KAWARTHA LAKES-Aileen Murray was born in October 1930, just as communities across North America were adjusting to the realities of the Great Depression. Her father, Alvin Griffin, had grown up on a farm near Red Rock (across from what is today Rogers/Cable Cable) and her mother, Myrtle Jones, had been raised near Bury’s Green along with siblings: Doug, Woodrow, Velma, Max, Ted, Joyce and Beulah. Alvin worked in construction as a bulldozer or scraper operator, in an era when bulldozers were a revolutionary new technology—they saved a tremendous amount of labour in levelling land, as compared with working by hand or with horses.
Alvin’s brother, Art Griffin, owned and operated equipment in Coboconk, but Alvin did not own his own machinery, he took jobs as a bulldozer operator. He travelled all over Ontario for work. “My dad worked locally on the Fenelon Falls Continuation School (now Fenelon Falls Secondary School), and the Post Office (now the CIBC). They had their scrapers there, and all the cement work was done by hand. At that point, we moved to Fenelon Falls, because he was working there, living in my Great Grandmother’s house on Bond Street. With that experience he earned a job clearing the lot for Sunnybrook Hospital.”
“During the war he worked at Malton and London making runways longer to accommodate the Lancaster bombers. We lived in Angus, where Dad again worked on runways. During our time there, many of the kids in school had fathers who were serving overseas. Then the dreaded rap at the door would happen and one of the kids would get pulled out. We all knew as soon as one of the kids got pulled out what had happened—their father was either lost in combat or had been killed. It was devastating for everyone then. It was quite an education that we received, really. He worked at Camp Borden a number of times, and in winter he would go north to Gogama, where they were stringing the wire for the hydro.”
“Dad also had a job at the ammunition plant in Pickering. We stayed at a cottage until it got too cold. When they started building wartime housing, in Ajax and Welland, we all moved with him, as he worked with crews to build roads into the building lots.”
Following a construction labourer around Ontario did not make for the easiest family life. “We followed Dad for a number of years and lived in many different places, because my father worked at construction. We often lived in a trailer, or Dad travelled and was away for long periods of time. In 1943, when Aileen was 13, her mother Myrtle settled down with Aileen, Vera and John, just around the corner from where the Jones family had grown up. They purchased a farm from the Pogue family, with a beautiful red brick farmhouse—striking in the neighbourhood for its white accent bricks (now on Cedar Tree Road, west of Martin’s Road). Alvin continued to travel for work, and Myrtle was close to her family, and they could support each other. “My mother grew tired of moving her children all over.” However, we would laugh with Mom and Dad about it and called this period our gypsy days.” Once settled, our family grew with the addition of Paul, Wayne and Murray.
In the 1940s, families in North Verulam typically spent much of their lives near home in a close-knit community. Often family entertainment was appreciating the personalities that lived in the neighbourhood. “Henry Walker would fall asleep when he was bringing home a load of chop. But the horses would know where they were going, so he would end up home. We used to laugh at that.” It was not uncommon in that era for working men to nod off when they finally had occasion to sit down.
“A couple of times Mr. Fairfield’s horses ran away on him and they went into the river, running down the bank where the Fenelon Falls jail used to be (on the island, east of the main street). It was a terrible shock when, on one of these occasions, the horses drowned.”
“We knew our neighbours well and spent lots of time together. We had dances in our homes, and the local people would come around playing whatever musical instruments you could get together—fiddles or guitars, organ or piano. Everyone looked forward to going to a dance. In winter time, people would bring their horses and tie them up during the dance. Women often got together for quilting. That was a big social outing, to go to your neighbours to quilt.”
Though Myrtle enjoyed visiting her neighbours, much of her time was spent at home, doing the routine work that went into looking after her family. “Mother baked bread and tea biscuits.” In this era, before electric ranges, it took skill and patience to produce your daily bread. “Mom had a pantry where she kept all the ingredients. Then she would get the dough ready, and put it in the warming closet so it would rise (the warming closet was a built-in cabinet on the woodstove, which kept the dough warm, but not hot enough to cook it). To keep the stove at an even heat to bake the bread, she had to use specially prepared wood. This was an art that girls in the neighbourhood would master as they were growing up.”
