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1908 Marriage |
From a transcript of a recorded conversation from August 2005, between brother and sister, Anne Hardy, and Danford MacKay (Summary by G. Patrick MacKay.)
GRAEME M – Let’s talk about nanny. Nanny was born in Newfoundland, I take it.
DANFORD M – She was born in Newfoundland, do you know the year?
GRAEME M – Cavendish, Newfoundland.
ANNE H – Yes. We visited there. Between 10 and 15 years ago.
GRAEME M – So nanny was born in Cavendish ,Newfoundland in 1889.
ANNE H – And her father had a small lobster canning …
GRAEME M – Oh really?
ANNE H – When he died at a young age.
DANFORD M – Cut down in his prime by TB which was an epidemic down there.
ANNE H – That would have been a horrible life out on the ocean.
DANFORD M – Wiping out whole families. My mother used to say he was such a grand looking man, he had a golden beard, he had golden hair. She idolized him. She had an idealized picture of him. She regarded him as a god and of course she worshipped him, she was only 13 or so.
ANNE H – Yeah, she was only 13 when she came out here.
DANFORD M – One of 5 children.
ANNE H – One of 5 children, and when he died he was only in his thirties. Anyway she came up here with an aunt and uncle and their three children, and she lived with them on a farm, and then, I don’t know how she’d managed this, probably through a minister, and she wanted to go, I don’t know if it was school or what, anyway she went to live with them – Maitland, their name was.
DANFORD M -- Who? Was that their aunt and uncle?
ANNE H – She lived with her aunt and uncle in Dorion.
DANFORD M – What was their name?
ANNE H – Jerrett.
DANFORD M – Oh, they were the Jerretts?
ANNE H , -- Yeah that was her aunt and uncle.
DANFORD M – Well she was a Jerrett.
ANNE H – After her dad died she came up with them
DANFORD M – Because the mother couldn’t afford to be a widow in Newfoundland and to feed five children.
ANNE H – She had no way of earning a living.
DANFORD M – And she was the oldest. So she sort of threw the oldest overboard.
ANNE H – And the others scattered. The brothers and three sisters went to the area around Boston. I guess they lived in Boston and branched out. When they died they stayed there.
GRAEME M – Really. Did she lose contact with them?
DANFORD M – She didn’t see them for 35 years.
ANNE H – I thought it was 40 years. And you went with her, and you were about 5 years old.
DANFORD M – No, not that old. I was old enough to…
ANNE H – She took Jon for some reason.
DANFORD M – Well, we went down twice. I stayed with her for the better part of my childhood. Just the two of us.
GRAEME M – Do you remember who you were visiting?
ANNE H – Her sisters. Her 3 sisters and her brother.
DANFORD M – The whole bunch of them.
GRAEME M – Do you remember the names?
ANNE H – Yeah. Jake.
DANFORD M – That was her brother. And Cicely.
GRAEME M – Sicily, like the island?
DANFORD M – No, Cicely, with a ‘C’. And Edie…
ANNE H – Edith.
DANFORD M – Edith, or Edie. And who was the other on? Aunt Sis.
ANNE H – Aunt Dora. I was supposed to look after Aunt Dora.
DANFORD M – And when we went down, the summer we went down we stayed with the Bryants, and she, I think she was the youngest…
ANNE H – Yes, she was.
DANFORD M – …And she had a son the same age as me. So we bonded for the whole summer. We cried when I left at the end of the summer.
GRAEME M – His name would be…
DANFORD M – Don.
GRAEME M – Donald Bryant.
DANFORD M – Donny, we called him.
ANNE H – And you never contacted him? Of course, you were so young.
DANFORD M – I lost track of him. But that’s too bad because we were like two brothers. And he had a heavy Bostonian accent. He’d call me “Dee-an”.
DANFORD M – So we’ve got them ashore in Canada, how did he meet her, he met her in the hotel. She had a boyfriend didn’t she?
ANNE H – Yes there was another boy she used to go for walks with…
DANFORD M – And didn’t he come down to visit her in Dorion where she lived on a railroad handcar because he worked with the railway, the one you had to pump?
ANNE H – Well that’s a sort of cute idea.
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Donald S. Mckay |
DANFORD M – So he used to come down and see her on a hand cart. And I don’t know if he was in the picture when dad came along, or not. We don’t know and I guess that’s one of those never to be answered. Frankly I never heard much about him. Did you?
ANNE H – No well he lived in the hotel.
DANFORD M – I never heard much about the boy, the first boy.
ANNE H – Oh no. Well no they’re 17. But she did say she go for walks with this boy. She didn’t even have a name. Well, I guess she did but I never took it in.
DANFORD M – Different now a days.
ANNE H – [My dad] handed his cheque over to my mother. He needed to. She was a good manager.
DANFORD M – They married when she was 17.
ANNE H – The day before she was 18.
DANFORD M – That’s right.
GRAEME M – Where did they meet? Do you know that story?
ANNE H – I don’t know that story but I would imagine she was like a nanny to the hotel owner and I imagine my dad was boarding in the hotel.
DANFORD M – He was a Great Lakes sailor, so he’d be there and then off again.
ANNE H – He be an engineer then? A Marine Engineer. He had all his certificates.
