Florence Hanlon, affectionately known as 'Florrie', lived her whole life in O'Donnell's, St. Mary's Bay. She is quite happy to still be living in her own home with time to enjoy her children and grandchildren.

MY GROWING-UP DAYS

I remember my growing up days. We weren't poor. We had plenty to eat. We had no electricity. I remember at Christmas my mother would make her own decorations and decorate the tree. In my growing up days, we'd be looking forward to Christmas because we knew we would get some small gift, not very much.

The nicest thing I remember about Christmas was the visitors that would come to our house. There would be singing and dancing. It was really great. I remember Mom and Dad would be looking forward to Christmas because we would all go to Mass together on Christmas Eve. If there was snow down, we would go on the horse and sleigh. If there was no snow we would walk. When we got home from Mass, my Mom would leave cake and syrup on the table for good old St. Nick.

We'd have our dinner – nothing special. Mom would kill a hen or a rooster, put it outside to hang up to freeze. We'd have a cake. We'd also have nice gifts – perhaps a few raisins packed in a paper. My sister, I remember, she was the oldest – one time she got a rag doll. I got jealous of the doll and tore it up. I remember so well how I didn't want her to have something and me have nothing. My mother scolded me. She wasn't too pleased about that.

I remember the men would come to play cards during Christmas and during the winter. And the mummers would come to the door and mother would let them in and we'd dance with them, but we were scared too. We'd go to bed and plan on what we'd get the next day. We'd eat our few figs or raisins, perhaps an apple. I remember my mother making jello and laying it out by the door to freeze – we had no fridges. It used to be lovely. We'd rig up and go outside to slide and even go in the woods with my father and haul out the wood on a handcat.(1) We enjoyed skating. We had no skates. We used to tie milk cans on our feet.