TRANSCRIPTRB - Ruth Bell, interviewee; AS - Ada Summers, interviewee / LR - Lyn Royce, interviewer
LR: That's not a problem. What do you remember about, um, living here on North Street [in St Catharines], when you were little?
RB: Oh, when I was little?
LR: Mhmm.
RB: Well, like here where the lot is cross here, there used to be, well, this is goin' way back...
LR: mhmm...
RB: Well this is when... Actually, I'll, we lived, I was born on North Street down on this end, but my Dad had a house across the road, I think it was number 58, and where the church lot, the lot is back there [across the road from Salem Chapel].
LR: Right.
RB: Well, there used to be horses 'n that in there.
LR: Ah, okay.
RB: And we could see them out the window at nighttime and that...
LR: Ah...
RB: ...you know, that was the bread van and the milk van with the horses tied....
LR: Okay.
RB: ...back then. And the ice man.
LR: And the ice man?
RB: Mhmm.
LR: How, how was it different when you were a kid, what things were different in, in your house, what do you think, what things have changed?
RB: Well 1 thing, we got electricity. We had oil lamps back then.
LR: Okay.
RB: And, uh, we had a wood and coal stove; we had to cook by a wood stove. In winter, the coal stove heated the house.
LR: Okay...
RB: Do you remember that?
LR: Now what, what about takin' a bath?
RB: Well, my, we had a... I don't know what you call it...
AS: Big galvanized tubs...
RB: Yeah.
AS: Big galvanized tubs...
RB: But then my Dad, he used to, he heated water on the stove, you know...
LR: Okay...
RB: In 1 of those, what do they call the round ones? I mean not round, it was oval shape.
AS: Yeah, those great big galvanized tubs, they had the great big...
RB: No, well, this was a oval shaped 1 and...
AS: They had different shapes...
RB: ...for the water, put water in the...
LR: Okay...
RB: ...in the tub on the floor.
LR: Okay.
AS: You sit in there 'n bathe...
RB: Yeah.
LR: Okay. Now...
RB: Maybe a couple would bathe in the same water.
LR: In the same water; okay...
AS: Water was precious then.
LR: Yeah. Where did you get your water?
RB: Oh they...
LR: Did you have it in the house or did you...
RB: I think so...
LR: ...have a pump?
AS: From the tap.
RB: I think it was in the house.
LR: In the house?
RB: Mhmm.
LR: Okay....
RB: See, tryin' to think back, it's kinda hard...
LR: It's okay...
AS: I didn't grow up that far after you, 'cause I went through, I'm saying all the same stuff: the coal stoves and everything else. Yeah... The wood stove...
LR: It was still there...
RB: The wood stove, that's what they cooked on...
LR: Yeah...
RB: ...and heated the house with...
LR: Yeah...
RB: But in the, well , they cooked in the summer but in the, they didn't have to keep it on then. |
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