Interview with Dolena MacLeod/McLean April 16, 2019 follow up visit July 19/19 re the Stirling Mine.
Where Dolena Worked
JEANETTE: You worked there (at the Stirling mine) with Bessie?
DOLENA: Yes
JEANETTE: Would you call that the main office?
DOLENA: Yes. I started there in Feb. of 1952.
JEANETTE: Then Bessie would be there before (you came)?
DOLENA: Yes. Bessie left in 1954.
JEANETTE: Bessie said that at first they were set up in a little building and then she moved over to where the main office was.
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: So, you were always in the same office while you were there?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: When you were there the electricity was there because Bessie said it just came in around that time.
DOLENA: Oh, yes. There was electricity then but when she first went there, there wasn’t.
JEANETTE: What did you do there?
DOLENA: Well just general office work.
JEANETTE: Did you type letters?
DOLENA: Yes. I didn’t take dictation. I studied it but I didn’t do it. They wrote out their letters in long hand we’d just type them up.
JEANETTE: That would be like the bosses or the managers - they’d come into your office?
DOLENA: And just leave it on the desk.
JEANETTE: And then you’d have that typed up for them?
DOLENA: Yes
JEANETTE: Would you be called a secretary?
DOLENA: No. They’d just called us by our names.
JEANETTE: You weren’t married then?
DOLENA: No.
JEANETTE: Bessie said she ordered everything.
DOLENA: They would pass out sheets for us to type up the orders.
JEANETTE: So, they’d have a list, and then would you call the company you were ordering it from?
DOLENA: No. There was no phone there when I went there. But if it were urgent (they’d send it by telegraph). Jean Taylor’s telegraph office was moved out there (Stirling Mine). The telegraph was down in the office. She had a desk there. We’d hear her coding. When the mine closed they took that. She probably took it back to her house.
JEANETTE: So, she would have had the telegraph before the mine.
DOLENA: Yes, and I believe her mother before her had it.
JEANETTE: So, she would have taken her equipment down there (to the mine) and they would have had to run a line down there (to the mine) for her I guess.
JEANETTE: In your office. There would be Arthur LeBrun, Walter MacDonald, and Kelly. Do you remember him?
DOLENA: Bern Kelly. They had a little girl. Her name was spelt “ Jo’ann”.
JEANETTE: That was different.
DOLENA: He was very quiet. He just did his work and that was it.
JEANETTE: Where did he live?
DOLENA: There were people who lived in those houses (on mine property) who would go and someone else would come there to live. He may have been in one of those houses.
DOLENA: They were official. They had prominent jobs. He was a bookkeeper or an accountant.
JEANETTE: When he got married did his wife come down to live (with him)?
DOLENA: Oh, yes.
JEANETTE: Right. They had the little girl Jo’ann.
DOLENA: Yes. Now they had another child a boy, but I don’t know what his name was. Just that the name was different, (or else) I wouldn’t remember it.
DOLENA: There was Bessie, Art and I in the inner office. Bessie worked until 1954.
JEANETTE: Now, Kenny MacEwen did he work in the office?
DOLENA: He would come into our office for a change for a break. He worked in the same building in an office in front of us. There was Kelly, MacEwen, Ernie Chiasson then Jean Taylor.
JEANETTE: Then there was Gilbert Prime and his wife. Would he be in the office.
DOLENA: No. She would be a sister to Kenny.
JEANETTE: Were there two timekeepers, Walter MacDonald from Fourchu and Arthur LeBrun from Arichat?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: That Bern Kelly, he was from out west somewhere?
DOLENA: I think so.
The Ore
JEANETTE: Do you remember who the ore was sold to? From St Peter’s, it went on a train to somewhere. Did you know where it went or who bought it?
DOLENA: No. It went to a refinery or somewhere, I guess.
JEANETTE: Do you know if they had any contracts with any companies or the government?
DOLENA: No.
The Post Office
JEANETTE: When you were sending an order out, would you be sending it out by mail?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: There was a post office up at….
DOLENA: John G’s (Spinner’s) then later it would be at Hughie MacDonald’s.
Note: During Follow up visit July 19/19 Jeanette told Dolena that Marjorie (Diddy) Johnson MacLeod said that she didn’t remember any mail being sent out or delivered to the mine. Dolena said she saw Bessie opening mail but didn’t remember anyone going up to the Post office. She thought perhaps mail may have been sent out and received in Sydney, perhaps at a PO Box. Dolena noted that John G had the post office in their house in the 40’s but later had it in his store (John G MacLeod’s) and likely was still there when Spinner’s took it over in the 50’s.
The Main Office
DOLENA: I used to stay at John G’s in the wintertime. I would walk down that mine road to work.
JEANETTE: From the main road
DOLENA: Yes, down their driveway and then down.
JEANETTE: Then you’d be walking by Spinners and then the little Babcock’s house which ended up having a post office in it eventually, right?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: You’re making the turn and going down the road to the mine. You are passing the stores. The Chinese restaurant is the last one down?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: There’s a house here, might it be the main office? Referring to Photo #2 - 4th building down on left.
DOLENA: It might have been because it had an upstairs. The engineers were upstairs. Yes. That’s the office, because the men when they came for their checks went in that little porch and there was a window there. LeBrun parked right by the office.
