Meet the People in our Neighbourhood
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Elizabeth Ferguson, July 27th, 2020 |
Olwynn Hughes: Now, what is your name?
Elizabeth Ferguson: My name is Elizabeth Ferguson.
OH: What year were you born?
EF: 1935.
OH: Did you grow up around here?
EF: No, I was born in Halifax. So I really started my life in Woodside. My father was with the sugar refinery down there. Then when the war was on we moved to Dartmouth, when the war was over we moved to Halifax. And then I went away to Acadia University and got married. So in my married life I lived back in Halifax where I was teaching, and then Dartmouth, then Prince Edward Island, and then we moved to Pictou County. I lived in Stellarton, and then we moved to this area particularly.
OH: How did you come to Avondale?
EF: Well, we split up, my husband and I split, and so I was on my own and basically I've lived in this area ever since, on my own for a while. I rented Wallace Point, [Hugh] McNeil's place when they were away still in the Navy, and then I bought the house at the bottom of the hill here from Jim and Elizabeth King. And from there I moved up the hill where I've been ever since, for over 30 years. That's the story of my life.
OH: Did you ever attend church here at Avondale’s Church?
EF: Oh, yes. Yes. Avondale United, yes. Actually I play the organ there now when they have service.
OH: What was your job?
EF: I was a teacher I taught in the city, and then Dartmouth,and then Charlottetown, and then East Pictou High. So I've taught a lot of places, and my teaching has covered every grade, from primary through grade 11, and one year I had a grade 12 homeroom class. That was an experience.
OH: What subject(s) did you teach?
EF: Well, when I moved to this area I joined the community choir so word very quickly got around that there's a new musician in the area, and they called me to teach music first as a substitute in the schools. And then I got a full-time music job in the elementary schools. So that was interesting.
OH: Did you have any role in the start of the museum?
D. Oh I was involved. Yeah. Well, I don't remember if I was ever Treasurer but I was on the executive. I know that Hugh McNeil played an important part, and Ken Mounce, who doesn't live here any longer, he had a lot to do with it. So we were all executive members. So yes, I certainly had something to do with it.
OH: How did you first hear about Avondale? Why did you come here?
EF: I first moved to this area because after my marriage broke up I needed someplace to live. I was an Anglican, and the Anglican minister at that time was the Reverend Richard Walsh and he told me one day when we were talking, he told me he knew of a place to rent. People were looking for somebody to stay in their home for seven years until they finished his military service and they wanted somebody to house sit. So I then became, I'll never forget the night it was Mayday, Victoria Day, May 24th, or whatever I think, and I moved up that one kilometer long lane to the McNeil homestead, Wallace Point all by myself and I got up there, looked around, and I couldn't see another sign of life, but I absolutely loved being up there with the deer and the rabbits and everything else. And so I stayed there for I think, that was Victoria Day 1983. So I stayed there until maybe winter ‘86. In the meantime I bought myself a second hand Jeep with a snow plow attached to it. I bought it in Halifax or Bedford or that area and drove it home on the hottest day of summer, and I still still remember the men who were working on the road laughing and shaking their fingers at me as I drove by with the snowplow. Anyway, I got that home and had to plow that kilometer long lane for one winter, maybe two winters and then finally the man who became my husband had joined me too and so one winter it became too much. So when the house here in Avondale that the girls Janice and Loretta now own, when that came on the market we decided we had to get out of Wallace Point with its kilometer long lane and very cold winds coming off the river. So we bought the place that Janice and Loretta are now in, and so I’ve been in this community ever since. After my husband died the house I'm in now came on the market, and I bought it and I think that's probably 33 years ago, and I proceeded to fix it up and add to it and I've been there ever since.
OH: Do you know how old the house you’re in now is?
EF: I think it goes back to the eighteen hundreds. I have information on it, but I can't give you the exact number of years, but it's not new. Definitely not new when I bought it.
OH: What do you love about Avondale?
