39 Village People
and Things

The village, like any average Ontario community, had a few outstanding individuals, not because of fame and fortune, scholarly achievement or famous heritage, but rather because of their vocation, their mannerisms or their approach to daily living.

Ben Fisher was the village constable. There was little demand for his services, but on occasion he would be called on to tack a quarantine card on a homeowner's front door, alerting everyone that the children had chicken pox.

Ben had one problem he never seemed able to solve. Some of the local youth thought they had to demonstrate to the citizens and each other their great skill in driving a horse and buggy. These young men always attended evening service, occupying the rear pew, and immediately after church would stage a buggy race the distance of the main street. Those mothers and fathers who herded their offspring home along narrow sidewalks took issue and complained about the dust, the shouting and sometimes what was considered coarse language.

Ben would be called upon to curtail these upstarts but, due to his build, running after a horse and buggy was an exercise in futility. Monday morning he would contact a few and issue a warning, but the following Sunday the chariot race would take place with as much fervour as ever. One minister even preached about Reckless Youth.

Dan LaCount was the deputy constable. He was called upon only once a year to exercise his duties. The one-day fair in October required both Ben and Dan to appear with their badge of office in case some obstreperous situation might take place.

Most fair days went along with little excitement, though a jug of hard cider sometimes created a little extra merriment. The main duty of the constabulary was to keep the crowds off the track during the sulky races.

Dan was also a great story teller. He had served a stint with the North West Mounted Police and when Dan warmed to his exploits an audience of youngsters would be thrilled, but in retrospect you wondered why the force ever needed other constables.

Henry Bartlett was the postmaster, a fixture in the post office from early morning until after the last mail was sorted. He was part of the community, knew everyone and called each child by name when they would appear at his wicket for the mail. Some of the oldsters told of the early periods when Henry would go along with a wagon load of men to a political meeting in some other community. He always took his snare drum with him and played his own style of music to amuse the group. After each rendition he would announce the name of the tune, thus music that needed identification became know locally as Henry's tune.

Roy Grigg was the local Edison, he brought the early radios to the village. Village homes supported his ingenious designs of aerials. This was in the period when a radio needed 100 feet of aerial wire in order to bring in the programs from Detroit, Pittsburgh and London radio stations. Some people's yards could not accommodate an aerial this long so Roy designed box aerials, a hundred feet of wire strung on a rectangular frame.

Roy was also a skilled automobile mechanic and operated the garage and service station on the main street of the village next to Tom Rushby's blacksmith shop. Roy kept the automobiles of the village operating unti1 1925, when he became the ace salesman for the Hudson Essex brand of automobiles. For five years one of the most popular cars seen in the community was a Hudson for the affluent and the box-bodied Essex for the general public.

One facility in the village that remained stagnant for most of its existence was the Caradoc Ekfrid Telephone Company, with the wooden box wall phones that had to be cranked to reach the operator so she could try and connect you with a subscriber on another party line. The party lines served many purposes, first a line of communication and secondly a source of local news and gossip. When the three longs and two shorts sounded nothing was private, confidential or sacred between the caller and the callee. A party line was only one step advanced from the days of Indian smoke signals - you didn't have to light the fire but the message was public.

The village supported three fraternal organizations, the Masons, the Oddfellows and the Orange lodge. The Orangemen surfaced on July 12 each year but for most of the time the lodge was inactive. The Masonic lodge and the Oddfellows lodge were very aggressive and some of the members belonged to both lodges. The once-a-year church parade for each lodge brought out the membership and showed the community who belonged to each organization.

There was a difference between the fraternities. The Oddfellows had a ladies branch, the Rebeccas; there was a ladies organization for the Masons, but the time for the Eastern Star had not arrived among the male dominated village lodge.

The fraternal organization of the period was taken very seriously by the members. Upstanding, moral males had to belong to one or the other to demonstrate to the community that they were upstanding, moral males.

Dr. Woods was one of the village doctors. He resided in a large house on Main Street and always maintained one of the best driving horses in the community. His other hobby for several years was raising Greyhound dogs.

The doctor was also a staunch Tory and always showed his political leanings each election. This was not easy in a Grit community of the period. One election, when the villagers had gathered at the railway station to see the results, as they were posted on the door after being received by telegraph, Dr. Woods just happened to be out walking his dog, the animal adorned with a blue blanket and a large blue bow for a collar. He paraded this dog through the crowd at the railway station to show that not everyone voted Grit.

The local newspaper had ceased to be published in the early part of the century but news, whether important or not, was carried by word-of-mouth, sometimes not factual or accurate, but from the gathering at the post office to the outer edges of the village was a matter of a few minutes before vital news would be conveyed to each household.

Granny Hadden was perhaps the best news carrier in the village. She made several trips a day to the post office and always had some tidbit of news to relay to those she encountered along the way. This dear old soul was an essential institution in the community.

During the fall of the year the whole village smelt of apples. The dried apple factory would be in full swing with mounds of apple peelings rotting in the yard. The cider mill turned out gallons of sweet cider each year, some of it destined to become a major substitute for other forms of liquor during the difficult period of prohibition. A well-seasoned jug of hard cider provided a necessary libation. The smell of the discarded pulp didn't enhance the atmosphere.

The apple industry provided seasonal employment for a number of the villagers. Some worked at the C.P.R. packing station, others at the dried apple plant peeling and coring apples, and each year the barrel cooperage operated by Harvey Mitchell provided employment for a few men. Apples were packed in barrels for overseas shipment.

Chester Smith was a local automobile mechanic who could fix any make or model, and if he didn't have the part he would improvise. This man created an interest in things mechanical among many of the young boys. He showed us how to repair a bicycle, take the wheels off our wagons to grease the axles and in later years many of us learned how to maintain our first car under his patient tutelage. Frequently when you approached the garage you could hear voices coming from under a car. This would be Chester having a debate with himself, taking both sides of the question. After years of living alone he had become qualified in the art of self conversation.

There was a village baseball team. One year this team, while playing against the teams from Strathroy, Appin, Glencoe and Ailsa Craig, went on to the championship finals. I don't recall who won, but the whole village followed the team with great interest. Some of the players' names escape me, but I remember a few, like Baxter, Twigg, Erskine, Fowler, Barclay, Northcott, Snelgrove and Wadsworth - not the well-coached team of today, but a village baseball team.

Somehow during the depression years the village gathered enough funding from private donations to build an open air ice rink. This became one of the social gathering places for the community and hockey graduated from the pick up game of shinny on a farm pond to organized hockey that competed in a local league.

In the early '20s the community became fire conscious and purchased a pumper, with iron wheels. The six-man pump operation was towed to the fire by the first available passing vehicle. In order to have water for the pumper, cisterns had to be built throughout the village. George Avery, Bill Stewart and Dad Wyatt spent several weeks each year building sidewalks, cisterns and other public works. The town fathers even saw fit to purchase a cement mixer to help with the construction work.

There were many other characters and institutions in the village, each fulfilling a useful purpose and adding something to the flavor of the community. People had time in earlier years to stop and chat, be concerned about other people and tell a story to some children. It was from these slow moving days that memories are formed.
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