DANFORD M – He was 28 when he met her I guess.
ANNE H – No. She be married, I don’t know how old she’d be. I don’t know, when she was only 17.
DANFORD M – What was she doing hanging around a sailor?
GRAEME M – We talked about this the other night.
ANNE H – Well he was there in the hotel, I guess, and she lived in the hotel, and when she’d see that the kids were in bed and everything, well…
DANFORD M – And she was about 5 foot one, and he was about 6 foot one… and as I understood it she told him before she’d say that he’d marry him that he would have to become a stationary engineer which he had his papers for, which meant he’d have to stay at home and he would have to turn his cheque over to him, and she would give him an allowance. And certainly when I came 25 years later he was still getting an allowance. But when he was giving me a quarter it was coming out of his allowance. What a manager she was.
ANNE H – Oh she was a good manager.
DANFORD M – In the depression I heard he made 25 cents an hour? And he supported 6 children on that?
ANNE H – Well of course the dollar was, it’s relative, I guess.
DANFORD M – What’s that little anecdote I just heard today, my mother who was not expecting to be pregnant, she ah, what did she say?
ANNE H – She felt she had, she felt upset, she thought she said as though I had a hair in my throat, and a friend of hers said, I think you need a rest, come over here for a couple days and stay with me…
GRAEME M – A hair in your throat? Was that like an old saying?
ANNE H – The doctor told her that she was pregnant.
DANFORD M – How could she just go over to…
ANNE H -- …she was quite upset … Dols…
DANFORD M -- …Dolson’s place?
ANNE H … She was a Newfoundlander and they were quite close. I think that they were related. She and Dulce’s husband
DANFORD M – …Crawford
ANNE H – No
DANFORD M -- …oh, the other fellow… killed. In any case…
ANNE H – Dulce Bryant, his name was.
DANFORD M – anyway she didn’t have a hair in her throat, she had a bee in her…
GRAEME M – Belly.
ANNE H – And so her friend, or relative took her to the doctor, and she told her she was pregnant. And she was horrified. After all those years… what will the kids think of her?
DANFORD M – What a scandal.
GRAEME M – What are they going to think? Scandal!
ANNE H – Of course we were all elated when she told us.
DANFORD M – At least the girls were.
ANNE H – Yes, we had a lovely teenage time and I can remember we were always having little parties at each other’ house and she’d always say “now let your conscience be your guide.” Doesn’t that sound unlike somebody living 115 or 20 years ago?
DANFORD M – Things haven’t changed much.
ANNE H – Oh, mom had a million sayings. Newfies have great ones.
DANFORD M – Well I think I said to you for ages, like, she was known to be a heavy hand for using salt. And it was because she was brought up, because everything in those days was salted in order to keep without refrigeration, and often when I was growing up she’d be cooking and she’d say “oh, that tastes too fresh.” I never did ask her, but I guess I never could figure out what the hell she meant, ‘cause then she’d put salt in it. Then it just occurred to me it tasted too fresh, it didn’t taste like it had been salted down.
ANNE H – That’s right, I never thought of that either.
DANFORD M – And it came to me finally, after hearing this after all these years.
GRAEME M – That’s probably an old Newfie saying, going way back.
DANFORD M – Too Fresh. Well it’s an addiction. My father was heavy on the salt, he was even heavier on the sugar. Remember when he used to drink tea and he’d put 2 heaping spoonfuls full of sugar in it?
ANNE H – Yeah. Yes, he liked his sweet.
DANFORD M – He ate everything that was bad for you. He ate blood sausage.
GRAEME M – That’s very Scottish.
ANNE H – And my mother always made dessert. She preserved fruits herself.
DANFORD M – She was a good cook.
GRAEME M – What would be some of the meals she’d cook?
ANNE H – Just what we’d have now. Roasts. My dad loved steaks.
DANFORD M – Strangely enough chicken was a luxury. I guess they didn’t grow them like the do now, because some President in the U.S. way back when used to say a car in every driveway and a chicken in every pot. I know we didn’t have it except on special occasions, and of course, turkey at Christmas. I still see my father sitting in that chair over there and blubbing because he’d always decide he had to pray because he had most of his kids around the table including me…
Obituary of Miriam Jerrett: Largely attended funeral services by relatives and friends for the late Miriam McKay, aged 94, of Dawson Court, who died in hospital October 28, 1983, were held Monday at 10 a.m. in the Sargent and Son Funeral Chapel. Rev. Blake Carter of Lakeview Presbyterian Church officiated. Bearers were David MacKay, grandson, Dundas, Ontario, Michael Boland, Peter Boland, Tom Boland and Rob Carr, great grandsons, all of Thunder Bay. Honorary bearers were Kelly Piper and Carol Carr, great granddaughters, Michele Boland and Lisa Boland, great great grandaughters and Stuart Boland and Alan Boland, great great grandsons, all of Thunder Bay. Dr. Dan MacKay, son, of Dundas, and Jon Thrower, grandson, of Brampton, attended services. (Source: Thunder Bay Chronicle – Nov 4, 1983, pg 21) (Transcribed by G. Patrick MacKay.)
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J > Jerrett | M > McKay > Miriam (Jerrett) McKay
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