More History

Our family, like many, lived and breathed history. While I absorbed some of the stories, I mostly blocked them out as boring, as one does when the elders are going on and on and on. It is wildly amusing that suddenly I am interested at all. When I say the family breathed history, I mean that my mother's mother started the PEI Historical Society and wrote books, my father's mother, as I mentioned before, hauled us off to look at cemeteries. All old artifacts, especially if local, were revered. Some of you know the long case clock in our house?

I remember Mum coming home from an auction having purchased that 1840 Scottish beauty for $125.00, anxious what Dad would think of the extravagance. I was about 10 so we've had the clock for 60 years. And the blue and white Czechoslovakian canisters in the china cabinet? My maternal grandmother bought them at an auction in the 1930s for $2.00 so we've owned them for about 90 years. Seriously.

Like any other interest, there is a hierarchy and snobbery involved with history buffs. Our family snobbery was that "we" were United Empire Loyalists, meaning the Ives rellies bailed out of the US during the American Revolution. I'm sure the UEL status elevated Dad to almost acceptable in my grandmother's eyes; no one was ever going to be good enough for Mum but he at least had history on his side. On one of our cemetery trawls, we found the evidence and thank goodness someone added a modern plaque to the stone, proving the status because it is illegible; Isaac Ives, 4th great grandfather, born in Connecticut.

Editorial: no mention of his wife Sarah Thompson coming with him with children in tow and also UEL. Chopped liver apparently for the sin of being female.

Walking around downtown I am driving Jim crazy with "Tom lived in that house, Dick was there, and Harry was around the corner". Aside from all the personal memories (Jim is from AWAY) there are some gorgeous Victorian era houses in the city.

Bets and I had our first decade in one and the first house I owned, purchased for $17,000, was another. It was 4500 square feet, 3 stories, clay cellar, built in 1877, with knob and tube wiring, and an original 1920 furnace when I bought it from my grandmother's estate in 1970. Clearly this was not a sensible buy for a 21 year old and a few years later the house and I parted ways.
We toured Beaconsfield the other day, supposedly the pinnacle of fancy Victorian houses, built in 1877, and I have to say that, beautiful as it is, my house of the same year, built as a wedding present for an adored daughter, had better bones. Snobbery again. 

Half a block from Beaconsfield and facing across the cove to Government House, is the house of our teenage years, a modest one-of-three built in 1947 on the property of a Victorian mansion (the Heartz house) that had burned down.

I am amazed at the details and factoids that still manage to find the way to the surface of my memory!

Connections

Here’s a typical PEI story: we were on the board walk at Tignish Run and started an idle conversation with a woman visiting from Vancouver.  She was touring the Island with her family having just sold their summer house in Wood Island; down east and I hope you have a map in front of you because by now you should be lost. Her husband came along and with further chat we introduced ourselves and I thought his name was familiar, Roger Larrabee. We shared our ages and realized we went to the same high school in the same class; Betsy, his brother Eldon would have been in your class or at least your grade. When I started rhyming off names of fellow class mates we got into that excitement you feel in those random and happy connections and parted with a hug. What are the odds of that meet-up?

 

not a relative!

Another day we were in a restaurant/diner in Crapaud, the Red Rooster, and I swear our server’s mother or grandmother was a student when I worked at Bluefield High School, she looked so familiar. I restrained myself and did not interrogate her on her ancestry which I would have done had she been a bit older. At her age she might have thought I was bat-crazy, justified of course.

I see people all the time that I almost recognize but not enough to remember a name or even be confident of the identity because everyone is at least 30 years older.  Or I’ll see someone I’m sure I know and then find out, no, I was wrong.

There is a “look” in PEI, probably from genetic crossovers because like any pioneer area there were only a few families and they had to intermarry for lack of choice. 

Luckily they had lots of kids, 8 or maybe 20 in one generation so the gene pool got mixed up fairly quickly. We know a woman of Acadian background who has 97 first cousins just on her mother’s side of the family. No one has tried to count them on her father’s side but there are many more.

