Eleanor McCann

September 1987

(Robin LeGarf interviewing Mrs. Eleanor Cann)

Q: Mrs. Cann, could you tell us something about your grandparents for a start?

A: Yes, my grandfather and grandmother, Mr. and Mrs. Cullin, bought property next door to the old Hurley Hotel (Shawnigan Beach Hotel) and they just camped there just around 1886 or something and an uncle of mine owned the property from the beach hotel right down to Priers Point and there were a lot of my grandfather’s friends who wanted the property there, so my uncle put all their names in a hat and they drew their names out. My grandfather got the property two doors from the Beach Hotel. Mr. Bowes got the first one, he was a druggist in Victoria; and there was my grandfather Mr. Cullin; and then there were the Ditchburns; and then there were the Fedun (?) brothers (the music store people); and then there were the Clarks (he was a printer) and DeVilles; and Colonel Prior owned that point at that time.

He had a huge launch, of course I was only very very small, maybe two or three years. And then every summer my brother and I, with our parents, would bring us up to Shawnigan for our summer holidays, which we just loved because we loved Shawnigan and this Colonel Prior, oh, we thought he was a real rich man because he had a beautiful big launch. And twice a week he’d come along. We all had wharves out and twice a week he’d come along in his launch and stop at all these different wharves and all us kids would jump in the launch. Oh, we just thought that was something. And he’d bring us over to the train and we’d sit on that, they used to have a long platform we used to sit on. And then we’d come up to the Kingsley store, used to be down below, and we’d go there for our groceries and our mail.

And I guess my grandfather’s house is over 100 years old and it’s all modernized now. Two of my cousins have it and they come up in the summertime. And my great-grandmother’s house is over in Strathcona Bay just below the girls’ school. She had water frontage, she had fifty feet there, and she used to camp there.

She had an oven, what they call their “cut out of the earth,” and they had big oil cans in there so that she could bake her pies in there. The freight trains used to come out, and she had fourteen children, so her sons used to come up on the freight trains for nothing, because they knew the engineer and they dropped them off at the Strathcona Station there. They used to throw coal down for my great-grandmother to bake with, put around these tins, you see. So she used to bake homemade bread and she’d give them the bread and they’d go out and pick the real blackberries, not these tall ones, the ones on the ground, and she used to bake pies and she’d give them to these engineers. Oh, they thought that was just really something.

She was born in Dublin Ireland, my great-grandmother was. Oh, she was quite a card, she was really funny. She lived to be 98, she died in 1934 I guess it was, 1934, and she was 98. She’d never been sick a day in her life. She had the most wonderful memory you ever saw. And my grandparents, my grandfather was her eldest son. He built over to the old Beach Hotel, but my great-grandmother didn’t want to. She wanted to be over near the trains so she wouldn’t have to walk so far.

His house is still there, too, it’s over 100 years old, and it’s all modernized. You could live in both places all year round. And my great-aunt owns my great-grandmother’s house. She married her youngest son, and it was left to him. He died, he was my great-uncle and so my great-aunt Abby Cullin, she has the house there now. Of course, she doesn’t live there, she lives down in Victoria, but her children come down and holiday there. On the back of the cottage behind the girls’ school, you can see ‘Cullin’ written on the back of the house there, it’s still there. And she has water frontage, she has fifty feet, and my grandfather over on Mr. Hurley’s side, he had 100 feet.

And I can remember when we were youngsters and the mill burnt down when we were up here. It burnt down three times. Anyways, we were up there once and when the hotel burnt down, I forget how old I was, but I wasn’t very old, but my father had built my brother and I a boat. And I got up this day and saw this place blazing and (Robin: This was the Kingsley Hotel we’re talking about? Or the Strathcona?) It was the Mill. The mill burnt down, and then Mrs. Kingsley’s Hotel down by the station, it burnt down. And in fact, you have a little teapot here (in the S.L.H.S) that Mrs. Kingsley saved and a little green one that she gave to my mother, then my mother gave it to me. Then, when we moved, I thought, ‘Well, I’d give it to Vera Tait,’ because I thought it should be left here someplace, so it’s downstairs there (in the museum display).

Anyways, this day that the hotel burnt down, down at the Shawnigan Lake Station here, I saw it, and oh, I wasn’t very old and of course me, I was always getting into mischief. I jumped in the boat. You know where Mrs. Rogan lived, that was my uncle’s house to start with, so I thought, ‘I’ve got to go over and tell Margaret and pick Margaret up.’ I never told Mother where I was going or anything, and so my cousin and I rowed over there and watched the fire. And then we went home and I got heck from Mother because she didn’t know where I’d gone. And we saw that, I can’t remember what date it was or how old I was. I don’t think I was even going to school, oh, I must have been going to school.

