Interview #55

Name: Gordon Long

Sex: Male

Age: 75

Place and date of birth: Deep Water Point, October 30, 1923

Education: Grade 6

Occupation: Woodsman, Forestry Unit, Bowaters, Hydro Worker

Religion: Roman Catholic

Number of children: 6

Names of children and where they live:

Juanita Organ (St. Alban's) Margaret Power (St. Alban's)

Johnny (British Columbia) Terry (British Columbia)

Colin (Nova Scotia) Clayton (St. John's)

Phone: 538-3128

Place of interview: St. Joseph's Cove

Date of interview: March 29, 1999

Interviewers: Sheri Peters and Pamela Organ

Gordon Long is the son of Bernard and Margaret Francis Long. He was born at Deep Water Point. His father was born in Great Jarvis. Gordon had one sister named Barbara (Sutton). His mother's parents were John Kearley and Francis Organ. His grandfather was born in Patrick's Harbour and his grandmother was born in Harbour Galley. His family moved from Great Jarvis to Head of Bay d'Espoir.

When Gordon was a young boy, he carried wood to school to light the fire. He attended two schools, an Anglican school in Head of Bay d'Espoir and a Catholic school in St. Alban's. His teachers at the Anglican school were John Spencer and Carrie Andrews from Gaultois.

At the age of fourteen, Gordon left school to begin working in the woods with his father. At that time, he was only getting thirty dollars a month. Gordon remembered that once, a ship capsized and twenty-five men were knocked over in the water and hundreds of logs floated in the water. His father was struck in the back with a piece of wood and ended up getting sick with "Rheumatic Fever." His father had to give up work and go on welfare. He only received eight dollars a month. When the welfare found out that Gordon was getting thirty dollars a month, they cut off his father's welfare. Gordon's thirty dollars and his grandfather's old age pension of twelve dollars a month had to due for the whole family. They got milk and butter from the cows and they had sheep so they could get wool. His father owned a vegetable garden. At one point, he grew over one hundred sacks of potatoes.

Gordon worked in the woods until the age of seventeen. After this, he left and went overseas to work in the Forestry Unit at Scotland. It took thirty-one days to cross the Atlantic. He said, "Men from all over went overseas." Gordon left Bay d'Espoir on the Baccalieu and went to North Sydney. From North Sydney, the Baccalieu went to Montreal. It stayed there for nine days. After this, it went down to the St. Lawrence River. Lastly, the Baccalieu went to Scotland. He said, "Over there, the weather was much the same as back here."

In Scotland, Gordon had to sleep in camps. These camps held about twenty men per cabin. At first, they had to sleep on boughs. There were rats everywhere. At one point, a rat scratched Richard Willmott's nose. It became infected and he had to be taken to the doctor. There was a separate camp where the men ate. The food was supplied to them.

Gordon got paid fifty dollars a month, which was considered good money back then. The men got a fifty-cent bonus if they worked in the Miesel. If someone missed a day from work, they were charged a dollar for board and they lost a day's wages. The men could get out on a pass anytime they wanted and sometimes a bus took them out of the camps on the weekends. They also got two weeks on leave a year. Gordon said, "I liked it over there. I had a good life." He said he felt bad to leave. The men came back on a passenger ship called the Mandosa. Gordon was overseas from June 28, 1941 to April 16, 1946, a total of four years and ten months.

When Gordon came back from overseas, he got married on October 8, 1947, at the age of twenty-three. He settled in St. Joseph's Cove and started working with Bowaters part-time until 1958. After Bowaters, he worked in Glenwood doing Mechanical Logging for five years. He remembered Uncle Dave and Uncle John Kearley walking to Glenwood to go to work. He said, "You did what you had to do to survive." After working in Glenwood, he worked with the Foundation. After this, he worked at Churchill Falls for seven years. He did not plan to work any more after Churchill Falls but he got a call to work with the Department of Highways and he worked there for three years until he retired at the age of sixty.

Gordon said there was a school and church all in one located in St. Joseph's Cove. He and his wife got married in that church, fifty-three years ago. At that time, the population of St. Joseph's Cove consisted of thirty-nine families. The population was bigger back then compared to today. After the building closed down, two bus loads of children were brought up to St. Alban's to go to school.

In the past, Gordon remembered that people got water from a brook but after awhile, they got water from a well. Gordon said, "You had to empty your waste overboard every morning." When the men went to work, the women tended to the children as well as daily chores. Gordon said tha