I recently sent my DNA to ancestry.ca which coughed up all kinds of interesting connections. I share a double great grandmother with a Victoria friend, born in South Lake, PEI and the great grandfather of another friend from South Lake was the brother of a different double great grandmother of mine. Did you know you have 16 ancestors at the double great level? We know someone who traced his family back about 1000 years and told us there are 17,000 in the direct line if you get back that far! Good grief! It gets very complicated very quickly with immigration mis-spellings (Jim’s mother’s last name had three versions), repeated names through generations, and here’s a good one – if an infant died sometimes the same name was given to the next born.

And occasionally there is a complete surprise like this one, the Ives name in the Acadian territory of Miscouche otherwise known as Lot 7 from the time the Island was partitioned to favoured friends of whatever King was on the throne.

On the other hand, we spent the weekend at the PEI Shellfish Festival with kitchen-party entertainment on the main stage and an international chefs competition on the kitchen stage, and I didn't know a soul other than Michael Smith who is VERY tall and Andrew Scheer, also tall but not as.

I also stopped by at a big-ish street market on Queen Street and no known faces jumped out at me. It can happen.

the Shellfish Festival tent

Michael Smith

$5.00 Caesars

Queen Street market

Western Prince County, PEI

More photos than anything in this post because we were touring around.

The Halifax Griffiths have a beach house in Ebbsfleet and you can’t go much further “up west” than Ebbsfleet. 

It is a big house and set up as a summer rental so we booked it for three days of bonding with the senior Griffith siblings (Jim, Pat, Peter) and spouses (me, Ed, Betty).  We think it is the only time the 6 of us have spent time together other than big family events like weddings and funerals and I am happy to say we had a good time. 

We poked in and around western Prince, up to North Cape on a cool and windy day, and into various harbours and towns. There is not much left of what used to be Elephant Rock, water and wind have a strong impact on the sandstone.

Elephant Rock then

and now

North Cape is the longest rock reef in North America

The map was not quite aligned with the road configuration, an intersection on the map was actually a curve in the road, but that resulted in an interesting stop at this large church in Palmer Road (a very small community) which we would have missed.

Fishing is a big industry in PEI: lobster, tuna, mackerel, crab, mussels, oysters and, as one fisher told us, anything that’s out there. The western fishing harbours as well as some “down east” are called “ponds” Skinners Pond, Seacow Pond, Nail Pond, Miminegash Pond, etc. Essentially they are coastal lagoons protected by sand dunes, and they have “runs” out to the sea. The runs have been dredged time and time again and are often lined with steel, usually very rusty steel, or wood. We saw a couple of man made ponds, notably the one at West Point and it also had a long storage shed with fun doors that identify the contents by the boats’ names.

Sea Cow Pond

Tignish Run

Why worry about colour matching?

West Point Light House, now an inn.

 

Speaking of Skinners Pond, Islanders have made hay over the connection to Stompin' Tom Connors who was fostered to a family in Skinners Pond for four years. We went to the STC for a dinner theatre and it was really a lot of fun. We thought it was sold out but dropped in to the Centre to check about an afternoon entertainment and discovered they always hold seats for drop-ins even if the website says no tickets are available. Here’s the question: why would you drop in if the website says Sold Out?

Stompin' Tom impersonator.

PEI weather chapter 2

And another few things...

I had forgotten how all-encompassing the weather is here and how much conversation about it. It’s too wet and the farmers can’t get on the fields, it’s too dry and the farmers need rain, etc. It’s a volatile climate for sure.

Dorian left quite a mess in its wake, more evident after a few days. Massive poplar trees were uprooted all over the province and we are amazed that very few of them hit buildings turning them into pancakes. Other scrub spruce sections are a mass of toothpicks and more than a few people were without electricity for a week. 

Gary and Lesley had a good weather day or their cruise stop but the day after, with another 3 ships in port, it poured rain all day.

And I mean poured; misery for the passengers trying to make the best of their one day stop. Sunday past, the temperature got up to 21C, yesterday the high was 10C, today 11, and it’s been very windy for 24 hours. Tonight there is a frost warning for the province and Sunday it is supposed to be 22 again. It keeps you on your toes!

Meanwhile w'eve been seeing the sights around town and country as well as eating far too much.
This gorgeous garden is in Rochford Square, about half a block from where Betsy and I spent our first years. Charlottetown was a planned development, laid out on a grid pattern, and there are four of these heritage squares meant to be gathering places.

