I was outside working one time and Bobby and Lorraine were in the kitchen, playing a game of chicken with a butcher knife. Lorraine had her hand on the cutting board and Bobby was chopping at it with the knife. Just as he swung, she would pull her hand away. When I came into the kitchen and saw what was going on, I yelled at them to stop. I guess it scared Lorraine and she forgot to move her hand. The knife came down on the back of her hand. She still has the scar.

We had cats on the farm to control the mice and as pets. Sometimes the neighbours’ (Schruders) cats would come snooping around and Bobby would shoot them. One time, after Lois and Henry were married and living in Pembroke, they had gone away for the weekend, and had brought their cat for me to ‘babysit’. Bobby came into the house later and said he had got another of Schruders’ cats. I asked him to describe it, and sure enough, he  had shot Lois’s cat.  I made him tell Lois when they returned.

      Bobby, Don, Keith, Ken

The boys used to hunt rabbits and partridge but they had to clean, cook and eat them in the bush, unless I was not home. I would not let them cook wild meat in the house. One time Bobby got me to taste some partridge he had cooked and I liked it. After that it was all right to cook it at home.

At that time, the children did not go around for Halloween, but there was a party in Eganville, so I had taken them there. When we came home, they were all out running around, playing and pretending to be ghosts. When I called them in for bed they did not pay attention. So Bob said, "Just wait, I will get them in." He put a white sheet over his head and went out back. After they got a glimpse of him walking around the house, they all came in, running and screaming, "There’s a ghost, there’s a ghost!"

One day Lorraine woke up with very sore arms. I let her stay home from school and when she got worse, I took her to the doctor. He said it could be rheumatic fever and decided to start treating her right away. Later the doctor phoned and said yes it was rheumatic fever. Lorraine spent six weeks in the Pembroke hospital but Bobby brought her school work home, so she did not miss her year.

One Sunday morning I kept calling upstairs to Lorraine to get up for church. Lorraine would have been a teenager and did not want to get up. I told her to hurry up or we would be late for church. She came downstairs, with her coat on, and outside she went. When we came home from church, she took her coat off and there she was, still in her nightgown.

Once the kids were running around outside and I knew Lorraine had homework to do. I called her in and sent her upstairs over the kitchen where there was a table set up to do homework. First thing you know, I looked out and there she was running around outside. I called her in and sent her back upstairs. I looked out a while later and there she was again. I called her in again and sent her upstairs. This time, I thought to myself, I am going to find out how she did it, so I went outside to watch. She crawled out the window onto the summer kitchen roof and then climbed into the Manitoba maple tree and shimmied down the tree.

When Lorraine was going through for a nurse, she came home one weekend and noticed that I had a few grey hairs.  She decided that she should dye my hair for me.  We bought the same colour dye as my hair, but it turned soooo black.  I washed it half a dozen times, but it did not help.  I even called a hairdresser, but there was not a thing I could do.  I had to go to a party for Ben's birthday, so I wore a kerchief all night.  The colour finally grew out, but no amount of washing lightened it.

When Keith was about 2 or 3, he had long curly hair.   Bob came in with him from town and said, "Where are the barber scissors?  I had Keith in at McCanns and almost had to pull his pants down to show them that he really was a boy."

Keith with curly hair, with                                     Don, Bobby and Lorraine

Don and Keith always stuck together, no matter what they were doing.  Don never liked teddy bears, so if I wanted to keep him out of the button drawer or off the  stairs, I would put the bear there. But Keith would take it away and say, "Come on, Don."