JEANETTE: There’s another building with several cars parked next to it (on the right). It looks like it could have been the “overflow” bunk house that you mentioned earlier. DOLENA: The steel workers who built the shaft stayed there. There were some fellows from Trout Brook. They weren’t there very long.
DOLENA: Now this LeBrun, he used to have this smaller building and there were people staying in it. But he didn’t stay there. I think he was up in the bunkhouse. He was building a house in Arichat and he travelled (back and forth) a lot. He was married while he was working there, and this was while he was getting the house ready. And Kenny MacEwen rode with him sometimes. And there was a Johnson fellow from Johnstown, Greg Johnston. He was working upstairs.
DOLENA: I don’t believe there were cars allowed beyond the office.
JEANETTE: We were just talking about people coming in for their cheques. That’s one of the things you did? Everyone who worked at the mine would come in to get their cheques?
DOLENA: They came to the little window at the side entry at the office. That was at the end of the office that we worked in. They went in there and there was a window where the timekeeper passed the check. They didn’t come into the office. They came in that small little entry. There was a French man who came into the office. He was so comical. He had a house. That house was bought by Harold Clarke from Gabarus.
JEANETTE: So, everybody got their checque there?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: Every two weeks?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: So, the timekeeper kept record of the time, gave it to you and you wrote out the cheques?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: Were they company checks?
DOLENA: I think they had “Mindemar Metal, Stirling, Nova Scotia”. I’m not sure of that.
DOLENA: I think the staff was not on the payroll in Stirling. They must have got the pay from the head office.
JEANETTE: So, you folks wouldn’t be writing out your own cheques?
DOLENA: I never remembered writing out our cheques.
JEANETTE: And the mine managers, you didn’t write out their checks?
DOLENA: No.
JEANETTE: They got paid from the head office?
DOLENA: I think that’s right. I never gave it a thought.
The Stores
JEANETTE: Morrison’s store sold hardware, groceries?
DOLENA: Yes, well that’s right. Hooper’s was much the same.
JEANETTE: So, Danny Shaw’s?
DOLENA: They sold meat and so did Morrison’s. I’m not so sure about Charlie Hooper. Morrison’s just had a General store. Just about everything you would need.
DOLENA: Duncan worked there first, maybe when he finished school in St Peter’s and maybe on his vacations.
JEANETTE: He worked at Danny Shaw’s!?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: He also worked at my father’s (Soutter Strachan’s) garage. He had a garage there, almost across from Morrison’s. He had a gas pump there.
DOLENA: Yes. It was a service station. I used to get gas there. They did other work as well.
JEANETTE: They fixed cars, fixed tires and changed oil.
DOLENA: That’s right.
JEANETTE: Who would wait on you there?
DOLENA: Just young boys from around. Your dad worked at the mine.
JEANETTE: Do you remember the mechanic who worked there, Severence, from Fourchu.
DOLENA: Yes. I remember him
JEANETTE: He had Polio when he was younger, but he got around well in the garage.
DOLENA: Oh, yes.
JEANETTE: He walked with crutches and had no problem getting under cars at the garage.
JEANETTE: And the Stirling school was down a little further?
DOLENA: Oh, yes.
JEANETTE: So, that was all the stores they had?
DOLENA: The tearoom - the Chinese restaurant; It was very close to Danny Shaw’s store. Just adjacent to it on the same side of the street.
Where People Lived
JEANETTE: So, Bessie said there were three mine houses as you were going down the (mine) road. There’s a big internet tower there now and Bessie said that’s where they were. Do you know who lived there? Bardswick, he was in one of those houses?
DOLENA: Yes. I don’t know which one.
JEANETTE: Who else?
DOLENA: Gordon Michaelson. He was the mine manager. Editor's Note: Michaelson’s house was sold to Catherine MacLeod, Dan Alex MacLeod’s mother and moved to Stirling. See Bessie Morrison’s interview. It has burnt down in recent years. Bunclark’s was the other house on the hill (See Angus MacLeod’s Interview).
JEANETTE: Chisholm - where was he?
DOLENA: Now he was on the other side.
JEANETTE: Behind John G’s?
DOLENA: Yes, He was the boss.
JEANETTE: Did one of the houses go down to the Meadows Road?
DOLENA: Yes. There’s an intersection there. There’s the meadows road and its up back.
DOLENA: That was the president from the 50’s. I think it would have been one of the houses behind John G's.
JEANETTE: So, they were quite big houses then?
DOLENA: Yes, but that was the larger home.
JEANETTE: MacLeod was on the hill (behind John G’s)?
Dolena: Yes. Editor's Note: MacLeod’s house was sold to Dolena Mac Leod (Dolena’s aunt) and then later sold to Duncan and Greta MacLeod and was moved to Sydney.
JEANETTE: Just talking about Norman Alex’s (first) house - that it came from the mine. Editor's Note: Norman Alex’s house was one of the houses on the hill on the left hand side.
DOLENA: It burnt, yes in the wintertime. I’d say it was the winter of 61.
JEANETTE: So, the existing house: It came from the mine too?
DOLENA: Yes. That is what they brought down- that house from Stirling. It was like a hall or something.
JEANETTE: So, it was sort of like a mess hall or something?.
DOLENA: They remodelled it.
JEANETTE: So, this building that Ramsey remodelled was the building that looked like a hall. So that house is still standing.
