When Dad left [Inverness], it was February of ’52. and he stayed for our anniversary, but I don’t know when after that he left, shortly after. We had a bad winter. We were snowed in; they had to shovel us out one time.

I was there two or three months, and I used to worry about the stove, because we had a big stove in the living room. It was called a Warm Morning; that’s what it was called. And Freddie used to say, now, bank it at night so it won’t go out. And every day I used to call him. “How do I bank it?” And you would put coal in, but then you put ashes in on top of the coal, from below the stove.

I was always so worried about that. I was so afraid. I would lie in bed at night and think, if there’s going to be a fire, now I could put the kids out on the — there was a porch in front, you know, from your bedroom, I could put the kids on top of the porch. This is what I used to plan at night.

Anyway, the time came, Freddie had no housekeeper for the three kids. And I had to sell that house anyway, before I’d leave. So he talked me into selling the house and moving over there [with him]. And I did that. Sold the house for eighteen hundred dollars. That’s what we paid for it, can you believe it?

And we moved over there, stored some of my furniture at Pa’s and took a little bit with me. I suppose I took the bed, I don’t know.

But anyway, we moved in. We had six kids. I don’t think Frankie was seven yet. Three in diapers — you, and Jackie, and Art. But the kids got along great.

If you remember, Freddie’s street was the next street to the main street. This was Campbell Street. And the back yard of Freddie’s was at the back yard of this restaurant, the Greek’s restaurant. Harry the Greek’s.

And you would go down there — you were kind of a loner. You would go down there and go in. You made great friends with the truckers; they’d be in there. You must have been — I think you were two and a half, maybe, but you could talk like a lawyer.

And these truckers would give you money. And you would buy candy, and you never waited for change. You’d take the bag of candy and you’d come home and you’d treat all our little kids — you were generous, you’d treat them all with the candy. And you did that over and over and over again.

And sometimes you’d go down and there wouldn’t be truckers there, you know. But the girl in the restaurant had a glass, and she would put your change in the glass when you didn’t wait for it. So you could go in and order candy, and she’d take the money out of the glass pay for it.

And you’d bring it — oh, you did that so many times, and you’d bring it home and treat the kids.

Just wander down there by your self. But you know, at that time in Inverness, you didn’t worry. You couldn’t get lost. Everybody knew everybody’s kids.

One day you didn’t come home, and I got worried. And we started looking, and we couldn’t find you. We looked, oh god, we even looked down by the mine. Going crazy. And coming back, I walked up the side of — I don’t know if it was Harry the Greek’s place or the next building — and there you were, asleep on the grass.

You got tired and you laid down.

Dad: Hughie Ferguson, Greet’s husband
Freddie: Freddie Macdonald, Greet’s brother; a widower with three children
Pa: Jack D Macdonald, father of Greet and Freddie

Greet: When Roddie was really sick, we made a point of going. We always stopped to see them anyway as we drove down and back. But the last year we were going to stay two or three days in Antigonish.

And we were going to stay in a motel because Roddie was sick at home. But Pat wouldn’t hear tell of it. She said, “You’re going to stay here.”

So we stayed two or three days. And Pat and I would be in bed early. Hughie and Roddie would be up talking. And Roddie was — I nearly died when I saw him, he had failed so, you know.

And then when we were leaving, Roddie was kind of sad. And I said, “You know, Roddie, before we go back, Hughie’ll come back and spend another couple of days.”

Because we were going to Berwick, because I knew Cyril Sampson would take Hughie down to Antigonish.

And they were so grateful for that. The days that we were there, Pat said, he was so much better — he got up and he got dressed and he ate all his meals with us, you know, and was enjoying it.

Hughie: On that trip, when I was going out with the suitcases to the car, Roddie said to Pat, “I’ll bet you that fella will say, ‘That Roddie’ll be sleeping out soon.’”

That was the expression down home — if you were in the graveyard, you’re sleeping out.

Roddie: Hughie Ferguson’s brother
Pat: Patricia Dunn, Roddie’s wife

David: Do you remember your grandparents?

Hughie: My grandfather was Hughie.

Greet: And his grandmother lived with them after the grandfather died. She couldn’t speak English.

Hughie: With the Gaelic, oh, yeah. They did a lot of talking about it.

David: What did he do?

Hughie: He was a coal miner… You’re darn right it was hard work, and the pay was poor, but I guess they were satisfied with it.

Greet: They only had two children, eh?

Hughie: Yeah, Pa and Uncle Dan.

Greet: And nobody ever saw Uncle Dan.

