Audio Recordings

Part 1

Born in Clarendon, April 30, 1892

Mother:  Mary Jane Elliott

Father:  Joseph E. Brownlee, a farmer

Brothers and sisters:  Inez Brownlee (Mrs. Leonard Belsher); Andrew Charlie Brownlee; Elizabeth Lila Brownlee (Mrs. Edward Lucas); Mary Edna Stella Brownlee (Mrs. Eric Peever)

Memories of school

Mrs. Armstrong:  “I went to No. 5.  We walked a long distance.  The schools were in Clarendon.  And then in two years I went to Crane.  And that took three years.  And then I “specialed” for nine years:  six years in Renfrew and one in Windsor.  There were a lot of people sick here, and we had no hospital here at the time.” 

Part 2

Mrs. Armstrong:  “The train would leave Saturday morning for Ottawa, and the next train would be on Monday morning.  And that was forty-eight hours that we couldn’t get any special help here.  The roads was impossible most of the time.  We’d stop running our cars before Christmas until spring, and nursing many miles out of town was no pleasure.  I went to see Mrs. Selsey Hodgins to have my coat fixed.  When talking with her I mentioned I’d like to see some sort of a hospital started or some place we could bring patients to be in town.  So she told me she had a number of single beds and lots of linens.  She took me through the house, which had a few nice, large rooms.  I suggested we should try it, and the nurses would try to help her.  She had no hospital training or experience.  We would help her with the maternity cases, small operations, tonsillectomies and so forth.  We’d fix trays both after, look after the dressings, help with charts.  There was a lot of work and a lot of things to get.  No money, but the people was anxious to help, so they would give small donations, and it was wonderful. We had to get a sterilizer and lots of things.  And lots of ups and down.  She was a kind person and a good cook; that means a lot.  And this was wonderful.  So the patients started coming in, and they thought it was wonderful.”

Part 3

Mrs. Armstrong:  “There were lots of ups and downs, but we did the best we could.  The nurses was willing to work and help in a good many ways, but they refused to work on the Board or to make the plans.  I talked with some of the men, and finally we called a meeting and got things started.  And in a few years Mrs. Hodgins found it was getting too big for her to carry on much longer, so she resigned.  And Mrs. Ase Wilson took over.  The nurses was getting braver, so we took cars and canvassed the country.  This is very encouraging.  I think we got two or three hundred dollars and money, vegetables, fruit, and everything.”

“In 1937 my husband, Hulbert Armstrong, and I were married, but we didn’t go to the farm for nearly two years.  We had horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs and hens on the farm.  In 1939 my mother took a heavy stroke that left her a bed patient for the rest of her life.  She lived with us.  She was a very cheerful person, and we all loved her dearly.  She died in 1941.”  

“We wanted to set up some raspberry plants, so we invested in an acre.  We thought it would be a small job, but it was a big job.  But we were able to get lots of help, and the price of berries was good.”  

“We had horses, and we enjoyed them very much.  We even give up the car for a year and drove the horses, chasing the cars.”   (She giggles.)

Part 4

Mrs. Armstrong:  “We had a lovely home.  My husband told me the house was a hundred years old in 1939.  It was where Mrs. Merton Glenn is now.  And it’s lovely.  We loved all our neighbors and had many parties.”

“My husband developed pneumonia on both lungs, but he got better.  But some time after he took a heart attack.  We had to sell most of the stock before he was able to go out, so we decided to move to town.  So we built a house on his other farm just across from Shawville in 1959.  In 1968 my husband passed away about 6:30 in the morning just outside of the house.  I remember it like yesterday.”

The fire in Shawville in 1906

Mrs. Armstrong:  “A lot of our residents of Shawville and Clarendon were in Ottawa at the exhibition.  The fire broke out at the bakeshop.  It was a very dry, warm day, and when it got started it went quickly down both sides of the street.  It was nice that all the people were saved, but they got one person out on time, just on time.  My grandfather’s house was burned, also my uncle’s. It went right down to [as far as] the grist mill, in two or three hours burning everything down to the foundation; it went WOOOOO!” [said with a long, falling tone]

Part 5  

The Mike Murphy Case

Mrs. Armstrong:  “It was at one of Hart Armstrong’s buildings.  About 11 p.m. at night Peter Smiley, Percy Green, Willy Dale, Rod Shaw, Earl Turner, Harry Howes, Jack McNeely and Hart Armstrong was out for a walk.  Some of the men must have shouted something.  But Mike fired and shot Willy Dale and Harry Howes.  Peter Smiley twisted the gun out of his hands.  It was near noon the next day when they arrested Mike Murphy.  It was a really sad time.  Everybody was very upset.  The funeral was very large and very sad.  And then some time later the case came up in Bryson.  It was a long, hard case, and it took days.” 

“Listen, I was minding my grandparents.  And do you know what we had to do then?  If they wanted to get up or anything, you had to be there to help them, bring them everything, you had to wait on them; they were the queens. Not like now.  The young people now are queens.  I didn’t have too much fun.  The two of us done the same thing, another girl and myself.  You were busy.  It is the same as now in the nursing homes.  That was my fun.”

Interviewer:  “What do you think is the biggest difference between life today and life when you were a young girl?”

Mrs. Armstrong:  “Well, it’s just as different as day is from night.  The young people had to stay quiet.  And now you read that in books and everything.  Even the Duke of Windsor—that the old people had all the say, and the young people had to stay quiet.”