DOLENA: It looked like a hall. (Editor's Note: Allister MacLeod, Norman Alex’s son told me that this building was one of the early bunkhouses that was just past the gate right hand side)
JEANETTE: And Dan Norman’s shed- that came from the mine too. Editor's Note: This is likely another early bunkhouse that was on the left-hand side which was later used as the movie theatre and after the mine closed was moved down to Dan Norman MacLeod’s.
JEANETTE: Do you remember anyone from Dogpatch?
DOLENA: I couldn’t call them by name, but I was familiar with them – that they were from that area.
JEANETTE: Aunt Wilma’s bungalow came from there, right? It was the first house in that road.
DOLENA: That family that owned that house, I knew him a bit because he was a big man. He spoke very loud. He was known as The Cowboy.
JEANETTE: Did he have a family?
DOLENA: Yes. There was a child born while they were there. I think he had four boys.
JEANETTE: I think John Archie Munroe lived there.
DOLENA: He was on the opposite side of the road. On that side of the road some people had small houses.
JEANETTE: Do you remember Parker’s?
DOLENA: I remember the name, yes
JEANETTE: I think they were at Annie and Neil MacIntosh’s house.
DOLENA: Yes, yes.
JEANETTE: I think they rented it or bought it. They stayed there.
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: They worked at the mine; I assume?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: (They lived) over by the mine muck on the Three Rivers Rd (aka- Barren Rd).
DOLENA: Yes. It was farmland.
DOLENA: I remember the name but that’s about all.
JEANETTE: Who were the Babcock’s?
DOLENA: He was married to John G’s sister.
DOLENA: They had a son and his name was Stirling and a daughter and her name was Bessie.
JEANETTE: What ever became of them? They weren’t there when the mine opened in the 50’s
DOLENA: No
JEANETTE: Where was Jean Taylor located?
DOLENA: She was down the Five Island lake. Herself and Harry and his wife. They moved to a house. I don’t know if they built it or was it somebody else. But it was just across from Angus Morrison’s on the Stirling road that went around the lake.
JEANETTE: So, it would be right on the corner basically (going down the road). I think I remember that house when I was younger. It was a little white house.
DOLENA: I think so.
JEANETTE: So, you said Harry and his wife. Who was Harry?
DOLENA: Harry was Jean’s son and his wife was Catherine.
The School Teachers
JEANETTE: (In regard to the school picture Smaller grades). You think this would be Anne Kyte from St Peters.
DOLENA: She applied there when there were just a few kids. And then people moved in with their families and she ended up with …
JEANETTE: A crew?
DOLENA: I think she was there for just one term.
JEANETTE: And where did she stay? I think there was a schoolteacher who lived down at the crooked lake road.
DOLENA: Mrs. MacDonald. She had a daughter Loretta.
JEANETTE: Would that have been on the crooked lake road at Margaret May’s place?
DOLENA: Yes
The Gatekeepers
JEANETTE: Irene’s father worked as a gatekeeper.
DOLENA: His name was Enos (Sampson).
JEANETTE: Norman Alex (MacLeod) - did he work as a gate keeper?
DOLENA: No, no. He worked in the machine shop. It was a James MacDonald from Johnstown or somewhere like that.
JEANETTE: Irene told me they’d take 12-hour shifts.
DOLENA: Must have been. I don’t remember anyone else being on the gate, but I know Norman Alex was in the machine shop because I drove back and forth with him. George (Norman Alex’s son) worked up at the mill. Editor's Note: During July 19/19 follow up visit to Dolena, she noted that after the mine closed, Norman Alex MacLeod worked at the gate. See Chrissy and Duncan’s and Doug Landry’s upcoming interviews re the third gatekeeper Murdock Dan MacLeod).
JEANETTE: Do you know what George (MacLeod) did up there at the mill?
DOLENA: I don’t know what they did up there. I guess they milled what they took from the mine.
JEANETTE: Into dust basically.
The 1930’s Mine
JEANETTE: We are just talking about the old mine when it was under construction and showing Dolena the picture of the early construction phase of the mine in the 20’s. She was telling me that they had animals at the mine and that Presseau was a Mine Manager in the 30’s and they had cows over there.
JEANETTE: And your father, Allan (MacLeod), bought the cow from Presseau and because the cow was kind of bossy and Presseau was the Mine Boss’s name, the cow got called “Presseau”?
DOLENA: Yes
JEANETTE: Here is a picture of the old mine (see photo #1).
DOLENA: The mine that I worked in the 50’s wasn’t spread out like that. The buildings were closer together.
JEANETTE: And those houses from when the mine closed in the 30’s, did you ever hear what happened to them or the other buildings?
DOLENA: No.
The Dance Hall (s)
JEANETTE: Down past the shaft there were a few other buildings. It’s hard to see them on the picture. And there looks like there were some houses over on this hill (to the left) over here. Do you know what they would have been?
DOLENA: There was a dance hall up there.
JEANETTE: That’s what Bessie was saying -up on the hill. Mary Ann said the dance hall was past Dan Alex’s on that road going up (on the left) after Dan Alex’s. That’s not what I understood from Bessie.
DOLENA: Past Dan Alex’s was the Catholic church.
JEANETTE: Was there anything else in the Catholic church - a recreation center or a hall downstairs or anything?
DOLENA: I don’t know. I wonder if there was a hall as well as the church up there beyond Dan Alex’s.
