Mothering in P.E.I.'s Bygone Days
They sewed clothing from flour bags, spun wool into yarn and made butter from scratch
Reginald "Dutch" Thompson's column The Bygone Days brings you the voices of Island seniors, many of whom are now long-departed. These tales of the way things used to be offer a fascinating glimpse into the past. Every second weekend CBC P.E.I. will bring you one of Dutch's columns.
Dutch Thompson talked with Annie MacDougall and her friend Kay Jelley, who grew up in the western P.E.I. Freeland-Lot 11 area, who shared memories of their mothers.
When Dutch met with Annie (born MacKay) MacDougall in her Tyne Valley home back in 2004, she was was 93 years old but still very sharp and up on all the community news. MacDougall taught school for 30 years, raised a family and was a community leader — she played the organ in church and founded the Bideford Women's Institute.
MacDougall fondly recollected her mother, Mary Jane MacKay, who was a schoolteacher and 38 years old when Annie was born Jan. 1, 1911.
MacDougall's mother was her hero in several ways: first, as a role model for education, having been chosen to go to college — which was relatively rare for women. MacDougall proudly recalled a newspaper clipping that had been saved from her mother's youth.
And those spinning wheels used to spin! She was a wonderful spinner.— Annie MacDougall
"There was a piece cut out of the paper where Lucy Maud Montgomery and Mary Jane MacKay were picked to go to Prince of Wales College. But mom was born in '73 and Lucy Maud was born in '74, and what kept mom back when she was going to school — somebody fired something and put out one of her eyes, or hurt it. And they had to keep her out of school for quite a while.
"She knew Lucy Maud by going to church together. They were great friends, they'd go to the Bedeque Church."
Click below to hear Annie MacDougall (pictured) recount a story about her mother Mary Jane MacKay.
Knitting, spinning and sewing
MacDougall's mother was also an adventurous traveller — more than 100 years ago, she went by train across the continent to visit her brother in California. After a visit, Annie's mother brought a knitting machine back to P.E.I.
"And she knit for all the world, all around. Everybody come get stuff knit," MacDougall said.
"And those spinning wheels used to spin! She was a wonderful spinner. There was only two or three — Mrs. Henderson and mum, and Mrs. Smith. She used to say 'just three good spinners,'" MacDougall said.
Her mother was so busy spinning and knitting she often had little time for other household chores, which fell to Annie.
"That was my own disappointment — I'd go to school, and I'd go home and I'd see those dinner dishes still looking at me. And I didn't like that job!" she laughed.
'This was how hard they worked, y'know'
Like most mothers, MacDougall's sewed or knit everything their family wore. MacDougall recalled wearing clothing her mother had fashioned from flour bags and even two-pound bags salt came in.
That salt was used in making butter — another of her mother's chores for their family, and often also for neighbours.
"She'd take the salt and get the bread board out, wash it off and put the salt on, and you had to pound it out to put in the butter," MacDougall said. "This was how hard they worked, y'know — you never think what people went through."
Mrs. MacKay stored the butter in crocks, and sent it home with neighbours wrapped in rhubarb leaves Annie fetched from the garden and washed under the hand pump.
She always made the butter using a paddle — no bare hands were allowed touched her mother's butter, Annie said.
'Very little written down about what women were doing'
Mary Jane MacKay married a man who was also named MacKay.
"He nabbed her and they made another bunch of MacKays!" Annie laughed.
Thompson checked out the MacKay family tree in the history of Lot 11, Along the Shore, and found Annie's father's family had emigrated to P.E.I. from Scotland in 1771 aboard the ship Annabella.
The MacKay men had skills vital to the new colony, as millers and coopers, or barrel-makers. Annie's grandfather helped build the railway West from Summerside to Tignish in the 1870s and her father went over to Nova Scotia in 1917 to rebuild Halifax after the explosion.
My dear child, I didn't go to make money, I went to help out the neighbours.— Kay Jelley
But finding information about the history or accomplishments of the MacKay women — or any women — is a common problem among historical researchers.
"Women are the silent partners in Canadian history," Thompson said. "We read about their husband's accomplishments — a lot of that stuff is written down in history books — but there's very little written down about what women were doing."
Fathers didn't change diapers
Annie MacDougall grew up just down the road from the Henderson family, Annie and Cumming, who had three sons and seven daughters — one of them was Kathleen or Kay (born Henderson) Jelley, MacDougall's friend.
Kay was born in 1913 and became known to many in western P.E.I., as she taught school in Summerside and was a registered nurse in O'Leary who worked for years with Dr. George Dewar.
Kay Jelley's mum Annie was the local midwife, so she was gone for days and sometimes weeks at a time, leaving her husband to fend for himself.
"We never expected dad to do things that mum could do, never. He had all those kids, I don't suppose he ever changed one of us," Jelley said, noting times have changed — her son and son-in-law share child-rearing duties.
One evening Jelley asked her father what he'd had for supper — "Oh, he said, I just put a couple eggs in the teapot," Jelley said with a laugh. "That's all I knew of him ever cooking!"
Long hours with no pay
The names of the many local midwives were rarely written down or recorded, Thompson laments, despite the fact that many community histories on P.E.I. have been researched and written by women.
Midwives were also rarely paid for their services, despite the long hours.
Kay Jelley, at the time a nurse, once asked her mother how much she'd been paid as a midwife and had helped bring dozens of babies into the world.
"'My dear child, I didn't go to make money, I went to help out the neighbours,'" Jelley recalls her mother answering.
Only once, when her mother had been assisting a new mother for nine days with housework and tending the new baby, did a couple pay her $5.
"That was the only $5 she ever got," Jelley said.
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With files from Sara Fraser