Time to Blow out the Lamp

By Mary Cook

Mary Cook has published almost a dozen books, all of which have become Canadian best sellers! These are books compiled of memories of a more gentle time in our history..an era called the Dirty Thirties. Cook transports us back to that time with humour and sometimes pathos, but always with a warmth unmatched by writings of that genre. She introduces us to characters, who turn out to be real people from her past, and who appear time and again, so that we, the reader, become so familiar with them, we can actually picture them romping through the pages. Mary Cook was a well-known broadcaster with CBC for 48 years, bringing her warm and delightful stories to an appreciative audience, and earning her seven ACTRA awards! She has written for Canada’s major newspapers and magazines, and is in constant demand as a guest speaker both here and in other countries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Cook
• Release date: Nov 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301441365

Mary Cook

Mary Cook has published almost a dozen books, all of which have become Canadian best sellers! These are books compiled of memories of a more gentle time in our history..an era called the Dirty Thirties. Cook transports us back to that time with humour and sometimes pathos, but always with a warmth unmatched by writings of that genre. She introduces us to characters, who turn out to be real people from her past, and who appear time and again, so that we, the reader, become so familiar with them, we can actually picture them romping through the pages. Mary Cook was a well-known broadcaster with CBC for 48 years, bringing her warm and delightful stories to an appreciative audience, and earning her seven ACTRA awards! She has written for Canada’s major newspapers and magazines, and is in constant demand as a guest speaker both here and in other countries.

Book preview

Introduction

For those of us who were children during the ‘30s, we have memories of good times, full stomachs, warm clothes and great family fun. I’m sure senior citizens of today who worried through the Dirty Thirties as adults and struggled for simple survival have entirely different memories.

We were like every other family of that Depression era in the Ottawa Valley. I now know that we were poor, and I have a vivid memory of the very day I was made aware of that fact.

Aunt Lizzie had come from Regina. We knew she had to be very wealthy because she had two sons who had gone to university. W hen she climbed out of the wagon at the Renfrew station to go back out west, and after she had kissed us five children good-bye, she took a quarter out of her purse and pressed it into my hand. (I was the only child to get one — I suppose because I was the youngest.) I had never had a quarter before. I was ecstatic and couldn’t wait to get to Briscoe’s store to buy ice-cream cones for all of us. I had the quarter in my fist and I remember opening two fingers at a time to make sure it was still there. When we got to the outskirts of town, my mother firmly but gently took the quarter out of my hand to buy coal oil. That was the day I knew what the words Depression and poor meant.

But we were rich in so many ways. I can remember my mother playing the harmonica so that we could dance in the big country kitchen. There were singsongs, taffy-pulls and Saturday-night house parties where the neighbours came from miles around with lunches in shoe boxes and eleven-quart baskets lined with flour-bag tea towels.

We learned what it meant to grow up in a warm and happy family when there were no grey areas — just black and white. We were either right or wrong. Discipline was tempered with love and the kind of caring that comes from the need to work and play together in order to survive.

And that’s what this book is all about. The stories are my memories. If you can relate to them, I will be happy, and if you enjoy them, I will be gratified.

Time to Blow out the Lamp

Bedtime on the farm during my early childhood followed a routine that rarely varied all the years we lived in Renfrew County. My mother had steadfast rules about the ritual, and my brothers and sister considered it a grave injustice that at least one of those rules put them up to bed each night earlier than they wanted to go, just because I, as the youngest, showed signs of being tired.

I would try my utmost to stifle the yawns as the old gingerbread clock ticked past seven o’clock, but my eyelids would feel like lead, and before I knew it, I was nodding with my nose bobbing almost to the Eaton’s catalogue which was before me on the kitchen table. This was my mother’s cue to say, Alright, children, the little one is tired. Bedtime.

My brother, Emerson, would be furious and try to keep me awake by taking the fleshy part of my upper arm between his fingers and pinching hard to keep me wide awake. To holler meant I would pay dearly for the deed when I got upstairs. But once my mother said it was bedtime, there was no arguing.

Audrey would take the small lamp from the cupboard in the kitchen, turn up the wick and light it, and lead the way up the staircase with the rest of us, like chicks following a mother hen, close behind her. The shadows which played on the plaster walls as we came into the bedroom at the top of the stairs created monsters and spirits and I stayed a hair’s-breadth from Audrey where I felt safe and secure.

