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- Refer also to The Storm of '35
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- Check the Ontario curriculum
documents and find expectations relating to food supply and
agriculture
We
Had a Mixed Farm...
Our big
vegetable and fruit garden was not far from where Halbert’s Industrial Arts
wing came to be. We grew hay and grain as well as mangolds and turnips. We also
had two orchards. In the corner of the “old” orchard which ran north along
McCowan Road, Albert Parrott had some beehives. In the newer orchard on Kingston Road
between the two big houses were apple, plum, pear, peach and cherry trees.
There were also two big sweet black cherry trees on our front lawn.
In our early
days on the farm the hay was cut and, when dry, drawn loose on a hayrack to the
barn and stored in the mows. The grain was cut by binders, stooked to dry, then
drawn to the barn. Threshing of the grain was done at the barn late in the fall
or early winter after the ploughing and other fall work was finished. Progress
was made when we could thresh in the field. With the arrival of the combine,
harvesting really speeded up. The straw was baled as soon after combining as
possible. The old balers used wire ties. Pick-up balers came next. They followed
the rows of straw in the fields and used twine for tying the bales.
We had two
barns. The older one, behind our house and facing
Kingston Road, was on ground level with a driving shed out front. This was the barn that had
come with the Young farm. The newer barn was over at Uncle Ashley’s. It was a
high bank barn with the stables and root cellar under the hay mows. It was close
to McCowan Road
on our original homestead near where the
Halbert
School
gym is now.
Every fall the
stable in the new barn would be filled with beef cattle to fatten up and sell in
the spring. We only had enough milking cows to supply the two families and my
grandparents with milk and butter. We had four horses, a few pigs and some hens.
When there were too many eggs to use all at once, some would be put in a crock
with waterglass which preserved them until needed, that is when the hens weren't
laying. We survived the depression and never went to bed hungry like many
unfortunate people. But as far as we were concerned, we really had never known
luxury. Everything was just part of life.
In those days
we had to let the cattle out of the barn to be watered. If there was enough
wind, the windmill could pump water into the trough. Occasionally the well would
run dry and we would have to go to another well and pump water into big drums
and haul it to the trough. At these times you realized just how much animals
really drank. Usually the horses were led to the trough for their drink.
On the Neilson
farm on the west side of
McCowan Road
, a development had been started in the 1920s. The streets were marked out and
township watermains were put in. But when the depression hit, the project
stopped. Eventually we were allowed to put a pipeline under the road to a
hydrant and have running water in the stable at the newer barn. At this time the
stable was modernized with water bowls and a litter carrier.
During the
30’s, Dad and Uncle Ashley decided to sell the old steel-wheeled Fordson
tractor. This way, we kids could be kept busier using more “horse” power.
Later on, when the second war started in 1939 and the car companies were
switching over to war-work building tanks and army vehicles, Evans Motors, the
local Ford dealer at
Kingston Road
and St. Clair, bought a supply of new Ford tractors and attachments and stored
some in our old barn. Right about that time we bought a Ford 9N tractor with a
two-furrow plough and cultivator. This tractor is still being used by Bill at
his place in Pickering
.
There were many
beggars travelling on
Kingston Road
and some would come in regularly for a lunch or stay in the barn overnight. One
character came in quite often. We wouldn't know about it until choretime in the
morning. I think the only time he got cleaned up was when the weather got real
cold and miserable and he went to jail.
During the
1930s, a Jewish group bought some property from us on the north side of the
bush. They put up a small building and established a cemetery. Mike O’Brien,
the unemployed sailor who had built a shack on the south side of our bush, dug
some graves for them occasionally.
The first car I
remember on the farm was a Model T touring car. The next was a classy
Willy’s-Knight. It was a big heavy thing that had been owned by the
Ames
brokerage family. I think it had truck tires and there were four spares. It
only had two-wheel brakes and was really hard on brake linings. I never saw
another model like it and I believe if it had been kept, it would be a
valuable antique. Then Dad got a 1928 Pontiac Chief of the Sixes, a real modern
car with four wheel brakes. After it got wrecked in an accident, he got a 1931
Pontiac
.
Then as we kids
got older we picked up an old Model T Ford, stripped it down to chassis, seats
and wheels. We had a lot of fun with this old car and had a regular obstacle
course east of the bush north of Stobos’ where the land was no longer being
worked. Then we got another Model T -- a 1927 coupe. We watched it sitting at
Evans Motors. Nobody seemed interested in it and we were able to buy it for ten
dollars. It had sat on the lot for so long that it wouldn't start, so they towed
it home for free. It was in good shape and we didn't wreck it.