JEANETTE: Maybe that’s what she (Mary Ann) was talking about.
DOLENA: I know the church was there. There might have been, I believe I was to a dance up there.
JEANETTE: By the Catholic Church?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: So that would have been that hall but the hall you are talking about was down the mine road?
DOLENA: Yes.
DOLENA: Up back there (far left). You went though the mine property.
Note: During July 19/19 follow up visit, Dolena noted that there was a hall up by the (Catholic) church in the 50’s. Murdock Morrison said, in his interview, that when the mine was open in the 30’s there was a dance hall behind Dan Alex’s near where the catholic church was in the 50’s.
The King’s Bus Line
JEANETTE: The king’s bus line. And Hughie MacDonald drove that?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: Did you know, did he drive it everyday?
DOLENA: No. It was just a weekend thing, starting on Thur, Fri, Sat and he’d return to Sydney on Sunday and he wouldn’t come back anymore until Thursday.
JEANETTE: Now someone said that he stayed there (in Stirling) all the time – he and his wife - In that little house - the Babcock’s house.
DOLENA: When the mine was running. See the bus ran before the mine (opened). It ran everyday in the 40’s. In the 40’s I was at Kenny Angus’ (and Effie Morrison) and we were wondering who was arriving (on the bus) so late in the evening. It was Alma (Strachan Volpe). I believe it was somewhere around midnight.
JEANETTE: Someone said that he (Hughie) did a lot of errands when he was in town.
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: He’d pick up whatever people needed. Did you ever ride the bus?
DOLENA: Oh, yes.
JEANETTE: It was run by the King’s Bus Line apparently.
DOLENA: See there were four brothers who ran the bus. Not to Framboise or Stirling, but out from Sydney, Little Narrows, New Waterford, Grand Narrows and Little Narrows, that might have been the same bus. There were four brothers driving the King’s Bus.
JEANETTE: But then they’d get other people to run the bus for them to different areas like Hughie out to Stirling?
DOLENA: Yes. Neil went to New Waterford and Alex went out toward the Narrows. But there was another brother but I can’t remember what his name was. Now I thought it was four brothers, but it may have been three.
JEANETTE: So now, the bus running out to Stirling. Hughie was the only one running that?
DOLENA: No. His brother Neil started going out that way and there was a Redquest from Gabarus who drove the bus in the 50’s.
JEANETTE: You said, before the mine opened up the last time, the bus was running to Stirling. Was the bus there when the mine was open in the 30’s
DOLENA: It was in the late 40’s.
JEANETTE: You wouldn’t think there was that many people coming and going?
DOLENA: Oh, yes there was. They’d pick up passengers all the way into Sydney (from Stirling).
JEANETTE: So, that steady then?
JEANETTE: It was called King’s Bus Line and it was sold to another company during the time the mine was working in the 50’s?
DOLENA: Yes
MacLeod and Soutter
JEANETTE: You were telling me about the MacLeod fellow.
DOLENA: Well your father (Soutter) took him out fishing. You know your father was tall and going over those fallen trees, you know, whereas MacLeod was not tall. He (MacLeod) was in the office one day talking about it and laughing because your father was so used to this type of going through woods and bushes whereas he wasn’t (and was having a hard time keeping up).
JEANETTE: So, (Max) MacLeod. What work did he do there?
DOLENA: He was in the Assay office. He was the boss there.
JEANETTE: Do you remember anyone being called a rock doctor, like a geologist.
DOLENA: Oh yes I was trying to think of that fellow’s name today. It doesn’t come to me.
JEANETTE: Was its McCrea?
DOLENA: No. McCrea was the President. He would come around mostly during the construction phase. This man lived down in Fourchu. He was married. He was younger than most of them. He’d be a geologist.
JEANETTE: Ok. He wasn’t the MacLeod guy who my father was taking fishing?
DOLENA: No. This was a younger man. He was quite tall. I think he boarded with Georgie and Dan MacLeod. He was single when he came but when he was married they both boarded at Georgie and Dan (MacLeod’s). His name might come to me sometime.
JEANETTE: But he was a geologist, right?
DOLENA: Yes (Editor's note: Georgie and Dan's Daughter, Faye, notes that a family by the surname of Pahl, from Germany stayed at their home in Fourchu. This may be the man Dolena is talking about.)
The Water System
JEANETTE: Where did the water come from?
DOLENA: Over at Stirling lake there was a pumphouse there.
JEANETTE: Was that their main source of water?
DOLENA: I would say.
Other people who Worked at the Mine
JEANETTE: Murdock Morrison worked at the mine. Do you remember what he did?
DOLENA: He worked for the mine. He would come into the office, on an errand or something. He worked in; I think the warehouse. I was never in that building but I think that’s what it was.
JEANETTE: We have been talking about Claire Gaudet. She worked with Dolena. She was a typist.
JEANETTE: You said she went to school in Mabou.
DOLENA: She went to school in Mabou and she got her grad 11 and she was a great basketball player.
JEANETTE: Was she on a team there (Mabou)?
DOLENA: I think so.
JEANETTE: And after she left Grade 11, she came over to the mine with her parents?
DOLENA: And finally went back to Quebec.
JEANETTE: After the mine closed?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: And Where did her parents live?
DOLENA: They were up on the hill
JEANETTE: On the right- hand side behind John G’s.