“Each year, mother spent a lot of time making preserves. When selecting a home, one of the things that my father wanted in a farm was a maple woods, so that he could have maple syrup. In spring time, we all went to the maple woods and it was an exciting time when the sap started to run. We would tap trees, and go around and collect all the sap pails for the boil. Dad used the maple syrup on everything, like pancakes and desserts.”
“Every fall we worked together to fill the woodshed—it had to be full before winter. Mother did our laundry with a wash tub and a wash board. After scrubbing them on the wash board, she would hang them outside. When she brought them in during the winter, they would be as stiff as a board, and then she would have to hang them up again to dry, all over the house.”
“The number of outfits we had was limited compared with today. We often knitted our own sweaters. We did not have slacks, we would wear skirts, blouses, sweaters, and in cold weather stockings—they were warmer than nylons especially in the winter. I happened to be fortunate enough to have a pair of ski pants, they were sort of like wool pants. When I was wearing them, it wouldn’t be too cold, but the wind did blow through the wool. Some of the other girls did not have ski pants, they just wore their stockings so I couldn’t complain. I remember my dad going into to town for winter to buy heavy clothes for us. He would take in a load of wood and exchange it for our winter clothes.”
“We would shop at Vanatters for groceries (started in 1932) —we would get flour, oats or brown sugar in a brown bag. Brandon & Gamble was our hardware store. McFarland’s sold clothing and groceries, with an egg grading station in the basement. Willy and Alice McFarland lived in a big red house at the top of the street. Everybody went to town to shop on Saturday night and that was often when we did our shopping. That was the time to meet your neighbours and have a chat. A lot of men would play horseshoes in the parking lot behind Vanatter’s (now Kawartha North Family Health Team). They had lights strung up around the pitch. The exciting part for kids was to get an ice cream cone at Kriger’s Store or Lyon’s Garage. These were on the island, where to locks are now. Once the Consky family put up the theatre, a lot of people would go to the show on Saturday night. I did not go to the show unless there was something special on. I remember a rare trip to the movies to see Bambi.”
She remembers in the 40s when Webster Brothers was built on the corner of Colborne and Bond Streets (now Cornerstone Home Furnishings). Fred and Russell Webster’s store was large for Fenelon Falls. It sold confectionary and cigarettes wholesale to the many small corner stores that dotted our community. Fred maintained operations at the store, while Russell would go out and sell. Later Doug Clerk would join as co-owner. They provided employment for those not involved with farming or hospitality, as they needed staff in the facility and to deliver goods. It later became Gorman’s Wholesale.
“The pool hall was the meeting place for men. A woman would not be caught dead in a pool room. There was no drinking in the pool hall, but it was smoky there! Dad often went there on Saturday night. He would stand me up against a light post and tell me to stay there, while he went in. Before they left for town, Mother would starch his white shirt so he would look his best. But at the pool hall, they boxed for entertainment, almost every Saturday night. When mother saw him, she’d say ‘Oh, Red, you got another one of your white shirts bloodied (or torn)!’”
“To get local news you went to the barbershop and pool hall – Mac Henderson was the barber, and Mrs. Hardy managed the pool room. She was the only woman in the pool room, and she ran a tight ship. The Consky’s ran the Egg Grading Station (now the Silhouette Beauty and Medi Spa). To get world news, Dad would go to see Mrs. Consky who had a short-wave radio during the war. She shared what she had heard, and they listened to update on the war, then they would rehash the news and how that would affect people.”
