Interview # 41

Name: Anne Cobb

Sex: Female

Age: 69

Place and date of birth: St. Alban's, February 22, 1930

Education: Grade 8

Religion: Roman Catholic

Occupation: Housekeeping

Number of children: 1

Names of children and where they live:

Christopher (St. Alban's)

Phone: 538-3478

Place of interview: Voyce Cove Road (St. Alban's)

Date of interview: March 10, 1999

Interviewers: Curtis Hoskins and Colin Pittman

Anne Cobb was born in St. Alban's on February 22, 1930. Her parents, William Collier from St. Alban's and Elizabeth Barnes of St. Veronica's, lived and raised their family in St. Alban's. Her mother had six children. They lived in a big house that they kept warm by putting blankets on the walls during the winter. Their chimney was only a pipe connected to the stove. There were only bare floors in the house. Anne's mother made mats to put on the floor. There were all beams in the house. She remembered the house being a warm and comfortable place to live.

Anne's father worked in the woods most of his life. She remembered how she wanted to get up early in the morning when he came back from the country because her mother fried pork rations and moose.

Anne had to bring in water, scrub floors, empty slop buckets, and wash clothes. These are the chores she had to do around the house when she was younger. For fun, she played hopscotch, went swinging, and picked berries. Another pastime that Anne did was meeting the steamers that came into the bay. A particular time stood out for Anne. When she was fifteen, she fell into the steamer's tracks. Anne and her friends went out to meet the steamer without their parent's permission. Once, Anne went aboard the boat with Mary Farrell who was an older married woman. When they left, Anne and Mary jumped off the ladder. Unfortunately, Anne jumped right beside Mary and slipped. She fell into the edge of the ice. She could not stop herself with her arms. Goward Hoskins happened to be there and pulled her out.

Anne's family made their own clothes. Anne recalled the first coat she ever had. It was a white coat that her mother made out off sheep's wool. She put floor bags in for the lining. All the other children picked at the coat and called her an old sheep.

When Anne was ten, she fell down and hurt her knee. She said, "The fall knocked the glue right out of my knee." Her mother discovered the injury when she was getting Anne ready for school. Anne was too scared to mention it to anyone. By the time her mother discovered the injury, an infection had set in. Anne was sent to Harbour Breton by herself. She was put in the care of the purser. When she came back, she had a cast on her leg. Anne wore this cast for six months. Because the infection was not treated, she could smell something funny coming from her cast so her mother got a nurse to take the cast off. There were no doctors in St. Alban's at this time. Her leg was black because the infection had spread. Her father boiled water to wash the leg and put Vaseline on it three or four times a day. A bread poultice was placed on it to draw out the infection. It worked very well and Anne's leg was saved. The only problem she had was walking. It was not until she was thirteen that her father told her to walk across the room. He would give her a fifty-cent piece if she could walk across the room. She made it and she still has the money today.

Some holidays that Anne celebrated were Easter, St. Anne's Day, and Christmas. For Easter, the celebration mainly included church services. She said, "These services were different from what we have today." The priest said parts of the Mass with his back to the people and the Mass was said in Latin. For St. Anne's Day, people went to Conne River to celebrate. They went down in schooners or boats (skiffs) to have Mass. There was a social for anyone who stayed. Anne said that Christmas was a special time. People celebrated the twelve days. She went mummering all the time even until the tradition died out. Her family's Christmas tree never went up until the last minute. For decorations, they used Christmas cards received in past years. The cards were put on a string and hung on the tree. Anne remembered one Christmas when her father was away from home and he sent home some toys for them. She got a doll and her brother Harold broke the its leg off.

When Anne was seventeen, she went to Stephenville to work for a priest named Father Styles. The house she worked in was very different from what she was use to. For one thing, it had electricity. It was a big house with visitors coming and going all the time. The priest's sister was the housekeeper. She taught Anne a lot about house work. When she first got there, she was homesick. She did not have any money and she could not phone home because there were no phones. Sending a letter and getting a reply took months.

Anne stayed there for thirteen months before coming back to St. Alban's for a visit. She realized she did not want to stay home. When she went back to work in Stephenville, she became bored and asked Father Styles if he could help. He got her a job in the Stephenville Crossing hospital. She worked there for six months. Anne stayed with Father Styles for nineteen months and made fifteen dollars a month plus room and board. One of the reasons she left was that Father Styles did not want her to go out anywhere because he was responsible for her and did not want anything to happen to her.

After working at the hospital, Anne went to Armenville Base and got a job with Mrs. Johnson. Anne worked with kids and she said, "It was a hard job." The kids would spit on the windows that she had just cleaned. She left this job and went back to St. Alban's again.

After being home for a while, Father Hayes got Anne a job with Geraldine Guile. She and some of her friends went to St. John's to work for her. She stayed there for a few months. While she was there, having experience working for the clergy, she applied to the Roman Catholic Palace. Here, she worked for Bishop Skinner and Bishop McGrall. She received praise for her work by them. While she was in St. John's, she met Ted Cobb, who she later married at the St. Alban's parish in 1953.

There were some complications with the marriage due to the fact Ted was a stranger and an Anglican. Before they could get married, her family had to send a wireless telegram to Ted's family to see if he was free to marry. When it was confirmed that he was, the fact that he was Anglican was still a problem. Father Hayes washed Ted with Holy Water, confirmed him, and baptized him. Anne and Ted accepted this because they wanted to get on with their lives together. Everyone was welcome to come to the wedding. No invitations were sent out. She said,"That wasn't done back then. You just came if you wanted to." The cake and tea for the wedding were prepared by Jude Collier and Sue Benoit.

Anne and Ted left for Toronto after the wedding and got jobs. They did not care for having a lot of money and they felt out of place in the big city so they decided to move back home to St. Alban's. Back in St. Alban's, Anne started working for Father Hayes doing housework and cooking. She said, "People use to wonder how we use to clean up all the dirt he had there."

After thirteen years of marriage, Anne and Ted did not have any children. This was frowned upon in a Catholic community. Father Hayes advised Anne to see a doctor. At first, she did not agree with Father Hayes because she felt it was in God's hands whether or not she was going to have a baby. She eventually saw a few doctors but received no good news. At one time when Anne was in St. John's to see a doctor, she met a woman who told her to stay the way she was because there were plenty of babies in the world who needed a mother. Anne took this advice and decided to adopt a baby.

When Anne came back home from St. John's, she wrote a letter to the Salvation Army who sent the letter to a social worker Josh Benson. He came to see her and told her to fill out an application. There was nothing stopping them except lack of available work so Ted left St. Alban's to find work. Her mother-in-law told her to stay home and look after the house.

Anne got the call when Ted was away that a baby was ready if she wanted him. She left right away to pick up the baby whose name was Christopher. Anne had Christopher for eleven months when she found out that he was not christened. She went to Father Ryan to get him baptized but he refused to do it. Father Ryan told Anne that he needed more proof that the baby was hers and what documents that they possessed. Eventually, a mission Father came to town. Anne showed him her papers and he agreed to baptize her son.

Anne had many interesting stories. Her wedding to Ted and her adoption of Christopher were stories that we had heard little about before.