As a member of the Friendly Circle Senior Citizen's Club,  Murray Harbor,  I have been asked to write what I can on PEI Women, Past and Present. So I'll start with what my mother told me about her parents and two children, coming to PEI from the Isle of Skye, Scotland.  After a rough journey of nine week they landed in Charlottetown on a Saturday night,  August 28, 1841. Nephews then living in the Belfast District met them at the boat. Their parents had come over on the "Polly" in 1803. They spent the winter with their nephews, and the following Spring bought a densely wooded shore farm at High Bank. When they cut the first tree at the shore, having difficulty to dispose of it by pushing it down the bank, grandmother said, "Thank God for that much clearance".
They built a log cabin, which was heated by a fireplace made of stone from the shore. They did their baking by putting flat stones in the fireplace and covering the cooking or baking utensils with a flat stone. The utensils used were pots and frying pans made of iron. There were no lamps and tallow candles made by the women lighted the cabin. There were only two wells in High Bank at the time, both at least a mile from where they lived. They got their drinking water from a spring at the shore. Women of the district took turns, the first summer, washing their clothes at the shore. One woman looked after the children, while the other four women got a fire going at low tide to heat the wash water. As the bank was between sixty and sixty five feet high, this was easier and safer for them than for them to try and carry the water up such a high bank.
There were no roads, only trails where one could go on horseback or walk: no churches, school, or post office. The only cleared land was what they had cut the first spring. They uprooted trees so they could plant potatoes brought from Scotland. They cut the eyes out of the potatoes with a goose quill for planting and saving the rest for food. The women planted the potato eyes and the potato crop proved to be quite a success in the fall, with which they were delighted. The women sowed flax wherever they could dig a place to grow it. This entailed a lot of work-in the fall they cut it and had to beat it with a flail used for threshing by hand which they called "scutching" to separate the woody fibers from the valuable fiber to spin and weave into bedding, tablecloth and towels. They bartered fish to get a couple a sheep. They sheared the wool, carded it by hand into rolls to spin and weave into cloth, as no woman would be without a spinning wheel, which would be a disgrace.
There was a wonderful community spirit in those days. They had social gatherings for work, and entertainment such as quilting bees, spinning frolics to spin the yarn for knitting and weaving. Then came the thickening frolics where they dampened the cloth when taken out of the loom, put it on a large table and kneaded back and forth until the right thickness was attained. There would be four women on each side of the table doing this and singing Gaelic songs. The thick part of the cloth was called drugget and was used for making men's' pants and women's skirts.
My grandmother had six more children, all born at home attended by a midwife. As there was no school at High Bank, one son and two neighbor boys walked from High Bank to Uigg to go to school there, a distance of approximately thirteen miles. There the boys worked for their board in homes where they stayed from Monday to Friday. Those three boys and one from Orwell later went to Prince of Wales College and graduated with honors. The four boarded together in Charlottetown, and all climbed the ladder of success. One was knighted, one a judge in La Mesa, CA, one a mayor of Bismarck, ND, and the fourth an associate professor in Michigan. 1 am sure the mothers of all those boys played a most important part in the successes and "mother's prayer's" followed them throughout their lives. All the mothers worked happily to raise their families in Christian homes where Sunday and mid-week services were held weekly.
My mother's life was very different. Roads were opened up everywhere. Post Offices were few and far between in her teen-age years. Mail was taken to Vernon River from Murray Harbor by a man on horseback. He met the mail from Charlottetown, and residents received mail once or twice a week. Schools were opened in each district, also gristmills where flour and oatmeal were ground. Tanneries where leather was tanned for shoes, harness etc. She saw mills, blacksmith shops and stores.
Fifty to one hundred acres were cleared and good crops raised with plenty of feed for the horses, cows, sheep and hogs. Comfortable homes were built and heated with high oven stoves, "Old Yarmouth" and "Waterloo" were the ones that I heard most about. Baking and cooking was much easier and kerosene and Aladdin Lamps replaced candles. Grandmother's old wooden wash tub was replaced with galvanized ones. Wells were dug at every home. Water was raised in a large bucket by a rope fastened to a wooden drum called a windless upon which the hoisting rope was turned by means of winding by hand. Iron sinks drained their water by pipes to a compost pile of earth out in the field quite some distance from the house.