EF: I think it would be better to say is there anything I don't like about Avondale, and no there's nothing that I don't like about Avondale. Yeah.
OH: What do you hope to see in the future?
EF: What do I hope to see in it? Or of it? Well there seem to be new people moving in all the time. And of course, there's going to be great excitement starting this year on August 17th. They're going to film a horror movie, a Stephen King type of movie. I don't know how long they estimate it's going to take to do it, but there is certainly going to be a presence of them around for a while starting August. Well, actually It's going on now. They were there today for a while.
OH: Do you think it’s going to disrupt the peace and quiet of Avondale?
EF: I think it only disrupts it if you let it. I can go into my house and be there with my kitty cat and nothing has to disturb me unless I let it.
OH: What do you see as your contribution being in the future?
EF: My contribution in the future. Well, I'm going to be 85 years old this year. So I don't know that I have much left to contribute. Really, I just love being here. But no, I don't see myself making the type of contribution I did when this museum was being started and so on.
OH: Do you find anything interesting here and are there any areas of interest for you?
EF: I don't know what you would consider interesting. You know, I'm still busy with my volunteer work which is driving my car for Dial-A-Ride. When people need drives they call our coordinator and sometimes I get called to go pick people up and take them for appointments or whatever, here and there. No, other than doing that, before this epidemic or whatever you want to call it started, I used to swim at King's Edgehill and I played Bridge every Wednesday down in Port Williams, but things have slowed down considerably now and I'm not sure that they're going to pick up again. So I love to read you know, I do the puzzles in the paper every day and when there is church up in the little Avondale United Church, which I played the organ up there for them for their services. But other than that you know, I just come and go, I go into town every morning for a coffee. And while I'm there I go to Sobey’s and get what groceries I need. And so then I watch quite a bit of TV at home. Other than that for now, that's about it. Until things pick up again. Yes,yes, yes.
OH: Have you noticed any changes in Avondale since you moved here?
EF: Well for instance this year, they're not having, probably you know more about this, the big weekend [Full Circle]. They used to have more people coming in. They're not having that this year. So there really aren't as many new people around just for the weekends or that sort of thing, things seem to have quieted down a little bit. Yeah. Well, we'll have to wait and see won't we?
OH: But do you see any changes like with the community, not necessarily to do with the pandemic.
EF: But just that's just it. I don't know that there's as much going on down here as there was back in the 80’s. I mean that was kind of an exciting time with the building of the Avon Spirit and its launch and you know, there was more going on then, but I would say there doesn't seem to me to be as much going on now.
OH: Do you have any artifacts or anything that you want to share?
EF: I have a wonderful old map of the whole community and I think you have one like it downstairs, but I think maybe mine is bigger because my next door neighbor in the little house came by and I was showing it to her and she said “Oh yours is bigger than the one at the Museum. You should donate back to the museum”. I just found that rolled up in the rafters in my basement when I bought my house. Yeah, so I don't know where it originally came from but I know where it is right now. You know, I made a lot of changes in my house. I had to, I had to make changes in the house. It's old, but I changed almost everything and I built an addition to make it more livable, nicer. An addition on the back with all windows looking out over the river and so on. That's where I pretty well live, in that addition on the back and I added a downstairs bathroom and laundry room, but as for artifacts, I have some old things but they are things that came from my family that I brought with me. So I don't think I have anything that I found in the house except for that map of the area rolled up in the rafters in the cellar.
OH: Is there anything you want to talk about? I don't have any more questions.
EF: I think it's neat what you're doing and trying to create more of a history of Avondale, which used to be called Newport Landing I guess and you know, we've done things here in the past year since I moved in, with the arrival of the Planters who came after the expulsion of the Acadians in the 1700’s, and we've put on pageants and I'm sure there must be movies or whatever of that sort of thing. I have lots of snapshots of people all dressed up and pretending they were Planters coming from the New England states and coming here to take over the lands from which the Acadians were expelled. But you know, other than that, it just seems to go on and there doesn't seem to be much as much of that sort of community thing going on here as there was say 20 years ago.
