Margaret Valentine Remembers Her Family’s Service Station

Recorded at the Kirkfield Museum, February 12, 2022
Interviewer: Ian McKechnie
Videography: Ekaterine Alexakis

Duration: 3:42

Margaret Valentine sitting in front of white wall. Text on screen reads: Margaret “Marg” Valentine (née Moore) Daughter of Olive & Laurie Moore; Owners of Coboconk’s BA Service Station, 1921-1970.

Margaret Valentine: Hi, my name is Margaret Valentine, and my maiden name is Moore, and my parents in 1921 came to Coboconk answering an ad for a garage mechanic at a BA service station. And my dad bought the service station later

[Black-and-white photograph of Laurie Moore with jack outside of garage, circa 1930s]. Text on screen reads: Laurie Moore, father of Marg Valentine, early 1930s.

MV: and worked as a mechanic until he passed away in 1939 – the same year as World War Two broke out. I was six. So my mother had two choices: to run the service station or accept mothers’ allowance. And fortunately a good friend, who was also married to a relative of ours, offered to help her. He was already retired, and she accepted his offer

[Black-and-white photograph of Margaret and Bill Simpson beside clear-vision gas pump. Margaret is smiling and in uniform. Bill Simpson is smoking a pipe.] Text on screen reads: Marg Moore & Bill Simpson.

MV: and together they ran the service station through World War Two. It was pretty tedious to run a service station in those days; the government was very, very controlling with respect to the gas sales.

[Black-and-white photograph of Bernice, Olive, and Margaret Moore in front of gas pumps]. Text on screen reads: Bernice, Olive and Marg Moore.

MV: I wasn’t allowed to sell gas because my mother was afraid somebody would cheat me. And in our service station we had AA coupon books, but the coupon books were for, [uh], pleasure, and there were other ones who were like doctors or travellers, salespeople, who were given different ones. They were, the coupons were attached and there was a

[Black-and-white photograph of Olive Moore checking oil beneath an open car hood. Large sign in background reads “B-A Service Products.”] Text on screen reads: Olive Moore checking oil.

MV: AA sign on the windshield, and the coupons had to match the licence plate on the car. And I know that some of the service stations lost their licence simply because they could not, uh, keep up or they were being a little off-centre with their deliveries to people, and so we did manage to exist through this…And I think we sold, there were line-ups up until six o’clock every night – and I can remember the line-ups with cars waiting to get gas.

[Black-and-white photograph of Olive Moore beside clear-vision gas pump getting paid by a customer. Behind the gas pump is a 1940s-vintage car, and across the street is a two-storey building.] Text on screen reads: Olive Moore, 1940s.

MV: In order to prevent fraud, uh, we had a clear vision pumps, which were ten gallons each, and I think we had four, and one of them was dedicated to tractor gas.

[Black-and-white photograph of Moore’s Garage in the summertime. Clear-vision gas pumps stand in front of the wood-frame building, which is decorated with signage advertising Coca-Cola and Orange Crush pop; Sweet Caporal cigarettes; Star Weekly and Toronto Telegram newspapers; and ice cream. A 1940s-vintage tow truck is parked off to the left side.] Text on screen reads: Summertime at Moore’s Garage.

MV: All of the sudden, we needed a better service station, so Mother foresaw that; she borrowed ten thousand dollars from BA, which she paid back a cent a gallon, and she didn’t take long paying it back, either, because of the traffic that began to come through on 35 highway.

[Black-and-white photograph of Margaret filling a panel van with gas. A display of BA outboard motor oil cans is in the foreground.] Text on screen reads: Marg Moore pumping gas.

MV: Our BA customers were, [um], wonderful people. I got to know many of them, some of whom I still keep in contact with. And my sister, who was eight years older than I, came home from Toronto and helped with the service station each weekend. Her husband went golfing, and we decided that we would perk up the whole business by wearing shorts with a BA crest in the corner,

[Margaret holds up vintage BA circular crest]

MV: and these are the crests. Now, prior to that, BA signs looked like this;

[Margaret holds up vintage BA rectangular crest]

MV: they changed to the circular,

[Margaret holds up vintage BA circular crest]

[Black-and-white photograph of Margaret pumping gas into 1950s-vintage cars. Gas pump in foreground.] Text on screen reads: Marg Moore pumping gas.

MV: and then later BA was sold to Gulf. So, we have a recollection of a lot of people who really liked to buy our gas. I don’t know whether it was the crests or the smiles!