Cousin Agam Fhein

by Hughie Ferguson
(recorded in Dearborn, Michigan, February 2007)

Hughie, talking about his parents’ home in Inverness: The only job that I ever did, and it would be kind of a crazy job [today] — see, there were sixty-five windows in the house. And there was I forget how many storm windows.

Dave: Sixty-five storm windows!

Hughie: But imagine going up on a ladder. And I did all that.

Dave: This would be like a wood-framed window, as large as the house window.

Bruce: With one big sheet of glass.

Dave: Or it might have grids in it. Probably it did back then. There’d be the panes and you’d have to put them in with glazing compound. But the thing would be the size of the regular window, so it would weigh a ton.

You remember the Brothers’ place in Alfred? We had those kinds of windows, and at the hardware store you’d get a set of nails with a big wide head. And every two nails would have the same number on them, like “17″ or “18.” And you’d put one nail on the window, and one nail on the storm window, because sometimes it wouldn’t fit…. I remember that because this was a real old place.

(The window in the photo is an example of the old-fashioned storm window.)

Hughie: It was a hell of a job one time. We used to take the storm windows down and put them in the garage. My brother John, he went in and he had a target, he put it over there, and he broke twelve.

Bruce: What was he shooting?

Hughie: He was just trying to practice with a rifle. I had to get six panes [of glass] from Cheticamp, from L.D.’s.

Bruce: All the glass that they had! One summer, didn’t you fix windows at home? Like buy a gallon of glazing compound and replace all the glazing in the windows, especially on the side?

Hughie: Yeah, oh, yeah. It was easier on the front, because of the roof on the little verandah. The other ones there, you’d have to get the ladder, the double ladder.

Dave: And the window would be heavy!

Hughie: Ohhhh, yeah.

Bruce: I wouldn’t want to do that.

Hughie: After a while, we started letting a window or two stay up there. That was just as good, because the goddamned place was cold anyway. Even if we had windows and storm windows on every window, it was still cold.

There was Duncan MacNeil, right across the street from us, he came over. Duncan had kind of a queer limp, you know. Going up on the ladder, and my father came home and saw that. He gave me a going over, “Don’t let that man go up that ladder!”

Dave: When did they move into that house?

Hughie: Our house? Wait now… I was about 12 years old.

Dave: So, 1925 or so.

Hughie: Yeah, ‘24 was when they moved down there.

Dave: You said one time you didn’t think of that as your house, but wherever they lived before. Where were you before?

Hughie: Oh, where did we live? Do you know where my dad’s store was? Well, right down that row of houses. We lived in one of them. You wondered how in hell they could ever — with my grandmother, somebody else, and a maid, and all those goddamned kids…

Dave: That was MacIsaac Street, was it?

Hughie: No, no. On the other side, right across the street [across Central Avenue]. My grandmother, after my grandfather died, she came back down. She didn’t go to church, you know. She was Catholic, of course. My grandfather, Hughie, he was the Protestant, like my dad.

My grandmother was with us, and we had a maid, and at least seven kids. You’d wonder where in the hell they would all fit.

Just think in the wintertime when you had to go…they had a coal house, and a shithouse. And that’s where you’d go. And every time I think of — Pa would be taking the toilet paper from the store.

One woman wrote to Eaton’s wanting to get toilet paper. And they wrote her back and they said get the catalog and get the number and everything. So she wrote back and said “If I had the catalog, I wouldn’t need it.”

Dave: Was there central heat in the new house?

Hughie: According to what room you where in. Holy Christ, they had a little stove, and out in the kitchen the stove. They didn’t have a furnace, there wasn’t a furnace at that time.

Bruce: That big house wouldn’t have a furnace?

Hughie: We had to get a new one right away — you’d get more heat with a match. With all those windows and no insulation.

I often wondered, tried to figure out after my grandfather died — Grandma came down to live with us. I think it was either six or seven, six kids, and my grandmother, and a maid — in a two bedroom house.

Dave: The maid probably slept in the kitchen.

Hughie: God only knows. I’ll never forget when my grandfather died. My grandmother came out and she stood at the casket, you now, and said the rosary. I don’t think she said it from the time she got married because Grandpa was a real Protestant. And Grandma with no reading or writing. She could talk English and talk Gaelic but that was all.

I don’t know, before we went to sleep they must have given us something so we’d sleep and hung us up on hooks. I don’t know in the name of God — think there were three bedrooms, three small bedrooms.