Elizabeth Ferguson: My name is Elizabeth Ferguson.
OH: What year were you born?
EF: 1935.
OH: Did you grow up around here?
EF: No, I was born in Halifax. So I really started my life in Woodside. My father was with the sugar refinery down there. Then when the war was on we moved to Dartmouth, when the war was over we moved to Halifax. And then I went away to Acadia University and got married. So in my married life I lived back in Halifax where I was teaching, and then Dartmouth, then Prince Edward Island, and then we moved to Pictou County. I lived in Stellarton, and then we moved to this area particularly.
OH: How did you come to Avondale?
EF: Well, we split up, my husband and I split, and so I was on my own and basically I've lived in this area ever since, on my own for a while. I rented Wallace Point, [Hugh] McNeil's place when they were away still in the Navy, and then I bought the house at the bottom of the hill here from Jim and Elizabeth King. And from there I moved up the hill where I've been ever since, for over 30 years. That's the story of my life.
OH: Did you ever attend church here at Avondale’s Church?
EF: Oh, yes. Yes. Avondale United, yes. Actually I play the organ there now when they have service.
OH: What was your job?
EF: I was a teacher I taught in the city, and then Dartmouth,and then Charlottetown, and then East Pictou High. So I've taught a lot of places, and my teaching has covered every grade, from primary through grade 11, and one year I had a grade 12 homeroom class. That was an experience.
OH: What subject(s) did you teach?
EF: Well, when I moved to this area I joined the community choir so word very quickly got around that there's a new musician in the area, and they called me to teach music first as a substitute in the schools. And then I got a full-time music job in the elementary schools. So that was interesting.
OH: Did you have any role in the start of the museum?
D. Oh I was involved. Yeah. Well, I don't remember if I was ever Treasurer but I was on the executive. I know that Hugh McNeil played an important part, and Ken Mounce, who doesn't live here any longer, he had a lot to do with it. So we were all executive members. So yes, I certainly had something to do with it.
OH: How did you first hear about Avondale? Why did you come here?
EF: I first moved to this area because after my marriage broke up I needed someplace to live. I was an Anglican, and the Anglican minister at that time was the Reverend Richard Walsh and he told me one day when we were talking, he told me he knew of a place to rent. People were looking for somebody to stay in their home for seven years until they finished his military service and they wanted somebody to house sit. So I then became, I'll never forget the night it was Mayday, Victoria Day, May 24th, or whatever I think, and I moved up that one kilometer long lane to the McNeil homestead, Wallace Point all by myself and I got up there, looked around, and I couldn't see another sign of life, but I absolutely loved being up there with the deer and the rabbits and everything else. And so I stayed there for I think, that was Victoria Day 1983. So I stayed there until maybe winter ‘86. In the meantime I bought myself a second hand Jeep with a snow plow attached to it. I bought it in Halifax or Bedford or that area and drove it home on the hottest day of summer, and I still still remember the men who were working on the road laughing and shaking their fingers at me as I drove by with the snowplow. Anyway, I got that home and had to plow that kilometer long lane for one winter, maybe two winters and then finally the man who became my husband had joined me too and so one winter it became too much. So when the house here in Avondale that the girls Janice and Loretta now own, when that came on the market we decided we had to get out of Wallace Point with its kilometer long lane and very cold winds coming off the river. So we bought the place that Janice and Loretta are now in, and so I’ve been in this community ever since. After my husband died the house I'm in now came on the market, and I bought it and I think that's probably 33 years ago, and I proceeded to fix it up and add to it and I've been there ever since.
OH: Do you know how old the house you’re in now is?
EF: I think it goes back to the eighteen hundreds. I have information on it, but I can't give you the exact number of years, but it's not new. Definitely not new when I bought it.
OH: What do you love about Avondale?
EF: I think it would be better to say is there anything I don't like about Avondale, and no there's nothing that I don't like about Avondale. Yeah.