DOLENA: Yes
DOLENA: She was comical.
Where Dolena Worked
JEANETTE: You worked there (at the Stirling mine) with Bessie?
DOLENA: Yes
JEANETTE: Would you call that the main office?
DOLENA: Yes. I started there in Feb. of 1952.
JEANETTE: Then Bessie would be there before (you came)?
DOLENA: Yes. Bessie left in 1954.
JEANETTE: Bessie said that at first they were set up in a little building and then she moved over to where the main office was.
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: So, you were always in the same office while you were there?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: When you were there the electricity was there because Bessie said it just came in around that time.
DOLENA: Oh, yes. There was electricity then but when she first went there, there wasn’t.
JEANETTE: What did you do there?
DOLENA: Well just general office work.
JEANETTE: Did you type letters?
DOLENA: Yes. I didn’t take dictation. I studied it but I didn’t do it. They wrote out their letters in long hand we’d just type them up.
JEANETTE: That would be like the bosses or the managers - they’d come into your office?
DOLENA: And just leave it on the desk.
JEANETTE: And then you’d have that typed up for them?
DOLENA: Yes
JEANETTE: Would you be called a secretary?
DOLENA: No. They’d just called us by our names.
JEANETTE: You weren’t married then?
DOLENA: No.
JEANETTE: Bessie said she ordered everything.
DOLENA: They would pass out sheets for us to type up the orders.
JEANETTE: So, they’d have a list, and then would you call the company you were ordering it from?
DOLENA: No. There was no phone there when I went there. But if it were urgent (they’d send it by telegraph). Jean Taylor’s telegraph office was moved out there (Stirling Mine). The telegraph was down in the office. She had a desk there. We’d hear her coding. When the mine closed they took that. She probably took it back to her house.
JEANETTE: So, she would have had the telegraph before the mine.
DOLENA: Yes, and I believe her mother before her had it.
JEANETTE: So, she would have taken her equipment down there (to the mine) and they would have had to run a line down there (to the mine) for her I guess.
JEANETTE: In your office. There would be Arthur LeBrun, Walter MacDonald, and Kelly. Do you remember him?
DOLENA: Bern Kelly. They had a little girl. Her name was spelt “ Jo’ann”.
JEANETTE: That was different.
DOLENA: He was very quiet. He just did his work and that was it.
JEANETTE: Where did he live?
DOLENA: There were people who lived in those houses (on mine property) who would go and someone else would come there to live. He may have been in one of those houses.
DOLENA: They were official. They had prominent jobs. He was a bookkeeper or an accountant.
JEANETTE: When he got married did his wife come down to live (with him)?
DOLENA: Oh, yes.
JEANETTE: Right. They had the little girl Jo’ann.
DOLENA: Yes. Now they had another child a boy, but I don’t know what his name was. Just that the name was different, (or else) I wouldn’t remember it.
DOLENA: There was Bessie, Art and I in the inner office. Bessie worked until 1954.
JEANETTE: Now, Kenny MacEwen did he work in the office?
DOLENA: He would come into our office for a change for a break. He worked in the same building in an office in front of us. There was Kelly, MacEwen, Ernie Chiasson then Jean Taylor.
JEANETTE: Then there was Gilbert Prime and his wife. Would he be in the office.
DOLENA: No. She would be a sister to Kenny.
JEANETTE: Were there two timekeepers, Walter MacDonald from Fourchu and Arthur LeBrun from Arichat?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: That Bern Kelly, he was from out west somewhere?
DOLENA: I think so.
The Ore
JEANETTE: Do you remember who the ore was sold to? From St Peter’s, it went on a train to somewhere. Did you know where it went or who bought it?
DOLENA: No. It went to a refinery or somewhere, I guess.
JEANETTE: Do you know if they had any contracts with any companies or the government?
DOLENA: No.
The Post Office
JEANETTE: When you were sending an order out, would you be sending it out by mail?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: There was a post office up at….
DOLENA: John G’s (Spinner’s) then later it would be at Hughie MacDonald’s.
Note: During Follow up visit July 19/19 Jeanette told Dolena that Marjorie (Diddy) Johnson MacLeod said that she didn’t remember any mail being sent out or delivered to the mine. Dolena said she saw Bessie opening mail but didn’t remember anyone going up to the Post office. She thought perhaps mail may have been sent out and received in Sydney, perhaps at a PO Box. Dolena noted that John G had the post office in their house in the 40’s but later had it in his store (John G MacLeod’s) and likely was still there when Spinner’s took it over in the 50’s.
The Main Office
DOLENA: I used to stay at John G’s in the wintertime. I would walk down that mine road to work.
JEANETTE: From the main road
DOLENA: Yes, down their driveway and then down.
JEANETTE: Then you’d be walking by Spinners and then the little Babcock’s house which ended up having a post office in it eventually, right?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: You’re making the turn and going down the road to the mine. You are passing the stores. The Chinese restaurant is the last one down?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: There’s a house here, might it be the main office? Referring to Photo #2 - 4th building down on left.
DOLENA: It might have been because it had an upstairs. The engineers were upstairs. Yes. That’s the office, because the men when they came for their checks went in that little porch and there was a window there. LeBrun parked right by the office.
JEANETTE: There’s another building with several cars parked next to it (on the right). It looks like it could have been the “overflow” bunk house that you mentioned earlier. DOLENA: The steel workers who built the shaft stayed there. There were some fellows from Trout Brook. They weren’t there very long.