Keeping food from going bad was a challenge and important work. Some families in town or near the waterway would use iceboxes to keep food cool, but for a farm family like the Griffins, their cellar was the best that they could do. “At first the cellar floor was just earth, later we had a cement floor installed. There was a cistern where you got water—the eavestroughs were set up so they ran into the cistern. When you got beef from the beef ring, you just kept it in the cellar. I remember my mom having big crocks in the cellar, which is where she kept our perishable food to preserve it. The potatoes and root vegetables were kept in one part of the cellar. Some of the meat was kept in town. People could rent refrigerated lockers. Some people had a dumbwaiter—a shelf that they could use to raise and lower stuff into the basement. In our house, we kids were the dumbwaiters.”
“Our meat came from the neighbourhood meat ring and it was beef. A meat ring was a group of farmers that worked together to have fresh meat. One neighbour would butcher the animals and distribute the meat. Each time, you would get a different cut of meat and that is what you ate. My dad only started to farm late in life, so in the 1940s we did not keep animals or work the farm like many of our neighbours. We rented the property to Art Webster, who ranched his cattle on it. Later on, in the 1950s, my dad would keep animals on the farm. The summer of 1942 my job was to pump water to ensure the cows had enough. I hated that job. So, I was ready for my first job off the farm, and in 1943, I followed my aunt’s example, going to work at Locust Lodge in Bobcaygeon.”
“My dad had a car, but he needed it to drive to work. So, when we were at home with mother, we did not have a car. Her mother, Minnie Jones, was a widow. She and her brothers lived on the next road. Looking after each other was a family affair—they would make sure that we had enough groceries.”
When Aileen moved to the farm, they did not yet have electricity. “I remember when the hydro came and made it possible to get wiring into houses, but after the war it was hard to get supplies for wiring. The first thing that we got when the hydro was installed was lights. Not so long ago we found the receipt for the wiring work performed by a man named Howard from Kinmount, it was just written on a piece of paper. Before that, we used coal oil lamps. It was the girls’ job to make sure that the chimneys were kept clean—otherwise they would be so black you couldn’t see through them. If you broke the chimney, then you couldn’t use the lamp. We kept the lamps on a shelf when we were not using them. We thought we were really downtown to have electric lights. Looking back, I don’t know how we did our homework with those coal oil lamps. Our first appliance was a refrigerator.”
When her family moved to the farm, Aileen attended Lamb’s School (S.S. # 7 Verulam) which was just around the corner, near the Jones Farm. “A lot of us skied to school in the winter—they did not have the equipment to clear the roads at that time. Our skis were a mishmash of all kinds of things, with binder twine for harnesses. Our teacher was Liz McGinnis, and she liked to ski too. At noon hour, we would go across the field to Archie Flett’s farm to go skiing or for a sleigh ride. In the spring and fall we played baseball. There were three of us who went to school together. After I left home mother and father had three more children and they travelled together. The Walkers would come from their place, the Johnsons lived across the road, and Humphries lived up the road from the Walkers. The Pennick’s lived across the road from us. After I left home, Press Pennick sold it to Jack Graham, who trucked cattle to market.”
When the time came for Aileen to go to high school, she attended Fenelon Falls Continuation School. The year she went they had the highest enrolment to date—110 students. Mr. Thompson was the principal. Bill Bain, who had served in the air force, taught English, Mrs. Creighton instructed in Sciences and Mathematics. “We also took Latin, French and Social Studies. There was no bus service, and families had to figure out how their children would get to school. My neighbour, Murray Walker, drove a team of horses – that was our school bus. We would meet Max and Beulah Jones at what we called the Elm Tree Corner, which is now Bulmer’s Road. Murray was a couple of years younger than Aileen. It was more than an hour to get to town—it would depend on how much snow there was. We would have blankets to keep ourselves warm in the sleigh, and we could take a hot brick with us in the cutter. If we were really cold, we could get off and run for a while to warm-up. On the way home, we often had to run errands, like picking up chop, for our neighbours. It sounds bad, however we always had fun.”
