Avon River Heritage Society
  • About
    • Avon River Heritage Society
    • Artifacts & Archives
    • The Avon River
    • Meet the People in our Neighbourhood >
      • Dawn Allen, August 21st, 2020
      • Sara Beanlands, July 22nd, 2021
      • Carolyn Connors, July 30th, 2020
      • Carolyn Connors, July 21st, 2021
      • Louis Countinho, August 13th, 2020
      • Sean Countinho, January 13th, 2021
      • Eva Evans, July 24th, 2020
      • Elizabeth Ferguson, July 27th, 2020
      • Nicholas Hughes, August 6th, 2020
      • Olwynn Hughes, August 11th, 2020
      • Kim Lake, January 18th & 21st, 2021
      • Trudy Lake, March 13th, 2022
      • Raymond Parker, August 12th, 2020
      • Raymond Parker, July 7th, 2021
      • Zacchary Paul, August 21st, 2021
      • Tacha Reed, August 27th, 2020
      • Allen Shaw, January 18th, 2021
      • Carolyn vanGurp, July 16th, 2020
      • Abraham Zebian, August 24th, 2020
    • Avondale Walking Tour
    • Fundraising
    • Book an Appointment
  • History
    • Natural History >
      • Highest Tides in the World
      • Tidal Bore
      • Avon Peninsula Ecology
      • Birds of the Avon
      • Marine and Freshwater Species of the Avon
      • Karst Environment
      • Gypsum
      • Avon Peninsula Watershed Preservation Society >
        • Avon Peninsula Watershed Preservation Society, Interview with President, Raymond Parker
    • Mi'kmaq >
      • Mi'kmaq Birch Bark Canoes
      • Mi'kmaq of the Avon River >
        • Treaty Truckhouse 2 & Zacchary Paul
    • The Coming of the Europeans
    • The North American Colonies
    • Acadians >
      • Pisiquit
      • Acadians of the Avon River
      • Village Thibodeau (Poplar Grove)
      • Acadian Families After Expulsion
    • New England Planters >
      • New England Planters in Avondale >
        • Genealogy
        • James and Lydia Mosher
    • Loyalist
    • African Nova Scotians
    • Local Home Histories >
      • 28 Chip Hill Road
      • 51 Avondale Road
      • 38 Avondale Road: The Clifford Mosher House
      • 58 Avondale Road
      • 60 Avondale Cross Road
      • 71 Avondale Road: The John A. Harvie House
      • 354 Belmont Road: The Yellow House
      • 603 Belmont Road: Wallace Point
      • 801 Avondale Road
      • The Acadia House
      • The Avondale Church
      • The Avondale Parsonage
      • The Church Farm
      • The Fred Robart House
      • The Henry Lyon House
      • The House Across From The Church
      • The John E.F. Mosher House
      • The Knowles Homestead
      • The Mounce Mansions >
        • Captain George R. Mounce House
        • The Thomas A. Mounce House (Honeymoon House) >
          • Interior of the Honeymoon House
      • The Mrs. Dunham Hotel
      • The Old Newton Mosher House
      • The Old Stone House >
        • The Mystery of the Fieldstone House
      • The Roley Mosher House
      • The W.H. Mosher House
    • The Avondale School
    • Golden Age of Sail >
      • The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age of Sail in Newport
      • The Mosher Shipyards
      • Sailing Ships, Sugar, and Salt
      • Vessels of the Avon River
      • Shipbuilding Process
      • Shipbuilding Tools
      • Ship Directories
      • The Avon Spirit
      • Kings Wharf
      • The Hamburg >
        • Obituary Capt. Andrew B. Coldwell
        • The Hamburg and Alice Coalfleet’s Diary
      • Captain George Richard Mounce Sr
      • Annie Armstrong Mounce Correspondence 1875-1892
      • Captain Daniel William Dexter & The Emma Payzant >
        • Captain Daniel William Dexter and Family, Interview with Debbie Siler, July 21st, 2021
        • Diary of Sarah Dexter, 1892-1893
      • The Rotundus
    • Avondale Wharf & The Landing
    • Community Orchard
    • Edmund McCarthy
  • Arts & Culture
    • The Great Little Art Show >
      • Great Little Art Show 2021 - Artists
      • Great Little Art Show 2021 - Artwork
      • Great Little Art Show 2022 - Artists
      • Great Little Art Show 2022 - Artwork
    • Artists Landing Art Gallery
    • Open Studio at the Museum
    • Full Circle Festival >
      • Sofa Sundays
      • Solstice Market
    • Artisans in Action >
      • Artist in Residence 2022
      • Paint Avondale
    • Avondale Wharf Day
    • Honey Harvest Festival
    • Yoga, Meditation, Free Writing Series
    • Lyrics & Letters Concert/Workshop
  • Events Calendar
  • Planters Sea Chest Gift Shop
  • Lydia and Sally Cafe
  • Rentals
  • Volunteer and Employment Opportunities
  • How to find us!