DOLENA: Now this LeBrun, he used to have this smaller building and there were people staying in it. But he didn’t stay there. I think he was up in the bunkhouse. He was building a house in Arichat and he travelled (back and forth) a lot. He was married while he was working there, and this was while he was getting the house ready. And Kenny MacEwen rode with him sometimes. And there was a Johnson fellow from Johnstown, Greg Johnston. He was working upstairs.
DOLENA: I don’t believe there were cars allowed beyond the office.
JEANETTE: We were just talking about people coming in for their cheques. That’s one of the things you did? Everyone who worked at the mine would come in to get their cheques?
DOLENA: They came to the little window at the side entry at the office. That was at the end of the office that we worked in. They went in there and there was a window where the timekeeper passed the check. They didn’t come into the office. They came in that small little entry. There was a French man who came into the office. He was so comical. He had a house. That house was bought by Harold Clarke from Gabarus.
JEANETTE: So, everybody got their checque there?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: Every two weeks?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: So, the timekeeper kept record of the time, gave it to you and you wrote out the cheques?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: Were they company checks?
DOLENA: I think they had “Mindemar Metal, Stirling, Nova Scotia”. I’m not sure of that.
DOLENA: I think the staff was not on the payroll in Stirling. They must have got the pay from the head office.
JEANETTE: So, you folks wouldn’t be writing out your own cheques?
DOLENA: I never remembered writing out our cheques.
JEANETTE: And the mine managers, you didn’t write out their checks?
DOLENA: No.
JEANETTE: They got paid from the head office?
DOLENA: I think that’s right. I never gave it a thought.
The Stores
JEANETTE: Morrison’s store sold hardware, groceries?
DOLENA: Yes, well that’s right. Hooper’s was much the same.
JEANETTE: So, Danny Shaw’s?
DOLENA: They sold meat and so did Morrison’s. I’m not so sure about Charlie Hooper. Morrison’s just had a General store. Just about everything you would need.
DOLENA: Duncan worked there first, maybe when he finished school in St Peter’s and maybe on his vacations.
JEANETTE: He worked at Danny Shaw’s!?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: He also worked at my father’s (Soutter Strachan’s) garage. He had a garage there, almost across from Morrison’s. He had a gas pump there.
DOLENA: Yes. It was a service station. I used to get gas there. They did other work as well.
JEANETTE: They fixed cars, fixed tires and changed oil.
DOLENA: That’s right.
JEANETTE: Who would wait on you there?
DOLENA: Just young boys from around. Your dad worked at the mine.
JEANETTE: Do you remember the mechanic who worked there, Severence, from Fourchu.
DOLENA: Yes. I remember him
JEANETTE: He had Polio when he was younger, but he got around well in the garage.
DOLENA: Oh, yes.
JEANETTE: He walked with crutches and had no problem getting under cars at the garage.
JEANETTE: And the Stirling school was down a little further?
DOLENA: Oh, yes.
JEANETTE: So, that was all the stores they had?
DOLENA: The tearoom - the Chinese restaurant; It was very close to Danny Shaw’s store. Just adjacent to it on the same side of the street.
Where People Lived
JEANETTE: So, Bessie said there were three mine houses as you were going down the (mine) road. There’s a big internet tower there now and Bessie said that’s where they were. Do you know who lived there? Bardswick, he was in one of those houses?
DOLENA: Yes. I don’t know which one.
JEANETTE: Who else?
DOLENA: Gordon Michaelson. He was the mine manager. Editor's Note: Michaelson’s house was sold to Catherine MacLeod, Dan Alex MacLeod’s mother and moved to Stirling. See Bessie Morrison’s interview. It has burnt down in recent years. Bunclark’s was the other house on the hill (See Angus MacLeod’s Interview).
JEANETTE: Chisholm - where was he?
DOLENA: Now he was on the other side.
JEANETTE: Behind John G’s?
DOLENA: Yes, He was the boss.
JEANETTE: Did one of the houses go down to the Meadows Road?
DOLENA: Yes. There’s an intersection there. There’s the meadows road and its up back.
DOLENA: That was the president from the 50’s. I think it would have been one of the houses behind John G's.
JEANETTE: So, they were quite big houses then?
DOLENA: Yes, but that was the larger home.
JEANETTE: MacLeod was on the hill (behind John G’s)?
Dolena: Yes. Editor's Note: MacLeod’s house was sold to Dolena Mac Leod (Dolena’s aunt) and then later sold to Duncan and Greta MacLeod and was moved to Sydney.
JEANETTE: Just talking about Norman Alex’s (first) house - that it came from the mine. Editor's Note: Norman Alex’s house was one of the houses on the hill on the left hand side.
DOLENA: It burnt, yes in the wintertime. I’d say it was the winter of 61.
JEANETTE: So, the existing house: It came from the mine too?
DOLENA: Yes. That is what they brought down- that house from Stirling. It was like a hall or something.
JEANETTE: So, it was sort of like a mess hall or something?.
DOLENA: They remodelled it.
JEANETTE: So, this building that Ramsey remodelled was the building that looked like a hall. So that house is still standing.
