Ma's Cow: Growing up in the Canadian Countryside During the Cold War

By Patrick Flanagan

Do you remember the first TV you ever saw, the Space Race, sonic booms, JFK, men on the Moon, the Cuban Missile Crissis, Friendship 7 as well as numerous events and inventions from the 1950's and 60's?

Well, if you answered yes to any of the above, you're going to love reading Ma's Cow. The book is a treasure trove of memories of that happy innocent time known to some as the Cold War and to others as a period of Camelot between World War II and the Oil Crisis of the 1970's.

Whatever name you remember the era as you doubtless have happy memories of a time long gone, but seemingly so recent in our memories.

Ma's Cow has something for everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 11, 2006
• ISBN: 9781467801546

Patrick Flanagan

FLANAGAN grew up in Dublin and started his entertainment career as a falsetto altar boy. TV and film after that, travelling the world, writing and producing until, finally settling into lotus eating happiness in Australia.

Book preview

In the Beginning

I might as well start at the beginning; I was born in Bathurst New Brunswick, Canada at the old Hotel Dieu Hospital March 31, 1953. If you wish to confirm this by checking the Bathurst Northern Light newspaper microfilm, forget it, I already tried and of all the papers printed in that year, you guessed it this is the only one missing. Therefore, it looks like you will just have to take my word on this subject.

From Bathurst, my parents soon moved me to what was to become my hometown of Jacquet River. While growing up in this peaceful little hamlet my mind was constantly absorbing all the sights, sounds, tastes, smells and feelings of country life during the 1950’s and 1960’s. News of the outside world came via radio and black and white television, but it all seemed far away and of little concern to us. Our parents and their friends on the other hand seemed to be very worried about the state of the world and its future. I derive most of my stories from this unique and exciting timeline.

I have four children two live with their mother Elizabeth in Bathurst New Brunswick, and two on their own.

As far as my formal education is concerned, I attended most of my grade school years at the Belledune Consolidated School and upon entering high school, I soon deduced that I was too smart for this and quit after two months. After a few years in the real world, I realized the mistake I had made, and applied to write my Grade 12 equivalency exams (GED). After studying the GED books for the grand total of one night I wrote the exams and, much to my surprise, passed with a respectable mark.

After a few more years in the work force, I found that a Grade 12 diploma is certainly not enough to make it, so I applied for a Communication Arts course at the New Brunswick Community College in Woodstock New Brunswick.

I was accepted into the two-year program in 1986 and moved my family to that wonderful little Loyalist town in the Saint John River Valley in September of that year.

While attending NBCC Woodstock I was introduced to the intricacies of the computer world as well as the finer points of journalism and photography with some radio broadcasting thrown in for good measure.

After graduating in 1988, I secured a job as reporter for the local paper in the small Southern Alberta Town of Milk River. However, the lure of the East Coast was too strong and after one year, I moved my family back east to Annapolis Royal, N.S. I worked for the newspaper in that town for a short while, and then transferred to another owned by the same publishing company in Middleton, N.S.

While in Middleton, I heard the Northern Light newspaper in Bathurst N.B. was looking for a reporter and contacted them. They told me the job was mine if I wanted it. This was the chance I had been waiting for, a chance to move home, a chance to work near my hometown. At that time the economy of the area looked great, the mines were operating full time, the mill was at peak capacity and N.B. Power had just announced the construction of a giant thermo electric power plant in Belledune. I moved my family back. I worked at the Bathurst paper for about one year and for reasons, known only to the publisher, was laid off with very little explanation.

I then worked as a columnist for Power Talk, a community newsletter, published monthly by N.B. Power in Belledune. This column dealt with life in a rural community during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s as seen through the eyes of a child and remembered as an adult.

Since 1993, I have had various jobs and for a while even owned and operated my own taxi company. I am presently employed as a telephone customer service representative in Moncton N.B. I enjoy working there, but my first love is writing and I hope to be doing more in the near future.

The Memories column in Power Talk was fun to write and I really enjoyed hearing from people who could relate to some of my experiences. I particularly enjoyed, and still do, hearing from people who are too young to remember that past, but not yet forgotten era.

Most of the following stories were published in that magazine and are in no particular chronological order. I hope you enjoy reading, or re-reading, them as much as I had writing them.