On Sundays we
went to Sunday School and Church at St. Andrew’s. Dinner was right after and
then we were supposed to spend a quiet afternoon reading or looking at pictures.
In the evening we could listen to the radio, that is after we got one. The first
one was the old crystal set with earphones. Then we got a table model with a
speaker on top. There were quite a few comedy shows on the radio -- Amos &
Andy, Fibber McGee & Molly, George Burns and Red Skelton to name a few.
Saturday night was hockey night in
Canada
, with Foster Hewitt broadcasting.
In about 1916
the Sisters of St. Joseph Catholic order had purchased 50 or so acres at the
southwest corner of the farm from my grandfather. They built a convent, barn and
chicken house. Pat and Mike were the hired hands who managed and worked the
farm. When Pat left a fellow named Hugh worked there. Cathedral
Bluffs Drive
goes along pretty well where the Convent driveway was. We had a lane along the
Convent fenceline to get to our fields closer to the lake. Along there, about
halfway to the lake, was a high wooden survey tower and a concrete monument.
On the east
side of our farm and south of
Kingston Road
was
Scarborough
Heights
Park
. Streetcars ran all the way from
Toronto
to West Hill and there was a spur line into the park. It was quite busy on
weekends, but as more people got cars and travelled farther for their
recreation, the park closed. By this time, the streetcars only ran as far as
Scarboro post office at
Kingston Road
and Eglinton. Later, the streetcars only came out to Birchcliff and,
eventually, only to Victoria Park.
Kingston Road
was widened in about 1936 and better bus service became available. St.
Josephs’ purchased the pavilion at the park and got permission to move it
across our farm to their property as a summer place for the sisters.
Shortly after
the war ended, the subdivision on the west side of
McCowan Road
was taken over by the Federal Government, developed and sold to veterans under
the Veterans Land Act. It was called Gordonvale Subdivision.
It seemed
appropriate then, in about 1949, to start developing the McCowan farm. With
property on both sides of Kingston Road
and heavy traffic, it was at times impossible to cross the highway with tractor
and wagon. Streets and pipelines for water were put in. Cummings and Duncombe
put up an office on the
Kingston Road
and sold many lots to builders as well as to individuals and oil companies.
Jack
McCowan, 1990
The
Changing Times
We had a plane come down in Jack Neilson’s field and stayed for a night and a
day. The flyer was up over 8000 feet and got lost. He came down to get his
bearings and came down too quickly and ran into the fence and broke his machine.
He had to sit in it all night so that the wind would not turn it over. Even
though it was a lovely, mild moonlight night, he likely wouldn’t enjoy it.
They got it all fixed and he got away late yesterday afternoon. I had a
compliment paid me yesterday. I was talking to a lady whom I know slightly. She
said, looking at Margaret, “Is this your little girl?” I said this is my big
girl, and she said “Why, I thought she must be your sister!” Papa said,
“No wonder -- you look like a twelve year old in that short skirt”.
Ruth
McCowan Letters, March 31 1918
Last night we
put the clock ahead an hour. It upset Margaret and she wakened and did not get
back to sleep until daylight. The boys [Harold and Ashley] said they wouldn’t
change their time -- it was not going to make any difference to them. I said
“You will be late for church”. Ashley bet a dollar to fifty cents that it
[church] would go in at the old time. He lost, but we got to church in time and
so did everybody else except the Bairds. They came stringing in one at a time to
find the service just over. I suppose in a week we won’t notice the
difference, and it will be just as hard to get back to the old way in October.
Ruth
McCowan Letters, April 10 1918
Harold moved
his clock ahead last night. He wouldn’t when the rest did. He couldn’t see
the sense of it. But they are going to try it for a month. We are quite used to
it now, only it has made it a bit awkward. When Papa would be working with the
boys, he would leave the field for his dinner an hour earlier than they would.
For two days, dinner here waited a whole hour and spoiled. The third day we had
dinner over and the dishes washed when Papa came in. Since Harold changed, we
have had no trouble whatever.
Ruth
McCowan Letters, May 12 1918
Exercises
Individual Exercises
1) Write a 200
word short story (fiction) about a day in the life of a farm boy on the McCowan
Farm. Pretend that you are Bob or Jack. Include some dialogue between you and
your brother.
2)
What is the official term for “moving the clock” in the spring?
Class Discussion
1) What was the
initial purpose of changing the clock in April?
2) What are the
benefits of this today?
3) Why do you
think some farmers were originally so reluctant to “change the clock” in
April?
The
Scarboro Heights Record V14 #8
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