Most of us have heard many stories. We hear them first when we are children. They give us pleasure. We listen for stories all our lives, and people are always telling them. Most of the time, we think of stories as fun. But stories can do many things. They can tell truths about people's lives. They can show us the times and places where others have lived. Stories can help us enter history. They can be doors that lead to the past. Here is a story I heard as a young girl.

Counting the Berries

This story was told by a woman in Branch.

In the 1930s, many people in Newfoundland had to depend on government assistance. People called it the dole. It could be as little as 6 cents a day for each adult in a household, or $1.80 a month. It could be less for a child.

There were also dole inspectors. These men would go to houses and check how much food people had stored up. Then they would decide how much dole people could get. This was not cash, but a note for the amount of food you could get at the local store.

The dole inspectors looked very closely at what people had in their houses. If you had flour left over, you could not get the full amount the next month. If you grew vegetables or had an animal to kill, you might also get less dole the next month.

Many people tried to hide food they had saved so the dole inspectors would not find it. They hid food in barns, under beds, in dirty laundry and even in wells.

This woman said that one dole inspector was very determined to find every bit of food people had. Once, she hid her blueberries in an old trunk, but he opened it and found them. She said he counted the berries. Then he told her she would get an allowance for flour that month, but none for raisins. He said she had plenty of berries for making duff.

When I first heard this story, I thought it was a tall tale. Could such things happen? I wanted to find out more.

When you know the time and place of a story, you can track it down. Books, photos, newspapers and other records can break the barrier between the past and the present. The story about the berries came to life in the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Archives has many kinds of information. It has government records for the time in which the story took place.