Deborah feels that people in Grole were intimidated⁸ by the men in suits. They were a strange sight in a small fishing village where everyone wore work clothes. They stood for authority from outside. They stood for the government, which had power over people. Perhaps people felt they had to listen to them, and not say anything against their plans. Deborah says:

...I remember the big men coming in with their suits on. And Dad talking to them. And they pulled out these papers—I guess they were blueprints. And showing my father the land, how much land we were going to get and where we were going to be living, and that kind of thing. And my father saying, "Oh yes, oh yes..."

When the government men left, people talked more freely. Away from them, her father was not as sure the move was a good thing. Her mother was pretty sure it was not. Deborah's older sisters were excited. The younger children picked up the excitement. And people who didn't want to go were saying, "Bloody old government, what do they know?"

Most people would not have said this to the men sent by the government. They might not have had the nerve to question them. They might have felt that they did not have much of a say in the big changes that were being made in their lives. And Deborah says that people wanted to think of moving as a good thing.

I think that maybe there was this notion, too, that it would be good, that there'd be some hope in our lives, that there was hope for a better life, a better future.

Like many people living in Newfoundland and Labrador at the time, the people of Grole had always struggled to make a living. Maybe life would be easier if they moved. Maybe the future would bring better things for them, and for their children.

As the time grew near for Deborah's family to leave, they had to decide what to take and what to leave behind. One thing they could not take was the house they lived in. It could not be safely carried by barge to Harbour Breton. They had to buy an aunt's house, which was smaller. All the household things they would take had to be scrubbed clean and shiny. Even the children had to be clean and shiny. What was "good enough" in Grole might not be good enough in Harbour Breton. Here is how Deborah remembers getting ready: