When my granny was a little girl her mom bought her a dress. One day she saw another girl named Elsie.  She was wearing the same dress. After school she went to take Elsie’s dress and ran. Later she gave it back but she got in trouble.

When she was little they had no electricity and no running water. She lived in a two story house and her auntie kept them.

She washed clothes by hand in a tub.  Afterwards she put the tub on the floor with the water in it saying she will dump it later. But later her friend came to visit and asked her to go to the dance. She was all for it!! While getting ready in the evening she was so excited she tripped over the tub and fell in. She ended up not going to the dance because she was all wet!!

When my auntie was young and going to school there was not much to do around here.  They would go to the trap line with her mom, dad, brothers and sisters. Back in the good old days there wasn’t that much violence around, not like today. Almost every month you see court being held here in the community.

My auntie would leave for a month, maybe two, and sometimes they would live off the land.  My grandfather would show them how to trap and go snaring rabbits to eat.  He would go set nets for fish. What he caught my granny  would smoke and store them away for the coming winter.  As my other aunties got older they didn’t want to go to camp because they found themselves boyfriends and then later on got married. They would also shoot ducks and freeze them. This was in the fall. Food like sugar, flour, salt and pepper was all they needed out there.  It was fun back then; now it’s so hard to tell your kids what’s right and wrong. 

When my granny was small she was poor.  She hardly went to school.  She had to work hard to have a home with her family.  Her dad only made a little money to feed his family. 

My granny had one brother and two sisters.  Everyone in their family had to raise money to keep each other. 

Then my grandpa went to the war.  He made it back to Cumberland.  He got lots of money.  They bought furniture and food.  My granny still keeps old stuff in a glass cupboard so we can see them.

Once, long ago, when my granny and grampa were young, they told me that they lived in log houses.  They always had to help out on chores too.  They would get a little bit of money to buy candy.  Their mothers and fathers bought food.  They would always buy vegetables, meat, and rice.

Most of the time my grampa had to go out into the bush to get some meat.  He said he always had to chop wood and then eat supper.  They always had to eat wild meats.  When they were done supper, they were to go and cut up more wood and then come inside.  Before they went to bed, they would always tell all kinds of stories like how they used to be treated nicely.

When they got up they would eat outside.  They woke up at 7:00 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. to work almost all day.

A long time ago when we were young children we all lived in a log house; my mother, my father and four sisters and four brothers.

In the 1950’s and early 1960’s we did not have power in our settlement.  All we used was coal oil lanterns.  We also used wood stoves to keep our house warm and for cooking our meals.  For our wood we had to go to the bush and cut and chop trees.  We hauled it back to our house in a big sled that our father made.

The older children helped with the daily chores.  Our mother scrubbed our clothes in a wash board and tub.  There was no running water, we hauled our water from the river.  We used wagons in the summer and sleds in the winter, we melted snow in the winter.  It was a bit easier on us.  Some days were hard and some good but we had each other. 

When power was installed in Cumberland House everything changed.  We had electricity so we had a television, but we had only black and white and one station, CBC.  Today all you do is flick a switch or push a button.  I remeber my younger days all are good memories.