Christine tells about her early years growing up
and what life was like way back then.
"The day would start with running out the door first thing in the morning
to go swimming, that’s if mom or dad didn’t see you first and send you
out to pick berries before swimming. Many times we didn’t even eat
breakfast right away, we would do that after swimming since we didn’t want
to get cramps while swimming and we all wanted to go swimming in the early
morning since that’s when the tide was high. Later in the morning
we would join our parents while they fished oysters, clams or eels.
Sometimes we would help them but often we just be jumping off the boat
and swimming along the shores of Lennox Island. My brothers and sisters
were pretty young then. I remember my sister Rose (2 years younger
than I) liked rowing the boat, since back then we didn’t have an outboard
motor. I would row on one side and Rose would row on the other side
and when we got tired we would just jump into the water and let dad take
over. There were a couple of places that I enjoyed swimming at, down by
Gull Point. Back then we would just dive off the cliff but now, you
can’t dive there cause the cliff is about 3 feet high only. So we had to
have been pretty small back then and another place was High Rock.
Again today, this rock isn’t as high as I thought it once was. During
the winter months we would sleigh a lot off the river banks onto the frozen
river. I remember my father telling me that when he was younger they
use to sleigh off Sandhills with homemade sleighs."
"I also remember my father used to make boats for the people around
here and growing up back then, everyone went to church with their parents
on Sunday at 11:00 am."