My PARENTS' WORK - District of Saanich

1.
ABOUT CHORES ...
"We always had sawdust in our house. The truck
would deliver the sawdust, and we had to shovel
it into the garage. Then we'd bring it by the
bucketful into the house and put it in this great
big pot to burn for our heating and cooking."
BERN ICE 'BERNIE' (CARTER) POLIQUIN, 68
"I might have had 5 cents a week, but I got up
to 25 cents when I was a teen. I didn't really
do much in the way of chores. I was the last of
a big family of boys. By the time I came along,
mother had forgotten she was supposed to
teach me to cook and sew. I did have to pick;
we had a big garden, and I had to pick berries
and beans, things like that."
"I fed and killed and cleaned the
rabbits and chickens, gathered the eggs,
dug the garden, chopped the ,va ad and
carried wood upstairs. It kept a chap
kind of busy. I starred our with a nickel
a week allowance and then went up to
two bits a week."
HERBERT CROFT. 80
"I didn't receive an allowance; it was all
for free and it was hard blasted work. I
milked cows first thing in the morning
MAY CROFT, 77
before I went to school. I
had long, blonde hair,
and I was terrified the
cow was going to dirty
it with his tail that had
been lying in youknow-what.
We had to
look after these blasted cows, milk
them again at night and deliver the milk to local
people."
LILLIAN EASTON, 79
"I didn't rec ive an allowance, but we had a
wood and coal stove and one of the big things
was to cut kindling to get the fire going every
morning. Along with my brothers, I helped my
father build his house. It took him four years to
build it, bur I found out what work was then."
ERIC 'STOFE' STOFER, 85
"There wa a grocery store on the corner of
Boleskine and Douglas and a man came
around in the morning and took your order,
and then they delivered it in the afternoon. It
was by horse and wagon for quite a long rime,
and then they got a litrie truck."
WALLACE 'WALLY' WEST, 88
"We never received any allowance, bur every
chore that you had to do in a house, I did.
My father was always away. He was a tugboat
skipper so there was JUSt my grandmother, my
mother and myself, so 1 did every chore
imaginable in a semi-rural area."
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BARRIE 'BOOGIE' GOODWIN, 64
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