Mary Power and Mrs. Ann Talk about the Dances

There was no band, just a single accordion and people danced to sets, such as the lancers or the Virginia Reel and the occasional 2 step waltz. Mrs. Ann Whiffen and her daughter, Mary, told us about the dances:

Mrs. Ann: It was good old times.

Mary: Take it when you went to the dances years ago, nothing only the accordion. I don’t remember but I remember people talking about it, how Uncle Charl destroyed three accordions in one night. On the last of it they had neither accordion in Rushoon, they had to go to Baine Harbour to get a loan of an accordion over there.

Interviewer: For the next time.

Mary: No for that night to finish the dance.

Mrs. Ann: We used to get out on the dance floor, and I wouldn’t married or nothing then, and we’d leave the dance floor and go to church for Mass. Then the men, poor old Jim Lake, he was the bad fellow, and Uncle Jose try to swing you off your legs in the square dances. My God, but they couldn’t get me off my legs. Couldn’t do it.

Mary: Uncle Charl see when he’d open up the old accordion, he used to stretch her so far, and he’d tear her apart.

Mrs. Ann: That was the good times.

Mary: He’d sit down by the remember the stoves, the old pot belly, and that red, especially in the winter time . Cause the stove, I remember down in the old school, one of the stoves was right down by the door, so the door was open pretty much all night, the fire was going mad and Uncle Charl was sitting down by the stove playing the accordion.

Mrs. Ann: My God, girl, that was the good days.

Interviewer: You didn’t go home early either, did you?

Mary: Five o’clock, six o’clock in the morning.

Mrs. Ann: We’d leave the hall and go to the church. The old hall and the church were next to each other, and we’d leave the hall and go out into the Mass, the priest would be there having the Mass.

Mary: The priest would be over from Oderin, cause mostly then the priests came if they knew that there was something going on. Especially garden parties and weddings and even Paddy’s Day sometimes, the priest would be there and they took part in just about everything and then they’d have Mass before they’d leave to go back to Oderin. And people would leave the hall and some of them probably fell asleep while they were in church while the Mass was going on.

Mrs. Ann: That was a good old chat.

Interviewer: Pretty interesting times.