You can reach me at my email address [e-mail] I look forward to hearing from one and all.

December 11, 2005 Patrick Flanagan

A Drive to Grandma’s House

An introduction to Belledune of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s as seen through the eyes of a child and remembered as an adult.

I remember when I was a young lad, from about the time I was two to my early teens, and Mom would take us to Belledune to visit our grandparents, Bert and Martina Shannon. My granddad had a sister who lived with him, her name was Lena Shannon, but to us and to most of Belledune for that matter she was Ant (Aunt) Lena. She was a retired teacher, very Victorian in her ways and when she taught us homework we learned it, or else.

I will begin with some of my first memories of that happy, peaceful and yes, innocent time in Belledune’s history.

The village of Belledune is located on the north shore of New Brunswick about half way between the city of Bathurst and the town of Dalhousie. Until the mid 1960’s it was simply a typical small fishing and farming hamlet with nothing spectacular to set it apart from hundreds of other like communities in the Maritime Provinces. Its only real claim to fame up to then was the fact that it was named by Jacques Cartier when he first sailed up the Bay of Chaleur and noticed the Pretty Dunes or Belle Dune en Frances, on a point of land.

In 1963 Brunswick Mining was looking for a place to locate their new lead zinc smelter. They had chosen two possible sites. One of these sites was Daily Point in Bathurst and the other was Belledune Point. By late 1963 they had decided on the Belledune site and things have never been the same since.

The industrial age had finally caught up with this tiny community and soon after the smelter was built a fertilizer plant was also constructed and a deep-water port was added to the shoreline. Things then stayed much the same until 1989 when N.B. Power announced the construction of a huge thermo electric plant.

My grandparent’s home was located just to the east of the present day power plant and just west of the fertilizer plant.

The house was a large two-story farmhouse with a faux brick siding and a huge cottonwood tree on the front lawn. The lot on which it was located also had a spacious weatherworn barn as well as several out buildings. The house and buildings were torn down in 1982 by Brunswick Mining who said it was in their way. All that remained was the cottonwood tree and it blew down shortly after. They said the wind blew the tree down, but I think loneliness did the trick because the tree was as much a part of the house as was the foundation

Well, now that you have an idea of the location of the community, and where my grandparents lived I will attempt to take you back in time to a Belledune long disappeared. A sleepy hamlet, it wasn’t even a village then, of Irish, Scots and French farmers and fishermen. The Belledune I write about is the Belledune of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s right in the middle of the Cold War between the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. Not that long ago perhaps, but it could be centuries, in light of the developments which were to occur within the next 10 years.

Mom, a beautiful, petite, dark haired young woman, would place my older sister Joanie, younger brother Andy and me in our shiny 1956 black Chevrolet Bel Air where we would all stand in the front seat; there was no seat belt law back then. From this vantage point we could watch the green fields roll by as we left Armstrong Brook to see Grampy, Grandma and Ant Lena. The trip appeared to take longer then and the air seemed to be much fresher. First we’d pass the quaint old Culligan wharf with its weather-beaten beams stretching out into the bright blue Bay of Chaleur with all the brightly coloured boats at anchor and wonder what it would be like to be on one. Then we’d pass by Parnell’s and all wave to the tall friendly taxi driver as he headed out to his gleaming new Ford for another taxi call. If we were lucky, Mom would stop for a dollars worth of gas at Roherty’s canteen and we would beg enough for single large scoop of ice cream, which cost five cents. After Alton, a jovial dark haired man, had pumped the gas into the tank, through a cleverly hidden gas cap behind the rear driver’s light, we were off again. Past the Belledune River where we’d wait in anticipation for the bump near the bottom of the hill, which is still there, and then cry in unison, Ohhh!

I remember we would sometimes mistake the next home on our left, the Curry place, for our grandparents because both houses had brick-like siding on them. Next we would pass the little white Protestant church, which was then the only building by the Hodgin Road. Soon after this we would pass the Sid and Joe Shannon farm, which was located where the N.B. Power plant is now. In the summertime, we would always check to see if Joe, a tall thin gentleman farmer, was hauling loose hay with his team of giant, white faced, Clydesdale horses.

When we finally arrived at our