We used to go over to Mrs. Kingsley’s grocery store and then they’d have the dances down here, you know, at the hall. We were allowed to go with our parents, but we had to sit on the side, we couldn’t get up and dance or anything. We just had to sit there and watch them. But we enjoyed that.

I swam from my grandfather’s house by the Hurley’s hotel right across to the mill and back. I used to do that quite often. And one day I said to my brother, ‘I’m going to swim home.’    ‘Oh no, that’s too far.’

I said, ‘No, I can do it,’ so I swam home. The boat was beside me and my mother was standing at the end of the wharf. Oh, she gave me heck. I said, ‘Well, I was all right, Mother. I can swim and it wasn’t that far.’ And I said there were people in the boat, yes, but there were no adults in the boat. And I got heck so I couldn’t do that again.

And then another funny thing happened to me at the back of my grandfather’s place. Of

course, then it was just sort of bushes and that sort of thing. It is all lawn now, but it was just bushes then. Well, a tree fell across, so I had to get out and walk across this tree. I was kicking my feet around and you know, in those years, we used to wear just bloomers and knitties, you know, with no sleeves, and just bloomer things like bare legs and bare feet. We hardly ever wore shoes when we were up there. So I was fooling up there acting like a fool, jumping around, and the first thing I knew, I went back and I fell into a big bunch of nettles. They were about this high and oh, did they sting, oh boy. So Mother came out because I started to yell and she says, ‘Well, it serves you right, you shouldn’t have been doing that.’

When we were kids, we used to make our boats of the bark. You know, you’d put a stick in and have paper for sails, because we never had much money or anything, and I mean, the kids nowadays, they think that’d be stupid. But we used to have a lot of fun. We’d build moors with rocks along the shoreline and play along there and have a lot of fun.

Then another thing which you couldn’t do today: it would cost you—well, I don’t know how much it would cost you, but we used to row over in our boats to the mill and we’d get beautiful wood and you could fill your boat up as high as you liked for just twenty-five cents. All us kids who’d camped along there, we’d all row over to the mill and throw the wood in. And then we’d sit on top and paddle ourselves home. So one day, my brother and I, maybe we got a little big greedy. I don’t think we got greedy because you could pile it as high as you wanted to, and there were a few little spaces so we put a little extra wood in. So Alec, my brother, and I, we set off and paddled home. We got about three quarters of the way home and the boat tumbled over. But luckily the wood floated ashore, so we were very lucky.

And then another thing we used to do: we’d go out in the morning just to see who could get up first along the road there, and go out and get beautiful bark from the mill for the fireplace. So we never had to spend much money on the fir and that. It was just beautiful bark. And we’d collect that up.

And then another thing my parents used to make us do was we’d do all the vegetables in the morning. We’d have to carry the water up then. Later on, my grandfather got a pump, but at that time, we used to have to carry all the water up. We never thought anything of it. Then, when we were finished, we could go out and play after that. It didn’t bother us. We enjoyed doing it, you know.

When we first started to swim, my brother and I, we used to dive off my grandfather’s wharf at the inn there, and we couldn’t swim. But we used to dive down and then we’d pull ourselves underwater. So we got caught one day doing that and my grandfather gave us heck. So he got a tire or something or other, with a long pole on it, and he made this for us, and he’d pull us around the wharf until we could swim. But it didn’t take us long to learn because, you know, we’d lived in the water. I’ve got a lot of nice happy memories that happened up here.

And then, let’s see, my grandfather lived until 1939, he passed away in 1939. And my great-grandmother, she passed away about 1935, I guess. She was at Alec’s wedding. She was never senile, witty, oh, she was a funny old Irish lady. And her children, who were my great-uncles and aunts, they were always very witty.

I only had the one brother. There were just the two of us, and I know when my brother was born, Dr. Kenny didn’t think that Alec would live, and nothing would agree with him. So he said, take your two babies up to Shawnigan Lake, that’s a wonderful place for them. So Mother came up and my great-grandmother came with us. This is from what I’ve been told. Nothing would agree with my brother. So my dad—what’s that stuff in a can that you get, Borden’s—well, my dad dropped some of this stuff off, and it agreed with my brother. And so what saved my brother’s life was this can of milk, this Borden’s. So we’d been coming up ever since.

Next door to my grandfather’s house my father laid a floor, raised it up and made a floor, and he put this tent up. There were two double beds in it, a single bed, and two dressers. And us kids used to sleep out there. One night my mother was next door visiting Mrs. Ditchburn. We had the light on and the door open, and a bat flew in. Well, of course, just being youngsters, we screamed and screamed. My mother came running over—and my mother was a very brave woman—she came running over, and she said, ‘It’s all right,’ and she took the lamp out and the bat went out with her. So after that, Dad put a screen door on. Little incidents like that, but I mean, we enjoyed Shawnigan.

