GOODBYE OLD HOUSE

The Mason home in Sydney, Nova Scotia
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The strike by the men working on the steel plant railway began in 1919 and dragged on into 1920. There were two major issues. The men were not happy working seven twelve hour shifts a week and for little more than 18 cents an hour.

The company had them over a barrel in many ways but one was more important than any of the others. Most of the men lived in company houses. These houses were quite nice and the men would never find any housing like them anywhere else in town.

Bernie had been lucky in 1915 when he first got a company house. Actually it really wasn't Bernie but his young wife who badgered the company for one of the new just completed houses. They moved in with their two young children and with work plentiful during the war years things went along fine. That is until one day Annie's faith in the new houses was shattered.

She had just taken in the baby from the carriage that was out on the front veranda. A few minutes later she went back out to find that the empty carriage had rolled off the rail-less veranda and straight down eight feet onto the hard rocky ground below. There-after she was nervous whenever the young ones weren't in sight. Once again she trotted off to the company to see if she could get one of the older company houses "on the road" for they were built solidly on the ground. But more, most of her friends lived "on the Road".

Finally in 1917 she succeeded. Shortly after they moved into the house the company had installed central plumbing and heating. One of the nice size bedrooms upstairs was made over into a spacious three piece bathroom and a grand sink was put in the kitchen. floor furnace provided heat for the whole house and with coal less than a dollar a ton the family would be cozy all year long. Life was moving along beautifully until the strike came. Annie, and the by now three children were enjoying their spacious house and the friendly neighborhood.

The company ordered all the men back to work. A few went but most didn't. They were all fired and shortly after ordered to vacate the company houses. Annie was devastated. It was a turning point in her married life. She looked on as many of her friends stayed in their company houses and she and her family were served with eviction orders. With some little savings and no prospects for getting help from the banks.she began her sad search for a place to live.

They eventually found a place "in the back woods" that an old country Scotsman had built three years before. There were a couple of other houses on the shady street but for the most part the place was surrounded by acres of bushland. No one would give them mortgage money except a private person from miles away. They paid their $1000 down and arranged a 7 year loan for $1500 at four percent. The day she walked through the front door was not the happiest day in Annie's life.

Annie missed her friends terribly and saw this move as a backward one. The toilet was outside. The house was small and cut up with three tiny slanted ceiling bedrooms upstairs. The fireplace and the kitchen stove were the only sources of heat and the back-breaking handpump in the wet basement was the only source of water. That all began on October 5th, 1921. But even before they moved in they had to pay their first property tax bill the previous month which amounted to $18.85 which was $3.60 more than Bernie used to make in a week.

I mention "used to" because right now Bernie had no work and so the family had to live on what little was left of their savings. That first winter Bernie polished his expertise in snaring rabbits and backyard duck provided their Christmas dinner for five.

Now its May 15th, 1985 almost 64 years later. The six children have grown up and gone their separate ways. Bernie died in 1976 at home, alone with his wife of some 65 years, in his 92nd year. Annie, now approaching her 95th, could no longer carry on by herself. After Christmas she had gone to live with her youngest daughter seventy-five miles away. She had come back for one last visit before the old house was sold to a young married couple. It looked like it had pretty well since she moved in those 64 years ago. Most of the decor and furnishings seemed to be there for years.

A few friends and neighbors came by and many of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren dropped in to see "nannie" and "grammie". In a way they were much sadder than she was for all their memories of their grandmother were tied to this place. On her last night she slept in "their" bedroom, the very room in which her youngest three had been born. After supper she slipped on her light spring coat, was helped up into the truck and the door closed.
Her final words: "Goodbye old house".

Fr Jim Mason, CSsR
1985