OH: What do you hope to see in the future?
EF: What do I hope to see in it? Or of it? Well there seem to be new people moving in all the time. And of course, there's going to be great excitement starting this year on August 17th. They're going to film a horror movie, a Stephen King type of movie. I don't know how long they estimate it's going to take to do it, but there is certainly going to be a presence of them around for a while starting August. Well, actually It's going on now. They were there today for a while.
OH: Do you think it’s going to disrupt the peace and quiet of Avondale?
EF: I think it only disrupts it if you let it. I can go into my house and be there with my kitty cat and nothing has to disturb me unless I let it.
OH: What do you see as your contribution being in the future?
EF: My contribution in the future. Well, I'm going to be 85 years old this year. So I don't know that I have much left to contribute. Really, I just love being here. But no, I don't see myself making the type of contribution I did when this museum was being started and so on.
OH: Do you find anything interesting here and are there any areas of interest for you?
EF: I don't know what you would consider interesting. You know, I'm still busy with my volunteer work which is driving my car for Dial-A-Ride. When people need drives they call our coordinator and sometimes I get called to go pick people up and take them for appointments or whatever, here and there. No, other than doing that, before this epidemic or whatever you want to call it started, I used to swim at King's Edgehill and I played Bridge every Wednesday down in Port Williams, but things have slowed down considerably now and I'm not sure that they're going to pick up again. So I love to read you know, I do the puzzles in the paper every day and when there is church up in the little Avondale United Church, which I played the organ up there for them for their services. But other than that you know, I just come and go, I go into town every morning for a coffee. And while I'm there I go to Sobey’s and get what groceries I need. And so then I watch quite a bit of TV at home. Other than that for now, that's about it. Until things pick up again. Yes,yes, yes.
OH: Have you noticed any changes in Avondale since you moved here?
EF: Well for instance this year, they're not having, probably you know more about this, the big weekend [Full Circle]. They used to have more people coming in. They're not having that this year. So there really aren't as many new people around just for the weekends or that sort of thing, things seem to have quieted down a little bit. Yeah. Well, we'll have to wait and see won't we?
OH: But do you see any changes like with the community, not necessarily to do with the pandemic.
EF: But just that's just it. I don't know that there's as much going on down here as there was back in the 80’s. I mean that was kind of an exciting time with the building of the Avon Spirit and its launch and you know, there was more going on then, but I would say there doesn't seem to me to be as much going on now.
OH: Do you have any artifacts or anything that you want to share?
EF: I have a wonderful old map of the whole community and I think you have one like it downstairs, but I think maybe mine is bigger because my next door neighbor in the little house came by and I was showing it to her and she said “Oh yours is bigger than the one at the Museum. You should donate back to the museum”. I just found that rolled up in the rafters in my basement when I bought my house. Yeah, so I don't know where it originally came from but I know where it is right now. You know, I made a lot of changes in my house. I had to, I had to make changes in the house. It's old, but I changed almost everything and I built an addition to make it more livable, nicer. An addition on the back with all windows looking out over the river and so on. That's where I pretty well live, in that addition on the back and I added a downstairs bathroom and laundry room, but as for artifacts, I have some old things but they are things that came from my family that I brought with me. So I don't think I have anything that I found in the house except for that map of the area rolled up in the rafters in the cellar.
OH: Is there anything you want to talk about? I don't have any more questions.
EF: I think it's neat what you're doing and trying to create more of a history of Avondale, which used to be called Newport Landing I guess and you know, we've done things here in the past year since I moved in, with the arrival of the Planters who came after the expulsion of the Acadians in the 1700’s, and we've put on pageants and I'm sure there must be movies or whatever of that sort of thing. I have lots of snapshots of people all dressed up and pretending they were Planters coming from the New England states and coming here to take over the lands from which the Acadians were expelled. But you know, other than that, it just seems to go on and there doesn't seem to be much as much of that sort of community thing going on here as there was say 20 years ago.