Ray's Corner

Working at Tupper Warne's Mill

"...We grew up, and the way we grew up we grew up rough and tough, and I left home to work out, oh, I think I was about maybe 16-17, I left home and worked out from then on and I'd only be home at the odd time when I didn't have a job and it was pretty rough times and things was hard. And I know along in 1930 I went down to Tupper Warne's to work. Well from my home to Tupper Warne's was about 20 miles and I had to walk 20 miles to Tupper's and I had to walk 20 miles back home. And I had to work 50 cents a day and take the trade out of the store - they wouldn't give you no money, you couldn't get any money. And Saturday night I'd come in, I was driving a pair of oxen in the woods, and Saturday night I'd come in oh, about 8-9 o'clock, and I had to line up in the line up. Well then when you got up to the counter and told them what you wanted for the week why they'd throw it in an old meal bag and you'd had to chuck that over your back and head for home. Well, we'd get home at night maybe 11-12 o'clock and the next afternoon we'd have to start walking back to Digby again. There was quite a bunch of men we picked up in Bear River, about 14-15, and up in home where I lived there was three of us went down, one fellow was a truck driver and the other fellow he was teaming oxen with me. I worked there all that summer; in the fall I had appendix and I had to go in the hospital and have my appendix removed and I didn't go back there again. So after that I worked in the mills and around the woods and everywhere and so I kept that up until I went in the Service..."