Interview #79
Name: Art Willcott
Sex: Female
Age: 84
Place and date of birth: St. Alban's, July 31, 1915
Education: N/A
Religion: Roman Catholic
Occupation: Labour
Number of children: 11
Names of children and where they live:
Terry
Joseph
Jerry
Matilda
Basil
Joyce
Joan
Maxine
Dean
Annabella
Helen
Phone: 538-3771
Place of interview: St. Alban's
Date of interview: April 26, 1999
Interviewers: Carla Collier and Dale Willcott
Art Willcott was born on July 31, 1915 in St. Alban's. His parents are Josephine and William Willcott. He grew up in a family of seven, four brothers and three sisters.
Art said, "As a child there was a lot of bad times. We only had molasses, tea and flour to eat. There was no milk or sugar at all. All the stores had no shelves and everything was on the floor. For lights we used to have kerosine lamps. Sometimes we had to walk to Goblin over the country just to get some food." He had to walk over the country because the bay was frozen and the steamers could not get in.
For fun Art would play football and cards. Most of the work that he did growing up was cut firewood and bring water from the well. In the winter time he used an axe to cut a hole in the ice, to get water. There was a huge barrel in his porch that he had to fill. Art's family had a lot of sheep and hens. The hens would lay their eggs in March and they would save the eggs until Easter. They would put them in flour and at Easter they would fry or boil the eggs. He would boil the eggs in a 20-pound kettle.
Some diseases around when Art was growing up were T.B., Measles, chicken pox and typhoid fever. In 1935, Art drank some bog water and got typhoid fever. He said, "It took twenty-one days before I got better." For measles he said they steeped out nanny buttons and drank the liquid. They also steeped out cherry bark and drank that as medicine.
Art said that he had to go to church. He said that his parents dragged him to it when he was six. Church started at nine o'clock and finished at eleven o'clock. There was also catechism taught on Sunday. Art recalled the church being where the fire hall is now.
Art's first job was at the Co-op store, he was a horse tamer and he got fifty cents a day. The first thing he bought with his money was a mouth organ.
Art recalled Christmas being very good or at least he thought it was. There were a lot of syrup, biscuits, and accordion music for entertainment. He said mummering was also a great deal of fun. Art would go to dances at the hall. The dance would start at 8:00 in the morning and go until 6:00 that evening. Art would use coupons to get in the dances. At Christmas time Art would do a lot of skating. One night Art was playing football on the ice and it was that nice out he played until day light. For Christmas he would get an apple from Santa Claus and there would be caribou meat for dinner. Easter was pretty much the same as Christmas, a lot of cake and syrup. His father always had a goose for dinner. He said there were also a lot of rabbits and fish.
For St.Anne's Day Art would go to Conne River in a dory. He said there would be a procession about two miles long. Art said, "All the women had on pretty dresses. The event was really colorful, you could look around and see a lot of blue, yellow, pink, and red. There would be a great feed and we danced all night long. Everyone had a bottle for this occasion."
Art said he was the first person to have a bike. He got it from a man who was from Hermitage in 1931. There were no roads at the time. The roads in the 1950's and Bill Hartery had the first truck. Art never got his drivers licences until he was sixty-five years old. He bought his first car in Grand Falls, April 5, 1979 for $5000.00. It took Art three times to get his license.
Art remembered several bad storms that happened. Once in 1922, he was at a wedding, and it was that stormy they used a log rail against the door to keep it closed. Another storm was the tidal wave of November 18, 1929. Art said the ground shook and the tide came in really high and when it went out, it washed out everything. He said a whole bunch of molasses punches washed out in the bay and everyone was off in their dories after them.
In 1940, Art went overseas for the war. He was twenty-three years old when he left. About ten thousand Canadians went overseas. One hundred and fifty-seven people were from St. Alban's. It took thirty-one days to get to England, which was the first time he was ever outside Roti Point. He went overseas because he was hungry and was desperate.
He went to England on the boat Mendoza. There were 190 ships in the convoy. Art said, "The boat was that big that I could smell the dinning room, but I couldn't find it. It took four days before I found it. The food was good, even had apples and oranges for dessert. There were meat and fish. For breakfast we had toast bread and orange juice. It was the first time I had ever seen orange juice, I had to ask what it was."
Art said, "Some days the sea was good, like glass and sometimes it was the thickest fog." When they got to Northern Scotland they had three days off to rest and shower up. There were twenty people to every camp. They had six months of training for the army before the invasion of France. He had a choice to either go in the army, navy, troops, or the woods. Every morning the whistle would blow at 7:30 for work. Art recalled a tree eighty-three feet long. It took him and another guy four days to cut it down. They used a big crosscut to saw down the tree. Art said they would get twelve days off a year. Whenever they had time off they would visit their friends.
Art had a lot of useful information and was a great help in preserving our communities past.