Then my mother and dad moved up permanently in 1969, I think it was. He was given three months to live, so they had to sell their house. My brother and his wife, they were up here, they had a little bake shop. So my mother came up here and bought the little corner block down here. So they went into business with my brother, you see, because Dad couldn’t have worked, he was given only three months to live. He lived until 1965, so all those years.

He had the hardware store and the rest of us had the grocery store. And boy, it was hard work, too. Then we sold the building and I wasn’t doing anything. Mr. Brooks came over and asked if I’d work in the post office. So I said, ‘No, I couldn’t do that kind of work.’ And he said, ‘Sure you can. Come on over.’ So anyways, I said, ‘Well, I’ll try it.’ And I forget how many years I worked there. I think 18 years I worked there. Just part time, eight in the morning until noon. No pension, nothing. I got a nice thank-you letter from Vancouver, though. Mrs. Brooks retired, so Bernie Falkenberg took it over and I worked with him and his wife for quite a few years. Then my husband and I moved to Victoria in 1970 after Mother had passed away.

My husband used to work on the CPR boats and he thought he’d like to have a land job, but it wasn’t the same. So he got back and worked for the dockyard in the Navy. He wasn’t a Navy man, but he worked there for a number of years. And then he retired. He’d drive up and down every day. It was quite the trip because, you know, the roads weren’t quite as good and we used to get a lot of snow.

I’d go to work at the post office at 8:00 in the morning and then I’d go home and I’d shovel our driveway out. Then I’d go to my mother’s and I’d shovel her driveway out because my dad was rushed to the hospital quite often and I thought I’d better keep that quite clean. Then, next door to us, Mrs. Lovel lived by herself, and I’d shovel a path down to her place so she could get out because she had nobody to do anything.

I was working and then my mother took sick just after my father died. She was sick for five years and I had her living with us for five years. We added another bedroom on. She was paralyzed down her right side. Anyways, I’d get up in the mornings and I’d sponge bathe her and dress her and put her back to bed because she didn’t want Vera to dress her.

I’d have Vera Tait come in from 8:00 to 12:00 because Dr. Kenny told me not to stop work, you see. He said, ‘You’re going to have quite a job there.’ Anyways, my mother was a marvelous patient. She was never cranky or anything, and Vera would come and she’d get Mom’s breakfast and things. Then I’d come home and I’d get lunch, and I think every day I’d take Mother and Mrs. Lovel out for a drive and we’d go to different places.

And then, when I took sick a few years ago, I was in the hospital for two years, and I’ve been in this home for about a year and a half now, I guess. I often lay there and think of how glad I am that I took my mother driving and that, because now I know that when you have to depend on your friends and that to come and take you, it’s quite different from when you’re used to a car and jumping into it yourself. But I was so glad that I did that for Mother and sometimes she’d want to come to Victoria and I’d bring her down.

And then one day she wanted to go to James Bay to Mrs. Smith’s grocery store, who they used to deal with. They lived over on Michigan St., and that’s where I was born, over on Michigan St. in Victoria. And she says, ‘You wheel me up in the wheelchair and you don’t tell them who I am. I want to see if they know me.’ So I wheeled her in and Mr. Smith says, ‘Oh, Mrs. Cudlip.’ And my mother, she was so happy because she hadn’t seen him for so many years. So I am very thankful and happy that I did those things for her. But she was a wonderful patient, and she died in 1970, five years after my dad did. Then, I think, it was just a short time after that that we moved back to Victoria, my husband and I.

We used to walk from our grandfather’s place, too, in our bare feet. We never wore shoes when we were up here. I couldn’t even walk in the gravel now, and we’d walk all the way up over here in our bare feet.

And then there used to be Hartl’s farm. We used to walk up there for our milk. We’d have these milk pails, all us kids, you know. There’s a little house, I don’t know if it’s still there or not, this little house in the bush and it had bushes all around it. I don’t remember the man who used to live there, but he used to peek out and we used to think it was haunted and we’d run past that place and then sigh when we’d get by. And Mrs. Hartl used to let us go in the barn and slide down the straw and that. Oh, we used to think that was really something. Didn’t cost us anything to have our fun in those days.

I often wish that I was back here, though. I enjoyed myself. Of course, those years when there weren’t so many people and you know everybody, working the post office you’d know everybody. Mr. Hurley, when he had the hotel over there, he used to have a lot of people just before the summer started and just after the summer. They’d come over and they’d talk to you.