A bit of family history is that that first house, built in 1878ish and that Dad & Mum paid $6000 for, was expropriated in 1962 by the province to provide for the the construction of the provincial office buildings. As I recall PEI paid about $35,000 for the big beautiful Victoria house and for $25,000 M&D were able to buy a smaller house about 2 blocks away, on the water, facing Government House with no mortgage. Not a bad deal and it also financed our very first "modern" washer and dryer, a fancy Amana refrigerator and a new car!

My mother and her mother were great auction and flea market fans and while my adrenaline picks up at the thought of an auction or an antique store I'm only lukewarm about garage sales. But I broke a pottery chowder bowl in our apartment and the potter closed out her business in 2004, so now we are frequenting thrift shops, flea markets, and other replacement possibility sites. There's nothing like a search mission to get you out and about despite the improbability of success. I've been looking for a particular coffee mug for at least 2 years, to no avail but I keep trying. 
We overheard in a cafe that the last Rustico flea market of the season was the next day and I hauled my friend Marg off to check it out; no chowder bowl or mug but it was a lot bigger and more interesting than I expected in the North Star Arena (rink).

Another day on a tip from other friends we went to Cape Traverse to the Ice Boat store (site of the terminus of the ice-boat ferries, a method of transportation not for the faint of heart.) A well heeled  prairie transplant with a passion for collecting bought first the Masonic lodge and then the about-to-be-torn-down church, sunk a big pile of money into them and filled them with his personal accumulation. Who da thunk? They are both beautiful buildings filled with interesting artifacts, all for sale. :-)

PEI Weather

and a few other things:

Starting week three already and it’s been busy. We spent the first few days with P&E as usual and moved into our 3^rd floor garret on September 2.  I’ll tell you it felt very strange to pack our suitcases and drive across town instead of going to the airport. We are at 6 West Street in Charlottetown and I grew up at 7 West Street, across the street and about 100 yards away. I find myself remembering who lived in the various houses 50 and 60 years ago as we move around the neighbourhood. 

Of course the city is different but also very much the same. We are enjoying access to coffee shops, theatre, etc. on foot instead of by car. I joined an uptown gym (uptown because it’s uphill from here) about 5 blocks away and we are developing a habit of meeting for coffee after my workout. The lobster rolls are negating the workouts to some extent!

We went “down east” one afternoon doing some cemetery hopping, my grandmothers would be proud, looking for ancestors. Found my great greats in the South Lake cemetery along with a lot of others. The old Island families like mine are closely intertwined genetically.

John and Elizabeth Stewart, grt grts

East Point lighthouse

We were supposed to go rafting on the Fundy tidal bore September 6 but Dorian put an end to that plan. We were underwhelmed by the reaction of the rafting company when we cancelled, they obviously not paying attention to the hurricane about to hit the area as a category 2 nor to their customers concerns about it. Storm surges of up to 10 meters, winds of 120km, and torrential rain do not make for a happy adventure.

Covehead Run

It was interesting to experience an almost direct pass over of a hurricane again; it’s been a few decades. During the front side of the storm on Saturday afternoon, after we had prepared as best we could, I sat reading, looking out at the harbour and the wind and waves were running east to west. It was stormy but we were in the lee although the rain was heavy enough to flood the street below. After the eye passed over during the night, the back side of the storm was a wild, wild ride. Our power went out in the wee hours and came back sometime late Sunday. This is now Thursday and 60-70 crews are still working on restoration, tree by tree. The Cavendish area was badly damaged, mostly by the wind but also with flooding.

Confederation Bridge

Sunday we decided to go to Nova Scotia for 24 hours to see the family. They are south of Halifax and the storm was long gone by then. It was still very windy here and we white-knuckled it across the bridge but after that it was fine and we arrived in Upper Tantallon to a summer day.

2 of 3 ships in harbour on Sept. 10

Tuesday, Gary and Lesley Wilson were here from Victoria on the Norwegian Gem cruise ship and the weather was perfect. They had to miss Bar Harbor and Halifax thanks to Dorian, stopping instead in Portland and having an extra sea day. Memorial University reported a 30 meter wave south east of Newfoundland and that is a big pile of water!

We are fortunate to have very good friends here. We aren’t in touch much from year to year but seeing them again is like putting on your favourite comfortable sweater. We don’t fit on the stairway as well as we did 30 years ago when the first version of this photo was taken but we get there with a tug here and a crunch there.

the gang