Meet the People in our Neighbourhood
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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.
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.
