My PEI Stories and Recollections

Before my father (Frank a Xavier) moved back to St.Chrysostome to take over his old homestead farm, he lived across Canada. He worked as an accountant, bank employee, and army clerk (WWII). So, our Dad became the only farmer and part-time accountant we knew of in the community. Even though PEI is small, our Dad would often be away from home for 2 - 3 days on an accounting job. In the 1950s and 60s, the roads in PEI could have been better, and it wasn't practical to commute daily across the island. The solution to keeping the farm operating day-to-day was to have a hired hand -- my siblings and I were still too young to manage (and our mother had her hands full with seven kids plus her mother-in-law).  When I was about 10 or 12, we had Andre a Theodore as our hired hand. He was the son of Theodore a Pierre, our neighbour and farmer. Andre only had a few academic skills but had good experience with farm animals and current farming practices. He was a bit thick-headed, which sometimes...

I started Grade 1 in 1960 at the St. Chrysostome two-room school. The school building is now a house and has mostly stayed the same in appearance. But, I'm sure the house facilities have been upgraded since 1960. In my six years at the Rocky Point school, we had no running water or bathroom in the school building, and the heating system was two woodstoves -- one in each room.    St. Chrysostome school building, circa 1981   School today (2020) There are many school stories that I remember from those six years. Many memories are about the rough play at recess and lunchtime (e.g. tag, bulldog, boxing, etc.). In those days, there was no supervision at recess, and both teachers went home for lunch! Basically, kids could do what they wanted as long as they didn't get caught by the teachers. For the boys, soccer was a popular outdoor sport in the schoolyard. It wasn't precisely soccer sometimes, more like rugby! One winter, the snow was so high against th...