Beautiful set of dishes could be purchased and also nice enamel cooking utensils. Mother said Grandma loved pretty dishes and this has followed down all along the line as that still is the first place 1 go to in a store, my daughters and granddaughters seem to have the same interest. Mother said they used steel knives and forks in her younger days and it was her job to keep them polished with a fine white sand that could be found in certain fields. In the fall they would fill a big crock with the sand so as not to run out of it through the winter.
Women in this era did a lot of spinning, weaving, knitting and sewing. Mother liked to paint pictures, crochet and embroider. She learned tailoring in Boston, men and women's suits were what she specialized in, so she always enjoyed sewing. 1 did not, especially after 1 made a suit for myself and she made me take a sleeve out nine times before it met her approval. She would hook from four to nine lovely hand stamped mats in a winter. She made a lot of her dyes from moss and leaves but diamond dyes made less work in matching colors.
My life was similar to my mother's in respect to the work we did, only every year seemed to bring something new to all. Seeing the first train come to Murray Harbor was quite a thrill. We had trains going to Charlottetown six days a week, and post offices in most districts delivering mail six days a week. Saturdays were always express days. On freight days it was quite a tiresome trip as there would be so much shunting of the cars back and forth. The train was nick named "The Gaelic Express". Later, we had good bus service - now we have neither to depend on.
1 was very lucky in 1909 when my parents gave me an organ. Having musical neighbors, they came in very often especially on Sunday nights and sung all those old gospel hymns. On weeknights they came with a bass viol. auto harps and a flute. So 1 was brought up to be really fond of singing and music. So many things were developed for convenience, such as the telephone. Radio made hard work easier when one could relax and hear nice music and news from different parts of the world, although during the war, it was very depressing and sad too. The coming of electricity to our area in 1950 brightened our homes and store and the electric washing machines saved a lot of time over the hand operated machines. Now we had bathrooms, hot and cold water in the taps, and many other gadgets.
Wages were very low, but it seemed so rewarding to work hard for things we needed. We always had plenty to eat and to give away. We raised our own beef, pork, lamb and chickens. Can anyone imagine having a 300 lb carcass of beef hanging in an outbuilding now, as we used to do, and have no need for a lock on the door. 1 canned meat, soup, haddock, clams, quahogs, lobster, cherries, strawberries, plums as well as making many quarts of preserves of all kinds and pints of jelly, jams and pickles. We had our own milk, cream, butter and buttermilk and I baked all the bread, rolls, biscuits, pies, cakes, cookies that appeared on our table.
Doctors drove many miles on stormy winter nights to relieve suffering and sometimes to take a patient to hospital. This is not done now, any more than having a midwife for a confinement case.
A dear old lady who visited us frequently had been a midwife since her early years. One day I noticed a pensive look in her eyes and said, "A penny for your thoughts". "Well, she said I have delivered 99 babies and expected to go on my hundredth in a couple of weeks, but the doctor has told me today that I have cancer and must go to Montreal this week for an operation". On the way to Montreal, the conductor called out "is there a doctor, nurse or midwife in this coach" No one answered and finally she called out, "I am a midwife". What credentials have you got ma'am. She replied, I've delivered 99 babies successfully. The conductor said, "that will do lady," come with me. So she delivered her hundredth baby on the train and returned to P. E. 1. after her operation beaming that she attained her goal successfully.
Labor saving devices have spared my daughters from heavy work, but sometimes it seems to me that they are under more pressure than the women of my generation. When my grandchildren were growing up they attended different schools, had music lessons in different places, sports and church groups that they had to be taken to. It seemed as though, even with public transportation, their mothers spent half their time in the car driving one child or the other somewhere. Education was more accessible when they were growing up and in the past few years wages have been raised that enables them to travel to many parts of the world and is really an education in itself. My married granddaughters start life on their wedding day with more beautiful things, new cars, homes, furniture, electrical appliances, etc., than my grandmother ever saw. Yet every generation has its share of both hardships and happiness, and no doubt over the years they too will see changes. My opinion on life is what you make it. Trust in God and he will direct our paths.