Anther time at the Cape, Susan, my youngest daughter, was about eight, it was in the morning and she was getting dressed. She sang out, "Mom come here, there's something looking in the window, a big dog." I said, "It can't be." When I went to look, it was a bear under the clothesline. I took the frying pan off the stove and told Susan that her father had just gotten in from the trap. I said to her, "Hurry, put on your boots. Don't make a noise. We'll go tell them." We ran down the hill and told the men about the bear. They chased it but never caught it.

In 1992, my husband and I were both working at the crab plant. We were working nights. In the morning, Derek, our son, sung out, "Dad, there's a bear out on the bridge." Guy had left his lunch box outside when we came home the night before. The bear had the box in his mouth by the handle! Guy jumped out, in only his underwear, and ran after the bear. He sang out, "Come back with my lunch box!" The bear dropped it just like that and ran away.

I was born at Cartwright in 1942.1 first went to work when I was fourteen for Mrs. Massie for one dollar a day. I liked working there. I did household chores and babysitting. I was there on and off for four years, weekends and summers, and in 1961 I came to Mary's Harbour. Ms. Grenfell asked me if I was going back to school and I said, "No." "Well," she said, "I'd take you here but we don't need neither girl." Then she asked if I would like a job in St. Anthony or Mary's Harbour. So I asked her what was the smallest place. She said it was Mary's Harbour. So that's where I came. I didn't have any family to live with when I came here first. I stayed at the hospital We did laundry, cleaning and tended to patients: bringing up their meals and other things. The hospital was full of patients in those times. They came from Mary's Harbour to Norman's Bay. I went in once with the nurse when a baby was being born. There was also another time when a girl from Triangle was bitten by a dog and her entire head was covered with dog bites. She must have been only five or six years old and Mrs. May asked me to go in with her. Mrs. Butt was there too. So I went in but I was pretty shaken so Mrs. May told me to go out and get a glass of water and a cracker and come back in again. That's what I did. That little girl had over fifty bites to her head.

Planes didn't come very often at that time and when they did they used floats or skis. The clinic staff used to travel by boat in the summer time and by dog team in the winter time. There were other girls there besides me. We used to have four or five girls there at one time. Some of the girls that worked there with me were Marie Snook, Margaret Cumby, Doreen Chubbs, Loretta Stone and Verna Stone. Loretta and Verna Stone were there going to school and working in between. They used to do the same kind of work that I did. The hospital was a really busy spot. The first month I was getting $26 when Mrs. May was in charge. At first I was homesick but I got over it. I became friends with the other girls at the hospital so I was okay. Mrs. Butt was the cook. Jack Howell and Hughlett Acreman were there too doing maintenance work. They all made me feel at home. I never had any kind of bad experience when I was working or anything like that.

That winter I met Guy. Then I wanted to stay. I worked there for two years and the last month I got paid $45. I left then, got married, and had six children of my own: Sheila, Sharon, Sandra, Dean, Derek and Susan. They are all gone on their own now and we are left alone.