“Once the snow melted, there were two cars in the neighbourhood that we used to get to school. Gordon and his sister Muriel Flett, lived up the road from Lamb’s School. John’s Coulter’s boys, Victor and Ken also drove to school. John liked to hunt and would take his dogs with him. But they weren’t fussy about where they went to the bathroom, so you had to be careful when riding to school in that car. I was lucky, when the weather was bad, or we had big things on at the school, I stayed in town at Ruth Webster’s house.” Before the advent of school buses, it was unusual for a student who did not live close to the high school to graduate. Aileen made it to Grade 11, which was more education than many of her neighbours received.
When Aileen began her studies, the Second World War was raging. Her family had to make do with the rationing of goods like sugar, coffee, tea, butter and gasoline. Because of the neighbourhood meat ring, wartime meat rationing did not impact her family as much as others that did not have a supply so close at hand. “Many people bought stamps to support the war cause, but I didn’t have the money to buy them.”
“None of our close friends or relatives served overseas, but my father said that if the war had gone on one more year he would have been called up. Because he had three children, and because he was working to supply war needs, he was exempt. But he figured that if the war went on one more year, he would have been conscripted. Farm boys were left at home as long as they could be, because someone had to grow the crops.”
“We were all very happy when the war ended—it was a big thing. For the celebration, an airplane came to the fairgrounds and landed there. We all went to look at the airplane—it was a really big deal, a celebratory event. I was working at Locust Lodge when the war ended in Europe. Everyone was out cheering and celebrating in the streets of Bobcaygeon.”
During the war years, every student—male and female—would be a cadet, learning how to march on the streets of Fenelon Falls. “We wore navy blue tunics, white long-sleeved blouses and black stockings. Mr. Thompson made time for us to march as a form of Physical Education.”
“At high school we liked to play ball. Mr. Thompson got us a net to play volleyball. We worked hard to prepare for interschool competitions—we travelled to Beaverton. I remember there was pole vault, high jump and races. Many students looked forward to going to the one, big high school dance.”
When we graduated high school, my aunt, Beulah Jones (Campbell), went to Toronto to take a comptometer (a mechanical, key driven calculator) course, which prepared me to work in an office to assist with accounting functions. For most of my career I helped to manage inventories and payroll.
For young adults, the Cameo was a favourite place to attend dances, “that was one of the big things to do in town. It really was just about the only place we had for recreation once the ball park was closed for the season. Jack Marshall had an orchestra – he would play the organ and be joined by a saxophone and trumpet. They played big band music and each night. The signal that the night was over, was when they played Stardust. It was their signature closing piece. With it playing, we knew the dancing would soon be over. They had a little tuck shop, that sold pop, chips and maybe a candy bar. Merv Moore was the bouncer. After it closed, Mr. King bought the building and turned it into a marina.”
“One night, after I had been away for the summer, Joanne Phillips (from Cedar Villa) was going out with Don Northey from the restaurant in town (later J’n B’s). She said, ‘Why don’t you come to the dance, because you haven’t been here all summer.’ I was going to leave early to go home, because I didn’t want to hold Mom and Dad up. Then, David Murray, who was there with one of his friends said, ‘Why don’t you stay for the dance, I have a car and can drive you home.’ And that’s how I met David. And, that was the beginning of a whole other story.”
“Today it might sound foolhardy or dangerous to have taken the chance to let him drive me home, however, in our generation, many young men, literally picked up their partners to provide transportation.” In those conversations on the way home, many lifelong friendships were formed, and couples did stick together. Aileen and David were married for 69 years.
This story is a memory and nobody’s memory is perfect. Sometimes details get a little mixed up, things get forgotten or overlooked, and the perspective is inevitably subjective. Aileen hopes that she got everyone’s name right, and didn’t leave anyone out. If you notice something that not right, have something you would like to tell us, or a memory to share the museum would be happy to hear from you: [email protected]
This story is part of our partnership with Maryboro Lodge, The Fenelon Falls Museum and was written by Glenn Walker.
If you want to make a donation to the museum, you can e-transfer to: [email protected] or mail a cheque to :
Maryboro Lodge Museum
Box 179
50 Oak Street
Fenelon Falls, ON
K0M 1N0