Hughie: No, after he left home, he never came back. He was about 20 or 21. Grandpa Ferguson told him he’d have to smarten up. “Why don’t you do like Mattie?”

Danny drank and Pa never had a drink. So Danny left.

They start hearing from his writing to Grandma once a month. And it wasn’t very much news, but Pa was very glad to have it. To say “we were over to see Sandy Ferguson” or something like that, living out in California where he was.

February 26, 2006

[I talked to my mother tonight and told her about Rose getting her own room when she was a baby. Mom pointed out that I did once have a room of my own. -- Dave]

[It was] at Bertie’s house [on MacIsaac Street in Inverness], the one we bought, up the street from Grandpa [Jack D Macdonald]. We moved in there before Art was born….

Yeah, we lived in there. And John had one room, and you had the other room, and we had the third room with Artie’s crib in it.

And you would get up in the morning — and you had a lot of animals in your crib at night. And you’d come and you’d say, “Here comes Davy with all his damn trash.” You’d come over after Hughie went, you’d come over to my room and come in bed with me.

Dave: Rose remembers hearing that story, and the line was “here comes David and all his G. D. trash.”

You could get out of the crib no matter what. So I finally decided I might as well leave the sides down, you’re going to break your neck some day. So I left the side down and you’d come every morning with an armful of animals of some kind. With all your G. D. trash, that’s exactly what it was.

…There was another thing that I remember. Hughie used to come home from work and he would get Grandpa [Ferguson]‘s panel truck and take John out for a drive because John wasn’t allowed to walk.

He did that every day after work. And one day — the windows in that house were really low, you know. You were standing in the front room window, looking out, and you said to me, “John is so lucky. He gets to get a drive in the car.”

And I thought, oh, my god.

So when Hughie came back, I said, you know, you’ll have to take Dave with you because he was looking and thinking how lucky John was.”

…Art was maybe about six months old, so you were about two.

(My brother John, who would have been about three and a half, was not allowed to walk because of his polio.)

[Hughie Ferguson's brother Johnny] died before John [Ferguson] was born [April, 1948]. I went home from Halifax because we didn’t have any money to have a baby in Halifax, and it would be cheaper at home. So I went home to Inverness in March, and Johnny Ferguson picked me up at the station because he had a car. And he drove me home.

And he said to me on the way up to Jack D’s, he said, “I have one hell of a sore throat.” He was sucking those cough drop things.

And he came in with me and he talked with Momma and Poppa for a bit, and then he left. And Momma said, “My God, how good John Ferguson looks. I wish our Freddie would put on a little weight.”

Freddie was after having stomach surgery and he was skinny as a rail.

And anyway, I don’t remember what day it was, but it was about two days later when I got up in the morning I came down stairs and Poppa said, “John Ferguson died.”

I said, “What John Ferguson?” And he said, “Hughie’s brother.” He died that suddenly.

He apparently had diphtheria.

It was wintertime, March was winter down there . He went home and got very sick that night, and the next day he was taken to the hospital.

Well, I didn’t have any way of knowing any of this, and he died the next night. And since it was diphtheria, they couldn’t have a wake. He went from the hospital to the church with a closed casket, and was buried like that.

And then they quarantined Mina and the three kids for, I don’t know, a month or something they were quarantined.

So when that happened, Sadie [Ferguson] went over. She said, “I’m going in quarantine with with Mina. She can’t stay there alone with three kids,” you know.

And Hughie used to sneak over at night. Janice said that today. She said, “I can remember Frank Chisholm coming over and passing the pie in through the window.”

John died that suddenly. It was an awful shock to the town. Mattie was upset about it, very upset. Because there was no need of anybody dying of diphtheria at that time….
You could have had a shot for it.

Like Mattie said, if he’d had the old doctor, Dr. Proudfoot, who was real good– Dr. Proudfoot would have smelled it. He would have swabbed that right away, you know… but nothing much was done.

And Dr. Ratchford was the doctor who was looking after him, and very shortly afterward, Dr. Ratchford left town and went to another town.

But it was horrible. There was no excuse for anybody dying of diphtheria. That was in the 40s, and he was only 33.

Johnny Ferguson: son of Mattie Ferguson, brother of Hughie Ferguson.
John Ferguson: son of Hughie Ferguson and Greet Macdonald.
Poppa: Jack D Macdonald, Greet’s father.
Momma: Annie Belle Rankin, Greet’s mother.
Freddie: Greet Macdonald’s brother.
Sadie: Sadie Ferguson, sister of Hughie and Johnny.
Mina: Elizabeth MacFarlane, wife of Johnny Ferguson.
Janice: daughter of Johnny Ferguson and Mina MacFarlane.

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