THE FARM ON THE BACK ROAD
We had a farm (on the "back road"…near Twin Lakes). We had a small barn there for the horse. Out there we stumped the garden. Dad fixed up a stumper and we used the horse to pull the stumps...like a wince, to pull the stumps out. We planted potatoes and turnips. We used to put our cows out to pasture there and sometimes they'd get out of the fence into the dump. The dump was right there. You could see the cows from home in the dump. We'd have to go out and get them and put them back in the pasture again.
We used to get milk. We had a pasteurization plant until Broomhead came in. We sold milk to the hospital and around town. We used to get quarts of milk with the cream on the top. You don't get that now!
Grandpa looked after the barn and he looked after the cows. We had to help milk the cows. We used to go on the milk tour. Allan was the driver, the milk deliverer. We used to ride the sleigh and deliver milk to the doors, at Christmastime especially. We'd get candies! We had the dairy before the Broomheads. Broomhead had a. pasteurization plant. That's when we got out of it then. We killed all the cows. I don't know whatever happened to "Billy" the horse, though! He was an old bow-legged horse...stayed out in the bush most of the time. Dad got the horse from Nicholson - a big male horse - boy he was a big horse! He used to get out of the pasture and swim across the pond in the back river.
(There was a gravel pit of at the farm. The gravel from there was used to build the old curling rink that was on Pine Street). All the gravel came from the pit out at the farm. Billy the horse would pull it for the curling rink. It all came from the pit. The curling rink on Pine Street, that's where it was. Pat Swanson was the driver for Billy. He used to haul that for a mile and a half for the curling rink. McLeod's were interested in it (the land where the farm was located) because there was a lot of minerals in the rock.
I tried to get the land after I came back from overseas. No way! The "Ministry" didn't know where the land was! "Well, I'll show you", I told them. "Come with me and I'll show you where the survey line is". It belongs to the Indian Reserve now. It's not supposed to...it's supposed to belong to my father. I could show them where it is. I showed them on a map. I pointed on the map where it was, but "no way" - they had no idea of it.
By the time I came back from overseas it was all gone by then, Bill McPhail was the head of the "lands" department. He and George used to drink quite a bit. George got tangled up with that and he gave it back to the government again, when he was drinking. At least, that's what I heard, I don't know if he got any money.
Dad and mother went looking for a farm (in southern Ontario), because he was going to buy a farm when he retired...take all the boys and work the farm. He went down to Toronto once and looked at a farm down there. He had it all picked out...somewhere there...Mississauga somewhere. He walked a long way in Toronto to go to church...Mr. Blodgett's church...that's the church he went to. He walked all the way down Yonge Street from the station to go to church. (Mr. Blodgett was Rector of St John's, Chapleau and was close to the Corstons. He became Rector of the Church of the Epiphany, Parkdale, in Toronto after he left Chapleau. I once met his daughter at a Wycliffe College reunion and she told me that same story of the day Mr. Corston walked from Union Station to the church to see her father).
We used to go to Desbarats, but I can't remember what for. I can remember going there, because we fished catfish in the creek there, He used to go to Desbarats...to a house on the hill. He'd go there a few times...once that I know. I don't know who was there though. I went down there. Clifford remembers going there. I remember going there. There was a horse-race track with carts at Desbarats. We used to go to the horse races. We'd only go there for three or four days, that's all.
Dad went back to Moose, hunting with the engineers from the railroad...Nolan and Clifton. Cecil and Luella got dad's gun...a 22 high powered. (Keeter Corston now owns the gun!)