamp outside of Gads Hill on a commercial basis as early as 1835. "Mr Leasa invented a machine which greatly facilitated the production of peat as a commercial fuel. The harvested peat was put into a mixer which ground it into a powder. Once properly mixed it was forced by pressure through three tubes and as it came out it was chopped into six-inch lengths by the workmen." (p. 5). When Lois married Gordon in 1937 the McEwan farm home was split into two parts and Lois got a proper cook stove in which they did not burn peat. In any case, the use of peat as a source of heat was weakening. By the late 1940s, according to the article in the Beacon Herald, " the demand for peat as a fuel had waned and the land was sold to the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority which has since reforested it." On the left is a picture from the Stratford Archives of peat harvesters in Ellice Township in the 1890's.

Mae Hearn's apron

For Christmas this year I was given a red-striped apron with a bib and long apron strings that can be pulled around and tied in front. When I put on my new apron for the first time I was reminded of a story which Lois sometimes tells about her mother's apron. Mae Hearn, had a reputation for being a hard-working and meticulous housekeeper who always wore a white apron. Here is a picture taken about 1932 showing Mae in her apron. Whenever visitors dropped in unexpectedly, Mae would greet them at the door in an apron that looked as clean and fresh as if she had just put it on. The apron was so suspiciously white that someone once suggested that Mae must keep an unused, clean apron hanging by the kitchen door to be used whenever visitors appeared unexpectedly. Lois, however, says that there never was a fresh, "visitor-ready" apron hanging by the side door. The explanation is even more simple. Unlike some of her descendants, Mae was not a messy spiller-type cook. While my apron will very quickly show signs of my cooking and greasy hand-wipes, Mae was able to keep hers spotlessly white.
Post script June 2017: I have recently recalled an addendum to this story.  Lois explained that it was Mae's sister-in-law Minnie Hern (herself a meticulous housekeeper) who first expressed the believe that Mae must have had a fresh apron hanging by the door in case visitors appeared. On one occasion, however, when Minnie stopped in her sister-in-law Mae was not to be found. Minnie found Mae in the basement where Mae stored all her canned fruit. And the apron was as white and clean as if she had just put it on!

Lois' first set of dishes

Lois' first set of dishes was collected piece by piece from a gasoline promotional offered by Earl Tyler's Garage in St. Marys. Every time Bobby Hearn filled up his car at Tyler's garage, he was given one piece of china. In turn, that piece was given to Lois, and over many months, her collection grew to the point where there were enough dishes to serve as her first dinner set. The art deco pattern on the china evokes the sounds of the far east which may explain why this pattern is called Orient. These English dishes were produced in the Staffordshire factories of Alfred Meakins whose family began making china in the mid 1800's. Vast numbers of these dishes were exported to North America. While this pattern has been discontinued, it is still possible to see them in antique shops. Currently dinner plates of the Orient pattern are being offered for about 15$ on ebay. In England the same dish can be had for something closer to 5$. Lois' set was used for many years and gradually -- through breakage -- disappeared. All that remains is the dish pictured here and a small sugar bowl.

Our Hearn Cousins

My uncle Kelly who was Lois' younger brother married Eileen Dunsmore in the Fall of 1937 and he left the homeplace "without so much as a banty rooster" as he sometimes rather ruefully remarked. In December of the same year Lois Hearn married Gordon McEwan. Children followed quickly: Shirley Hearn and Betty Lou McEwan in 1938, Barry Hearn in 1939, Lois Ann McEwan and Donna Hearn in 1940. Bob McEwan in December of 1942 and Sheila Hearn in January of 1943. Linda Hearn and Terry McEwan, the babies in each family, followed later. In 1944 when the picture below was taken Lois' brother Kelly had joined the army. His wife Eileen was left alone with four young children. On occasion, she would come to Dicksons Corners to visit for several days. That meant 7 children and 3 adults in a tiny cottage, without running water or indoor plumbing. (Proof of that fact can be seen in the infamous two-holer outhouse in the background of the picture.) Of course, cooking was on a wood-fired kitchen range. Lois remembers that eating was in relays and that children slept crossways on the beds. Bathing those seven children was a challenge. My cousin Shirley recently remarked that she tried hard to be among the first group in the tub so that she could be there when the water was the cleanest! For over 60 years now these two families have been deeply interrelated. After Gordon and Lois left Dicksons to return to St. Marys, they bought Kelly's house, while Kelly and Eileen moved to a bigger house closer to the dairy but only a block away. Even then, the relationship was deeply intermeshed. Kelly stabled his milkwagon horse in the barn on the property which the McEwan's now owned. Because the barn had no water, Bob McEwan remembers that it was his chore to carry water out to the barn for his Uncle Kelly's horse. A boy who weighed less than 65 pounds, and large and sloppy bucket were not friends, as you may imagine! Later, Kelly and Eileen bought the huge Dan Wilson house next to the McEwans. That meant that the two families now shared a property line. So the relationshiop continued, but it is fair to say that the Hearns and the McEwans have different personalities and styles. This means that the relationship between the cousins has been somewhat elastic over the years. At times, during our adulthood we cousins pulled apart, but then, more recently as age and events have crept up on us, we have drawn back together, perhaps an unconscious salute to the commonality which we share.

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.