The lamp had to supply light for the three rooms and so it was set into a round metal holder on the top stair post; only little sprigs of light filtered into the two bedrooms off the room at the top. But it was bright enough to get undressed and into our homemade flannelette nightgowns and pyjamas. The stovepipe poked through the floor in the front room at the landing. I can remember how each of us would take our clothes and drape them over a chair so that they would absorb the heat of the pipe through the night.

It seemed to take forever for my brothers to get ready for bed, but when they finally finished washing in the one basin of water, and putting their clothes beside the stovepipe, Audrey would call down the stairwell to our mother that we were ready. That gave mother the signal to come up and she would head for the big rocker which sat near the west window. When she had settled into it, with her feet on the braided rug, we five children would kneel down around her knees. With our eyes scrunched tight and our hands locked into cathedral steeples, we said our nightly prayers.

These varied as the need arose. We prayed for rain or for a dry spell; we prayed for health, and we prayed for our neighbours. And we always prayed for strength. At the time it seemed a strange prayer, because I always thought we were a pretty strong and healthy lot. It was many years before I realized that we were really praying for the strength to survive.

As our lips repeated the prayers in unison after our mother, she would move her hand from one bowed head to the other. And by the time the last Amen was said, we would be already on our way to the beds, and our feet would be like blocks of ice. But it didn’t take long to feel the most delicious, cozy warmth penetrate our bodies from the fat, feather tickings which covered us. And once we were settled in, we would talk back and forth between the three rooms. When it seemed I couldn’t hold my eyes open another second, Audrey would sing while the rest of us listened to her sweet high voice and marvelled at her talent.

When her voice seemed to go farther and farther away from me, like an echo coming from the far west hill, I would hear off in the distance my mother on the bottom step of the stairwell saying softly, so as not to waken anyone who may have fallen asleep, Alright, Audrey, it’s time to blow out the lamp.

And with the new darkness came silence, and perfect contentment from the cares of the Depression which for all we children knew was happening in some other country. We were warm, we were happy, we were satisfied with our lives. It was the end of our day.

Jewish New Year, Foiled

The excitement was running high that day in our log house back in Admaston Township. My mother, who had moved to the farm after living eighteen years in New York City, was going to have a visitor come all the way from that wonderful city she loved and missed so much.

Her name was Helen Bloomberg. She had lived in the Bronx near my mother, and although their backgrounds and culture were very different, they became good friends. Letters would fly across the miles regularly and finally one came to say that Mrs. Bloomberg was to come to visit us on the farm. My mother was wild with excitement, and as happened every time we had a special overnight guest, the grand shuffle on the second floor took place. Beds were shifted, clothes moved, walls scrubbed, braided mats washed, and a general housecleaning matching the twice-yearly routine saw the entire place turned upside-down.

Helen could only stay a week, though; she had other commitments at home, and besides, Jewish New Year was just around the corner, and she certainly couldn’t be away for that. We kids had never known a member of the Jewish faith, and we listened enraptured as our mother explained in detail why we mustn’t ask for salt pork for breakfast, and the smoked hams would have to be saved for another time.

Helen Bloomberg got off the train in Renfrew exhausted after her long trip, but she and my mother clung to each other and they both cried great sobbing gasps — which I felt was odd if they were so happy to see each other. Before she climbed into the Model T Ford, she took out bags of treats from a Mary-Poppins-type, tapestry bag. I liked her instantly. She was a big woman and around her neck she wore a pair of marten skins which I couldn’t take my eyes off. Their little jaws bit each other’s tails and this held them securely around her short, thick neck. From the back seat I stared, fascinated. It took me a little time to realize that they were quite dead.

The next day, poor Mrs. Bloomberg didn’t feel well, and she certainly didn’t look well. She appeared for breakfast all dressed up, but I was disappointed to see that she didn’t have the furs around her neck — I wanted to get a good look at them. She continually rubbed her tummy, and my mother, like a clucking hen, said it was probably the long trip. But by nightfall, the poor soul was worse, and eventually my father got out the old Model T, and with my mother and Mrs. Bloomberg wrapped in heavy blankets, they set out for Renfrew to see old Doctor Murphy. They were barely out of the lane when I ran upstairs and had a good close look at the marten furs.

Anyway, a few hours later, my parents came back, but Mrs. Bloomberg wasn’t with them. She had acute appendicitis, and was operated on immediately in the Renfrew Hospital. Apparently, she roared like a banshee and wanted to be visited by a rabbi first. The roars intensified when she was told there was no rabbi in Renfrew — and no Synagogue.

