Interview # 48
Name:
John Dollimont
Sex:
Male
Age:
68
Place and date of birth:
November 6, 1930
Education:
Grade six
Occupation:
Hydro worker
Religion:
Roman Catholic
Number of Children:
7
Names of children and where they live:
Cathy - Nova Scotia
Dale - Ottawa
Robbie - St. Alban's
Phone:
538-3842
Date of interview: March 16, 1999
Place of interview:
St. Alban's
Interviewers:
Dale Willcott and Leah Marshall
John's fathers name was David and his mother's name was Ann Cox from St.
Alban's. His father was born in St. Joseph's Cove and that is where he grew up.
John lived in St. Alban's his whole life, except two years he spent working in
Ontario from 1956 to 1958. "The money you made then was pretty small compared
with today. I got a $1.40 an hour or less than that. It was a long trip. I got on a
coastal boat here, went to Port au Basques, and then onto Sidney. I got on a train
and went on to Ontario." John said. John worked at various jobs when he was on
the mainland.
John was not sure, but he thinks he might have been the first man to drive
home from Ontario in a car. He left on a Sunday and didn't get to North Sidney
until Tuesday night. John was another week trying to get home. "There wasn't
either road so I had to put the car on a steamer to get her home from Port aux
Basques." John said.
"Growing up had its good with the bad. We always had food and that. We
played soccer sometimes over where the school was and didn't play hockey because
nobody had ever heard of hockey then. We would go skating out on the bay and
that. We use to go fishing with my family and berry picking." John said. John
recalled doing a few chores like bringing the water and getting fire wood. His home
had four bedrooms. John had five sisters and one brother. It was very cold, if the
wind blew in one side, it was open enough that the wind would go out the other side.
A few common diseases around back then were the measles and the chicken
pox. He had the measles once. His mother gave him soup for two weeks and would
mix sulfur and molasses to spread on all over him. "You had to sleep like that,
didn't smell very good either. There weren't any showers like today." John said.
John remembered drinking steeped out sheep manure and cherry bark. John
forgot what the sheep manure was for but the cherry bark was for building up iron
in your blood.
"Church was important I suppose, well you had to go and that was it. We
never saw the priest, probably just every two or three weeks and Sunday. Father
St. Croix was the first priest, then Father Hayes." John said. John recalled
everybody being afraid of him. "He was a good fellow, he was a male nurse in
World War 1 you see, that is why he was the doctor and the dentist. They like him
down the Bay because if someone was sick they would go see him. If you had to go
to the hospital, you had to go on a coastal boat to take you to Harbour Breton. The
Bar Haven and the Backalou were a couple of the coastal boats." John said.
The first job John ever had was with Bowater's at camp three. "I suppose I
was nineteen years old then, I got a couple hundred a month." John said. The first
thing John bought was a rifle and he still has it. That was around 1950, John paid
$75.00 for the riffle. "There has been a good many animals shot with that gun."
John said.
When John went to school, everybody had to bring wood and take turns
lighting the fire. "If you didn't bring wood, you would go cold. Most everyone
brought a couple junks to school. The teachers were very strict back then. I didn't
like going to school, use to like to fool around in them days." John said.
"Christmas was okay. It was twelve good days. Never got many toys back
then. We decorated the tree with whatever you could find." John said "We
always went to Cone River for St. Anne's Day. Go down in the boats and come
home for a dance. They held dances in the school." The best holidays to John were
the summer ones. "We'd go swimming and make the hay. Sometimes this would
take two or three days depending on the weather." John said.
The best thing too happen to Bay d'Espoir according to John was Hydro.
"The reason is that I worked there for almost thirty years, after that I retired." He
said. John made $250.00 a month when he started. After he got in the union, he
made a little more money.
John always spent a lot of time in the country with his buddy's John Farrell
and Jake Davis. "We use to go trapping and that. We would get $300.00 a lynx so it
wouldn't bad. We shipped the furs to Ontario somewhere." John said. He never
did make much money because he only went in the country on weekends or when he
saved a week or two of holidays