Meet the People in our Neighbourhood


Picture

Eva Evans,   July 24th,  2020

I was lucky enough to be born in Avondale almost 73 years ago, and I grew up here and I attended the Avondale School to grade 6, and then went to Hants West Rural High School. And at that time sometimes it was a one-room school and sometimes a two-room school. My favorite teacher was Mary Taylor, originally Mary Laffin from Moose Brook. I remember our annual field days when we had games and races, probably including sack races. These were held in the Curry Field then owned by Ralph Stillman who then lived in the place which is now owned by Nicholas Hughes. I recall one year, we were terribly disappointed because Mr. Stillman was grumpy and at that time, didn't allow us all to have our field day there. I'm not sure what happened. Anyway, it was a big disappointment to all of us kids.
My younger brother Dennis recalls that routinely the older boys fetched a bucket of water from Mr. Stillman’s well for the school to use. And at least on one occasion he kindly rescued a young schoolgirl who had been locked in the school outhouse 

Other field days, which we enjoyed, were the annual 4-H Field Days held on various farms. It was called the three-cornered 4-H club because it took in Poplar Grove, Avondale and Belmont. 

It wasn't like today when 4-H has a wide variety of activities from rabbits to cooking to fashion. The only project we had was dairy cows. Each year each member got a new calf to care for and to train, meaning to walk around the show ring with a halter, and to stand properly. One year, I named my calf Louise after a favorite great aunt. I meant it as a compliment, but other people teased me that it wasn't a compliment to name a cow after a person. 

Two important skills we learned, well besides learning to judge dairy cows, we also learned public speaking every year. We had to write a speech and present it, and we also learned how to conduct meetings following the Robert's Rules of meetings. And those skills were very valuable in later life. 

The leaders of the Three-cornered 4-H club were my father, Roland Parker, a Guernsey breeder, purebred Guernsey breeder and Marguerite Mosher, nee McCully, her husband was another Guernsey dairy farmer, Irving Moser in Poplar Grove. 

In those days there were several Guernsey farms on this road; and it was more popular than the prevalent Holstein breed of today. Milk and cream were shipped in cans to Farmers Dairy, picked up by the farmers truck from the end of one's driveway. And we were lucky on one field day, the Farmers Dairy had a trailer or canteen in the field and we could buy ice cream. 

The farm I grew up on here in Avondale and and returned to with my family in 1991 is on land on the corner of the Avondale Road and the Avondale Cross road, which was originally granted to John Harvie, one of the planter settlers who arrived on the Sally, in 1760. In a small book, “Newport Landing, a Historical Report Written in 1976”, Paul Webb writes: “John Harvey built a beautiful house... about 100 yards from the road on a hillside facing the township of Windsor. The house was square shape with a four-sided roof containing one large chimney in the center.” I never saw this house as it burnt down on May 11th 1941 according to the newspaper at the time. Paul Webb states in his book that John Harvie called the farm “Roseway”, after his former home in Scotland. Sometime between 1897 and 1907, Weston Harvie, a descendant of John Harvie, sold the farm to my great uncle Leonard Parker, married to the Louise mentioned above. Leonard sold it to his nephew, my father Roland Earl Parker in 1940. 

My father expanded Roseway, buying on the East the land of George Allison, on the south the Burke dyke from Mrs. Burke, and finally the Curry Field to the west and located here in the village from Ralph Stillman in the early 1970s. 

A year after the devastating loss of the original Harvey House in 1941, just a year after my father bought the farm, my father married my mother Ethel Maude Smiley, eldest of a prominent farming family in Mckay section, Smiley's Provincial Park.

My parents built a one-bedroom house just behind the site of the original house and had three children there before building a large house that resembled the Harvie house in many ways. Basil Robarts remembers getting logs out of the woods from what he called the “undivided lot”, behind the Old Stone House, for the new house using my father's horses, Doll and Queen. In 2013, he told me from his room at Dykeland Lodge that the biggest tree for the new house was 36 to 37 inches at the bottom. Basil recalled that the logs were not all out then the April thaw came, so my father fed the horses around 4:15am. Basil would come up around 5:00am to take Doll and Queen to the woods before the ground became too soft. Eventually, they got all the logs out and then Claire Etter’s father came and took the logs by truck to Brooklyn to be sawn into more boards at the Etter’s sawmill. The house was completed in 1953 and the Parker family of five moved in. 

It was one of the first houses in Avondale to have flush toilets, a big improvement over the outhouse. I have enjoyed living in this house for nearly 50 years. One thing I love are the views from every window in every direction. 

The house was purchased by my husband Albert Evans and myself in 2004 along with about 34 Acres of the farm. We have a vegetable growing business including several large greenhouses and call it “As You Like It” farm, because like William Shakespeare’s birthplace, it's near the Avon River.

The rest of my parent’s farm is still Roseway Farm Ltd, belonging to my brothers Howard and Raymond and myself. In 2020, the dykeland part was sold to the descendants of Henry Knowles who had been farming in Avondale since 1768. 
Avon River Heritage Society Museum, 17 Belmont Road, Avondale/Newport Landing, Hants County, Nova Scotia, B0N 2A0
Email us at infoavonriver@gmail.com
Telephone us, May through October, at (902) 757-1718