It was soon obvious that she wasn’t going to make it home for the celebration of the Jewish New Year, and she was in such anguish over the fact that Doctor Murphy feared for her recovery. I secretly wondered if she didn’t recover, whether I could keep the marten furs.

For the next two weeks, my mother made daily trips to the hospital in Renfrew — special foods had to be made, because there were certain things she refused to eat. I remember my mother, at Mrs. Bloomberg’s request, took in a dish of rendered honey — why, I don’t know, but it obviously had something to do with the holiday.

However, Mrs. Bloomberg did survive, right through the Jewish New Year in the Renfrew Hospital, and she spent another couple of weeks recuperating in our log house out in the township. Most of that time she lamented about missing New York and the celebration that she had lost out on.

She left on the C.P.R. train from Renfrew when Doctor Murphy said she was well enough to travel. She had on her marten furs and their beady black eyes stared at me as she crushed me to her bosom. It was the first time I had ever seen animals strung around a woman’s neck as a piece of clothing. She and my mother remained friends as long as they both lived, but Helen Bloomberg never took another chance on a visit to Renfrew County.

An End to Skating

We had been checking the ice on the Bonnechere River for days. It started out as thick, grey slush close to the shore, and finally joined in the middle and turned a pure, silvery white. By the time the mid-December cold snap hit Renfrew County with full force, the Bonnechere was frozen solid, except for a small portion at the shallow rapids. The river was not deep here, perhaps about 24 inches, and as long as we lived in that part of the valley I never knew that twelve-foot-square patch to freeze over. But the rest of the river froze smooth and clear. That year we had had little snow up to that point, so there wouldn’t be much shovelling to do to get the surface ready for skating.

Sunday was clear and cold, and we could hardly stand to stay in church until the service was over. Each of us — three brothers and a sister and my two young Montreal cousins, who for the first time would be spending the Christmas season with us on the farm — ate dinner in one gulp and began to lace up, buckle on, and tie over the array of skates which had to be divided between the seven of us. There were two pairs of bob skates, and since my cousin Terry and I were the youngest and therefore had the smallest feet we were tossed those hateful runners and told if we wanted to skate, those were the ones we had to wear. Ferry and I were disgusted that Ronny, who wasn’t much older than we were but admittedly was quite a bit bigger, was to wear a pair of blades. We both thought better of complaining, however, because our mother had a way of dealing with complainers: they stayed out of the fun, and were kept busy doing house chores.

We wore the skates to the river, being the only sensible thing to do as there was little chance of changing into them there unless you wanted to sit in the snow to do so. As we headed out the door, our mother warned us to stay away from the open water and her final words were, Understand, Ronny? Ronny was considered incorrigible back then; my mother always anticipated that there would be trouble sooner or later, and she worked diligently at trying to ward it off before it happened. Then she added to my sister, Audrey, keep an eye on him.

We all hit the ice at the same time, and I remember being amazed at how adept Ronny was, but of course he had skated many times before in Montreal. He did fast turns and sudden stops which made the ice chips fly in the air, and then he taunted us by skating within inches of the open water. Audrey screamed at him to stay away but she might as well have been talking to the snowbank: he completely ignored her. He came barrelling down the river, took an abrupt turn sideways, and the ice flew over his head as he came to a sudden stop just a few feet from where the Bonnechere was flowing open and black. Each time he charged down the ice, he seemed to go closer to the opening. He was delighting in making Audrey’s life miserable.

Finally, the inevitable happened; just a hair’s-breadth too close to the open water, once too often, and he skated as smooth as you please right into the black hole of open water. Of course he was in no danger of drowning because the water was shallow going over the rocks, but he screamed like someone going down on the Titanic. Audrey crawled on her stomach as close as she could get and stretched her arm out as far as she could reach and we could hear the ice snapping under her. Ronny was hanging on for dear life, and his roars could have been heard in Renfrew. Eventually, someone eased the shovel out over the ice, and he clung to it while he scrambled out. Fortunately for Ronny the house was only a field away and between Audrey and my older brother, they were able to get the screaming youngster with his quickly-freezing clothes home in jig time. The rest of us stayed at the river, and this further infuriated Ronny, who was demanding that we all go home with him.

When we finally called it a day and made our way to the house, we could see his face in the kitchen window — looking like a thundercloud. And when we went into the house, we saw that mother had