Patricia Singleton is a lifetime resident of St. Joseph's, St. Mary's Bay. She has raised nine children and today enjoys sewing, card games and bingo. We can all relate to her berry-picking story.

MY FIRST TIME BERRY PICKING

There were seven children in my family. Times were often very hard and everyone had to do their share of work. They don't do anything now compared to back then. You had to do it. That was it. You made the hay, worked in the garden, cooked and cleaned. I attended school in St. Joseph's, but I had to leave at grade seven to keep house and attend to chores at home.

The last teacher I remember was Mercedes Bruce from the Placentia area. There were not many fun activities. You made your own fun and games. We played hide and seek, slough, tidley and horseshoes. Myself and my friends next door, Ellen and Barbara used to play shop in the cellar. We'd have everything set up just like the real shop. In the summertime we'd love to go up in the meadows to mind the cows. That is keep an eye on them so they didn't wander into the gardens. Mrs. Jeanette Daley would bring us up a treat of bread, jam and cream. We loved that.

One of my fondest memories was my first time picking berries. When I was eight years old, my father took myself and my youngest brother, who was six, to pick bakeapples. We went in a dory down on the Beach Shore to a place he called Salmon Brook. We went on the marshes and picked berries for three hours then came back to our dory. We made a fire and boiled some jam from the soft berries to put on our toutons.(1) After our lunch we went back and picked bakeapples until evening. Then my father put the sail on the dory and sailed home. I spent the next day cleaning the berries. From that time I picked berries every year until 1997 when I had health problems, which left me unable to go berry picking or trout fishing, which I enjoyed very much. I made up my mind to be thankful for what I can do.