Dave: So you and Dannie and Roddie and Johnnie…

Hughie: There was myself, and Johnnie, and Danny… and then the girls were Cassie, Mary, Sadie, they were home in the Red Rows.

They must have hung us up on a hook or something. There was nothing but I think it was three bedrooms and a hallway.

My father, he bought that house, the one with all the windows in it, four thousand dollars. Everybody in Inverness thought Pa was a millionaire to pay four thousand dollars for a home.

• Dave, Bruce: two of Hughie Ferguson’s sons
• Hughie Ferguson’s parents: Mattie Ferguson and Sadie MacDougall
• The Brothers’ place: a school in Alfred, Maine, run by the Brothers of Christian Instruction
• “My grandfather, Hughie”: Hugh Ferguson (1856 - 1926), father of Mattie Ferguson
• My grandmother: Catherine MacIsaac (died 1936, aged 90)
• The Red Rows were rows of small, duplex houses in Inverness, most of them originally owned by the coal mine, and most painted red. I was nearly an adult before I learned it was “Red Rows” and not “Red Rose” like the tea. — Dave

David: You never told me how it was you guys decided to come to the States, which I never knew.

Greet: You never knew how we decided?

David: No, well, you probably didn’t ask my opinion back then.

Greet: I’ll tell you. There was no jobs in Inverness.

Hughie: That was it.

Greet: We were down to just a few hundred dollars, that was it. And Cassie said that maybe we would get work here. And then she wrote us a letter, and I remember that letter, I should have saved it. And she was wondering if it would be good for us. She said, you know, there’s lots of people that you’ll know. But those are acquaintances. But you’ll have very few friends.

Little did she know how good we are at making friends. She said I’m just afraid - because Cassie didn’t mix as much as we did.

Hughie: No, no.

David: Was there anybody else besides Cassie and Art at that time?

Greet: Gina was, Georgina.

Things were booming kind of here then, and Hughie was getting old for work and no training. So he decided to come up.

He came in February (of 1952). God, you kids were small. Art wasn’t a year old. And it took until November for him to find a place that we could live.

Hughie: The first job I got was in a hardware store. You’d put wheelbarrows together and all that stuff, but it was a good job, you know. I think it was 75 cents an hour.

And then from there, I went down, got a job down at Borden’s, delivering milk. That was a hell of a job.

But then I found out that Art was going to get a job at Chrysler’s. He was going to work - there was a fella renting downstairs where Art and Cassie were. He had a brother that was a boss at Chrysler’s, see. So Art was going to work at Chrysler’s. He’d have to go work midnights. Cassie said, no, you’re not, or I’m heading back for home.

So I got his job. That’s where I retired from.

Greet: He worked 24 years and retired at 64, and he’s 92 now.

Hughie: Not yet.

Greet: Well, next week.

Greet (to David): You were such a curious child. Questions, you’d stump anybody with questions. Do the clouds get tired when they’re moving all the time? That kind of stuff.

But anyway, if I didn’t grab you as soon as we got down off the plane, you were under the plane, looking around.

Hughie: Do you remember Cassie? That’s who took you over.

Greet: Cassie and Dad met us in Windsor. And when we got off the plane - John spied him as the plane was landing. He spied Dad. And we got off the plane, and all the big fuss, and all the commotion and stuff.

And then we had to go through immigration. And Cassie said, when we get there, just leave the kids loose, don’t be holding them. The kids’ll start getting in trouble and they’ll put you through fast.

And I arrived here with $20 because you got sick in Hawkesbury.

We had gone, I had taken the three of you up to Hawkesbury, and we were going to take the night train down to Sydney to get our plane. This was (the) most convenient (way). Charlie would drive me.

I put you kids to bed for your nap, and you got up with a raging temperature. I had to postpone everything.

Call Hughie, call the airport. I had the doctor see you three times, and I had to pay him every time he came. You had pneumonia, you were very sick. He put you on antibiotics, and you got better.

So by the time I got here I had $20 and that was it.

Hughie: We were lucky to get the flat. Jennie and Frank Gillis got us the flat.

Greet: That flat got empty, and Frank lied a little to get us in there. They didn’t want so many kids.

Hughie: They would say, did you have any family?

Greet: But oh, God, Jennie and Frank were so good to us.

Left to right:
Adults: Jenny Gillis, Cassie MacLeod; Kids: David, John, Art Ferguson
Detroit / April 5, 1953

Left to right:
Greet, David, John, Hughie, Art Ferguson
Detroit / Summer, 1953