DOLENA: It looked like a hall. (Editor's Note: Allister MacLeod, Norman Alex’s son told me that this building was one of the early bunkhouses that was just past the gate right hand side)
JEANETTE: And Dan Norman’s shed- that came from the mine too. Editor's Note: This is likely another early bunkhouse that was on the left-hand side which was later used as the movie theatre and after the mine closed was moved down to Dan Norman MacLeod’s.
JEANETTE: Do you remember anyone from Dogpatch?
DOLENA: I couldn’t call them by name, but I was familiar with them – that they were from that area.
JEANETTE: Aunt Wilma’s bungalow came from there, right? It was the first house in that road.
DOLENA: That family that owned that house, I knew him a bit because he was a big man. He spoke very loud. He was known as The Cowboy.
JEANETTE: Did he have a family?
DOLENA: Yes. There was a child born while they were there. I think he had four boys.
JEANETTE: I think John Archie Munroe lived there.
DOLENA: He was on the opposite side of the road. On that side of the road some people had small houses.
JEANETTE: Do you remember Parker’s?
DOLENA: I remember the name, yes
JEANETTE: I think they were at Annie and Neil MacIntosh’s house.
DOLENA: Yes, yes.
JEANETTE: I think they rented it or bought it. They stayed there.
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: They worked at the mine; I assume?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: (They lived) over by the mine muck on the Three Rivers Rd (aka- Barren Rd).
DOLENA: Yes. It was farmland.
DOLENA: I remember the name but that’s about all.
JEANETTE: Who were the Babcock’s?
DOLENA: He was married to John G’s sister.
DOLENA: They had a son and his name was Stirling and a daughter and her name was Bessie.
JEANETTE: What ever became of them? They weren’t there when the mine opened in the 50’s
DOLENA: No
JEANETTE: Where was Jean Taylor located?
DOLENA: She was down the Five Island lake. Herself and Harry and his wife. They moved to a house. I don’t know if they built it or was it somebody else. But it was just across from Angus Morrison’s on the Stirling road that went around the lake.
JEANETTE: So, it would be right on the corner basically (going down the road). I think I remember that house when I was younger. It was a little white house.
DOLENA: I think so.
JEANETTE: So, you said Harry and his wife. Who was Harry?
DOLENA: Harry was Jean’s son and his wife was Catherine.
The School Teachers
JEANETTE: (In regard to the school picture Smaller grades). You think this would be Anne Kyte from St Peters.
DOLENA: She applied there when there were just a few kids. And then people moved in with their families and she ended up with …
JEANETTE: A crew?
DOLENA: I think she was there for just one term.
JEANETTE: And where did she stay? I think there was a schoolteacher who lived down at the crooked lake road.
DOLENA: Mrs. MacDonald. She had a daughter Loretta.
JEANETTE: Would that have been on the crooked lake road at Margaret May’s place?
DOLENA: Yes
The Gatekeepers
JEANETTE: Irene’s father worked as a gatekeeper.
DOLENA: His name was Enos (Sampson).
JEANETTE: Norman Alex (MacLeod) - did he work as a gate keeper?
DOLENA: No, no. He worked in the machine shop. It was a James MacDonald from Johnstown or somewhere like that.
JEANETTE: Irene told me they’d take 12-hour shifts.
DOLENA: Must have been. I don’t remember anyone else being on the gate, but I know Norman Alex was in the machine shop because I drove back and forth with him. George (Norman Alex’s son) worked up at the mill. Editor's Note: During July 19/19 follow up visit to Dolena, she noted that after the mine closed, Norman Alex MacLeod worked at the gate. See Chrissy and Duncan’s and Doug Landry’s upcoming interviews re the third gatekeeper Murdock Dan MacLeod).
JEANETTE: Do you know what George (MacLeod) did up there at the mill?
DOLENA: I don’t know what they did up there. I guess they milled what they took from the mine.
JEANETTE: Into dust basically.
The 1930’s Mine
JEANETTE: We are just talking about the old mine when it was under construction and showing Dolena the picture of the early construction phase of the mine in the 20’s. She was telling me that they had animals at the mine and that Presseau was a Mine Manager in the 30’s and they had cows over there.
JEANETTE: And your father, Allan (MacLeod), bought the cow from Presseau and because the cow was kind of bossy and Presseau was the Mine Boss’s name, the cow got called “Presseau”?
DOLENA: Yes
JEANETTE: Here is a picture of the old mine (see photo #1).
DOLENA: The mine that I worked in the 50’s wasn’t spread out like that. The buildings were closer together.
JEANETTE: And those houses from when the mine closed in the 30’s, did you ever hear what happened to them or the other buildings?
DOLENA: No.
The Dance Hall (s)
JEANETTE: Down past the shaft there were a few other buildings. It’s hard to see them on the picture. And there looks like there were some houses over on this hill (to the left) over here. Do you know what they would have been?
DOLENA: There was a dance hall up there.
JEANETTE: That’s what Bessie was saying -up on the hill. Mary Ann said the dance hall was past Dan Alex’s on that road going up (on the left) after Dan Alex’s. That’s not what I understood from Bessie.
DOLENA: Past Dan Alex’s was the Catholic church.
JEANETTE: Was there anything else in the Catholic church - a recreation center or a hall downstairs or anything?
DOLENA: I don’t know. I wonder if there was a hall as well as the church up there beyond Dan Alex’s.
JEANETTE: Maybe that’s what she (Mary Ann) was talking about.
