Kathleen Nolan was born in St. John's, then moved to Bell Island and finally to Mt. Carmel, St. Mary's Bay. She has raised eight children and now lives with her daughter. She is very pleased to contribute a story so the young can learn from the past.

IN MY TIME...

When I was young and growing up, we used to play games such as hopscotch, marbles, and a game named Jack Stones. We had lots of fun. We didn't have washing machines or electric lights. We had to do all the clothes with a flat iron. We used to take a bath in the wooden wash tub. When I got married, I was 19 years old. It was the year of 1939. The war was just started and we got married on Bell Island in the Church out on the front of the Island. The priest was Reverend Father Bartlett. I met Frank, my husband, on Bell Island. He used to work in the mines. I worked with the O'Toole family as housekeeper. I moved to Mt. Carmel after we were married.

There was only two cars in Salmonier then. When I came to Salmonier the people were very nice to me and very friendly. Everybody planted all their own vegetables. Everyone had sheep, cows, hens and a horse. The horse had to haul logs to sell for lumber and haul wood because everyone used to burn wood. The men used to cut logs and sell them for a living. When the war was on, a lot of people used to sweeten their tea with molasses because everyone was rationed. There was one radio in Salmonier, which Mr. Tom Hawco owned. My husband, Frank Nolan, worked in Gough's mill for 10¢ an hour, which worked out to be $1.00 a day.

Everyone owned a dory and would go fishing. I used to work at housework and a lot of girls like myself used to work at housework. We used to get paid the last of every month. The pay was $5.00 per month. I used to walk over to Harricott. There was a large store over there that sold dry goods and groceries. It was a co-op owned in the 1930s by a man named H. Thistle, who also operated a sawmill. The store was at the foot of the hill in Harricott. It had groceries, paints, etc. There was a woman there who would do sewing and clothing repairs. There was a small store at the top of the hill. I used to walk to Harricott from Mt. Carmel for a tin of orange juice for my sick baby. That's all I could afford at the time. I got a 'sick order' for the baby – $5.00 because the baby wasn't allowed to drink milk.