Memories of the island of Newfoundland, Canada

I ran across these photos today of when my family lived in Stephensville Crossing on the island of Newfoundland, Canada. My dad was stationed at Ernest-Harmon AFB while I was in grade school. What memories come back.

We lived in an 8' x 40' (that included the tongue!) trailer. We only had about two months of summer and the temperatures only go to 67 degrees F or so and we thought that was HOT! Now living in Arizona...I had no clue what HOT was!  During the winters our trailer would be covered with mountains of snow. We would hike up to the top and sled down the sides.  I remember learning to ice skate and play hockey on the creek that ran by our home. 

 When I was visiting a friend one day, her doberman dog ran around the house to the front porch and bit me through my jean into the fleshy part of my rear! I never visited her again.  This trailer park had half of the trailers facing west, the others facing east; so that when a blizzard of snow socked one side in, the other half of the trailer court would go and dig out the other side. Can you imagine that today? Friendly people willing to help each other without knowing them very well!  There were two ways to get to this place - an ice breaker from Halifax, Nova Scotia (that is how we went - both ways) or fly in to the airport that was just up the hill from us. There might have been only a few flights a day.  One summer my two aunts came to visit us from Seattle, WA. They became the "Aunts" to all the neighborhood kids because NO ONE ever came to visit! They would jump rope with all of us!

 Here is a picture of me and my sister in front of our trailer.  Doesn't it look spiffy?!

 This was the living room. The couch barely fit. You can see our dining table, TV on a TV Tray! Do you think that was what it was really made for? ha ha! When it was Christmas, we had a little 10" fake tree that sat where the white lamp is in the corner. Boy the style of furniture has 1963 all over it!

Here you get a look at the dining room, kitchen, hallway, and even my parents room at the WAAAAYYYY back of the trailer! My little sister was only 18 months when we moved into this home. That is my dad at the kitchen sink. Look at that phone! I remember it ringing for my dad. This was during the air raid drills of possible threat from Russia (during the Cuba missile crisis era) and he was always on call for the base for possible scramble of fighter jets. I remember my school was in a Barracks. My classroom had a fireplace - which we used! We had air raid drills where we darkened the windows and would take cover under our desks. I am glad we don't have to do that anymore!

Ahh, this is the kitchen cleaned up. Look at that old gas stove. Wow! You can just past the kitchen where there is a bed. My dad built bunk beds in. The bottom was where I slept with one of my sisters, and the top bunk my other two siblings slept. We had one small bathroom - you had to close both doors in the hall way for privacy - much like a motorhome style of living!

There was an old man who fought in either WWI or WWII that was shell shocked. His name was Moses and we used to call him "Old Mosey". He would go through people's trash looking for items that he could sell to make a living off of. So a lot of the people would put crazy things into the cans and watch from their windows because he would try girdles on, old clothes, etc... to see how they looked. He even tried old sponge curlers in his beard. Us kids loved him.

We would have great fun in the evenings. Our whole family would be out playing baseball in the fields, tobogganing or snow mobiling in the winter. There was never a dull moment. We spent a lot of time out of doors - because some winter days - you were stuck! We had a horseshoe course in our yard. We were really good at it!

I remember watching on tv when President Kennedy was assasinated and then someone shot Ruby as he was leaving the jail. It was all caught on live tv. I remember the news ending with "Good Night David, Good Night Chet". We only had 1 station. So whatever it had - that was it. There was Uncle John's House - a kid show that would show cartoons, have kids come into the studio to be the audience. I remember being their one time with my school class and I danced the Jig that we learned from Ireland.

I had a fun childhood living there. I can't imagine living like that with 4 kids and a dachshound dog now! But we did.  Some day I think it would be great fun to go back and see what the place looks like today.