DOLENA: I know the church was there. There might have been, I believe I was to a dance up there.
JEANETTE: By the Catholic Church?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: So that would have been that hall but the hall you are talking about was down the mine road?
DOLENA: Yes.
DOLENA: Up back there (far left). You went though the mine property.
Note: During July 19/19 follow up visit, Dolena noted that there was a hall up by the (Catholic) church in the 50’s. Murdock Morrison said, in his interview, that when the mine was open in the 30’s there was a dance hall behind Dan Alex’s near where the catholic church was in the 50’s.
The King’s Bus Line
JEANETTE: The king’s bus line. And Hughie MacDonald drove that?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: Did you know, did he drive it everyday?
DOLENA: No. It was just a weekend thing, starting on Thur, Fri, Sat and he’d return to Sydney on Sunday and he wouldn’t come back anymore until Thursday.
JEANETTE: Now someone said that he stayed there (in Stirling) all the time – he and his wife - In that little house - the Babcock’s house.
DOLENA: When the mine was running. See the bus ran before the mine (opened). It ran everyday in the 40’s. In the 40’s I was at Kenny Angus’ (and Effie Morrison) and we were wondering who was arriving (on the bus) so late in the evening. It was Alma (Strachan Volpe). I believe it was somewhere around midnight.
JEANETTE: Someone said that he (Hughie) did a lot of errands when he was in town.
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: He’d pick up whatever people needed. Did you ever ride the bus?
DOLENA: Oh, yes.
JEANETTE: It was run by the King’s Bus Line apparently.
DOLENA: See there were four brothers who ran the bus. Not to Framboise or Stirling, but out from Sydney, Little Narrows, New Waterford, Grand Narrows and Little Narrows, that might have been the same bus. There were four brothers driving the King’s Bus.
JEANETTE: But then they’d get other people to run the bus for them to different areas like Hughie out to Stirling?
DOLENA: Yes. Neil went to New Waterford and Alex went out toward the Narrows. But there was another brother but I can’t remember what his name was. Now I thought it was four brothers, but it may have been three.
JEANETTE: So now, the bus running out to Stirling. Hughie was the only one running that?
DOLENA: No. His brother Neil started going out that way and there was a Redquest from Gabarus who drove the bus in the 50’s.
JEANETTE: You said, before the mine opened up the last time, the bus was running to Stirling. Was the bus there when the mine was open in the 30’s
DOLENA: It was in the late 40’s.
JEANETTE: You wouldn’t think there was that many people coming and going?
DOLENA: Oh, yes there was. They’d pick up passengers all the way into Sydney (from Stirling).
JEANETTE: So, that steady then?
JEANETTE: It was called King’s Bus Line and it was sold to another company during the time the mine was working in the 50’s?
DOLENA: Yes
MacLeod and Soutter
JEANETTE: You were telling me about the MacLeod fellow.
DOLENA: Well your father (Soutter) took him out fishing. You know your father was tall and going over those fallen trees, you know, whereas MacLeod was not tall. He (MacLeod) was in the office one day talking about it and laughing because your father was so used to this type of going through woods and bushes whereas he wasn’t (and was having a hard time keeping up).
JEANETTE: So, (Max) MacLeod. What work did he do there?
DOLENA: He was in the Assay office. He was the boss there.
JEANETTE: Do you remember anyone being called a rock doctor, like a geologist.
DOLENA: Oh yes I was trying to think of that fellow’s name today. It doesn’t come to me.
JEANETTE: Was its McCrea?
DOLENA: No. McCrea was the President. He would come around mostly during the construction phase. This man lived down in Fourchu. He was married. He was younger than most of them. He’d be a geologist.
JEANETTE: Ok. He wasn’t the MacLeod guy who my father was taking fishing?
DOLENA: No. This was a younger man. He was quite tall. I think he boarded with Georgie and Dan MacLeod. He was single when he came but when he was married they both boarded at Georgie and Dan (MacLeod’s). His name might come to me sometime.
JEANETTE: But he was a geologist, right?
DOLENA: Yes (Editor's note: Georgie and Dan's Daughter, Faye, notes that a family by the surname of Pahl, from Germany stayed at their home in Fourchu. This may be the man Dolena is talking about.)
The Water System
JEANETTE: Where did the water come from?
DOLENA: Over at Stirling lake there was a pumphouse there.
JEANETTE: Was that their main source of water?
DOLENA: I would say.
Other people who Worked at the Mine
JEANETTE: Murdock Morrison worked at the mine. Do you remember what he did?
DOLENA: He worked for the mine. He would come into the office, on an errand or something. He worked in; I think the warehouse. I was never in that building but I think that’s what it was.
JEANETTE: We have been talking about Claire Gaudet. She worked with Dolena. She was a typist.
JEANETTE: You said she went to school in Mabou.
DOLENA: She went to school in Mabou and she got her grad 11 and she was a great basketball player.
JEANETTE: Was she on a team there (Mabou)?
DOLENA: I think so.
JEANETTE: And after she left Grade 11, she came over to the mine with her parents?
DOLENA: And finally went back to Quebec.
JEANETTE: After the mine closed?
DOLENA: Yes.
JEANETTE: And Where did her parents live?
DOLENA: They were up on the hill
JEANETTE: On the right- hand side behind John G’s.
DOLENA: Yes
DOLENA: She was comical.