Interviewer:  “And now you think it’s the opposite?”

Mrs. Armstrong:  “Oh, very much the opposite.  You wouldn’t be allowed to talk at all, only when asked.  Now the young people take straight over.  And everybody says the same nowadays.  It’s better this way.”

Interviewer:  “You think so?”

Mrs. Armstrong:  “Well, it’s giving you more experience.”

“Dr. Powles and Dr. McPherson were the doctors at the first and at the second hospital.  The first hospital was at Selsey Hodgin’s place.  That’s where Dr. Horner had his office after.”

Part 6

Interviewer:  “Can you tell me who the doctors were at the third hospital?”

Mrs. Armstrong:  “Dr. Horner, Dr. Powles, Dr. McDowell and Dr. Cowley.”

“My grandfather was Edward Brownlee born 1840, died 1915.  My grandmother’s name was Jane Queale, born 1833, died 1915.  My grandfather’s father was Joseph Brownlee, born 1799 and died 1841.  He was married to Susannah Richardson and had twelve children.”

“He’d go away to the country, away from a doctor, the roads would be bad, he’d get out when he could, but he didn’t ask the doctor out too often, because when he was too scarce you just had to do the best you could for a long time.”  

Interviewer:  “What was Dr. Klock like?”

Mrs. Armstrong:  “He was a big, big man.  He wore three or four pairs of glasses, just one on top of the other.  And he could swear, he could swear to reach the sky.  And you would have been afraid of him.  But you still loved him.”

Interviewer:  “Who was the other doctor you said you remembered?”

Mrs. Armstrong:  “Dr. Lyon.  He was a small man, a great churchman.  He used to sit up in the front seat of the church.”  

Part 7

Mrs. Armstrong:  “St. Paul was my home [church].”

Interviewer:  “What was Archdeacon Naylor like?”

Mrs. Armstrong:  Oh, I never met a man just exactly like him.  He was a lovely man.  He was different.  He was a great dresser; his appearance was wonderful.  He was a great man.”

“The Church of England and the United Church are quiet churches. But at the time Mr. Naylor was here we weren’t supposed to go the United Church or to any church but our own church.  And I think that’s the way it was with the United people.  They weren’t as social as they are now.”

Interviewer:  “Do you think the church meant more to people then?”

Mrs. Armstrong:  “Oh, it meant an awful lot then.  Oh, and all quiet services, I mean in my church, the Church of England.  And we went to Parkman Church; we had to walk two miles or more.  And you had to walk from where you lived to church; I only remember driving once or twice.  Mr. Naylor was a jolly man.”  

Interviewer:  “Some people have told us there used to be an ice cream parlour.  Do you remember it?”

Mrs. Armstrong:  “I never remember us being without one.”

Part 8

Mrs. Armstrong:  “I know what Shawville looked like.  The sidewalks on Main Street wasn’t too good all the time, just some of the time, and there’d be the store lights; I don’t know if there were any other lights or not, and a few on King Street.  Oh, you wouldn’t like to be out at all at night.  The night all the people would come out was Saturday night, from far and near; oh, they’d have a big time.”

Interviewer:    “What kinds of things would they do?”     

Mrs. Armstrong:  “Goin’ up and down the street, up and down the street, and have a little ice cream, and up and down the street until twelve o’clock.  And that’s all they had to do.  And they had a skating rink then.  There was almost a sidewalk between King Street and Main Street.  Oh, it was a very rough street.” 

Interviewer:  “Would the grocery stores be open on Saturday night?” 

Mrs. Armstrong:  “Up until eleven.  And if they could get the people out they closed, and if they couldn’t get the people out, they couldn’t close until they could.”

“Yes, Saturday night.  Yes, that’s all the young people in Clarendon, that’s all we had to look forward to.”

Interviewer:  “Oh, but of course it isn’t really that much different today because we still have a skating rink, and we don’t have a theater or anything like that.”

Mrs. Armstrong:  “No, no, it’s as different as day is from night.  You have lights, you have a telephone.  We had no telephone.  Oh, everything is different.  No oil furnaces.  Wash lanterns and lamps every morning, carry in a great big pile of wood every night.  Carry in snow, and melt snow, and do your washing.  And oh, it would be such a nice, white wash, and homemade soap, and we had time to visit.  Now that’s the way it was.  We had time to visit and have a good time.”

Interviewer:  “Would you do a lot of baking?”

Mrs. Armstrong:  (Hears incorrectly.) “Bacon?  Oh, yes, everything.  We’d get a piece of pork.  Anyway, we could can our pork.  It was beautiful.   It was wonderful.  Oh, that was wonderful to cook.  We’d can our beef, too.  Now I’m trying to get enough meat not to use the deep-freeze.  The deep-freeze is no good in this way; when you want it, you have to wait for it to thaw out, but in olden times you’d bring up a nice Mason jar of it and eat with fresh bread.  Oh, yes, all good cooks would make homemade bread.  Everyone had lovely rolls, cookies, oh, was that good, and orange juice.”       

Part 9      

Mrs. Armstrong:  “I made out a little list, a history of our family, and it’s a nuisance.   Never make out one.  And always make out just one, and never let anyone else have it or see it.  But we’re having quite a time.  This should have been done at that time, and it wasn’t.  Now it’s something new.”     

 

Transcription by Sue Lisk