I was born May 10th, 1945, at Henley Harbour. They didn't go to hospitals then to have babies. I suppose they was born in someone's house. They tell me I was born in my grandmother Edith's house up in Henley Harbour on the Island. I was born by Aunt Sofie Stone. That was Uncle Ben Stone's wife.

The island where the Stone family lived in Henley Harbour. Their house, the Fishery Products Room and the brother's house built in later years. Photo courtesy of Verna Pye

She was a midwife and she born me up there in grandmother's house. I grew up there until I was forced to go away. I started school when I was six years old. I remember my first teacher was Mr. Reg Snook from Mary's Harbour. He taught there for two years. I did kindergarten and grade one then. I always remember that he wanted me to get in the concert and I didn't like concerts. I couldn't get up but I had this pretty dress mom had for me and he persuaded me to get in the concert after. That was the first concert I got in of course.

There was twelve kids in our family - six boys and six girls. I got a brother, John, in Mary's Harbour. That's the closest one to me now. He's married to Lorraine Rumbolt. I got a brother, Eric, and a sister, Mavis, in Wabush. I got two brothers, Paul and Ralph in Seal Cove. They're married and got families grown up. I got three sisters, Ruth, Stella and Edna, and two brothers, Lloyd and Hedley, in Corner Brook and one sister, Loretta, in Pasadena. My dad, Alfred Stone, died in 1973. My mom, Jessie, died in 1986.

Dad was a fisherman who fished all his life. He had lots of help with the crowd of boys. He was a real hard worker who liked to see things done right. He was always a fisherman right up until he died. Henley Harbour, I suppose, was like most every other little outport on the coast of Labrador. You had to work hard even though you had a crowd. Families were big but it seemed like we were never hungry. Dad used to have his own animals. He used to have goats, sheep and hens. That provided meat for food and wool from the sheep for socks and mitts and stuff. Mom used to spin wool all the time for our knitting purposes. We always had fresh eggs. We had our certain chores to do. Even though the boys were around a lot, we still had to lug water and bring in wood. In the summer time the boys would be in the stage fishing. There was a lot of work to the fish then. You had to spend all day at different things. Than you'd have to spread it and dry it. The girls had to help mom whenever they could to bring in a bit of wood and cleave splits and help around the house a lot. They had to lug water from the well. We never used to have running water them days. So we had to do whatever we could to help out the family. We even had to cut grass to store in for the winter for the goats and hens. I remember cuttin' grass in the fall of the year and poking it in bags or whatever you could get it in, piling it up and raken' it together. We moved to Pitt's Arm for the winters. We'd move up in the fall of the year after all the fish was made and was shipped. We'd move in October and take everything, all your belongings, aboard the motor boat. There was a merchant up on the island in Henley Harbour, the same island we used to live on. There would be mostly one family on the island at one time while I grew up there. And there was a merchant there right alongside Dad's premises. They provided all the hard grub (food) like salt meat, salt pork, molasses and everything like that. Dad would buy food in bulk (large quantities) for the winter. Dad used to always have plenty stocked up for the winter just before we moved in the bay.