A SITE TO REMEMBER OUR YOUNGER YEARS AND THE FUN WE HAD.
FORGET ABOUT THE LOSSES AND EXAGGERATE THE WINS!
Friday, September 29, 2006
THE PICKLE PLANT
This picture is of Roddie Macnevin, he ran the pickle plant. The name was Matthew-Wells Ltd. and they picled cukes for Rose Brand. The house you see in Thompsens on Mt. Edward Road. You can see the vats they used for pickling. There were 4 rows I think and there was a wooden walkway for the men to push their wheel barrows on. they would dump the cukes in the brine. The vats were quite tall and as I said before every kid peed in them, and a few guys went swimming in the pickles. We would ride our bike on the walkways and Roddie would show up and chase us.I don't think I ever saw Roddie with out a hat or cigarette. There was an old outhouse down at the back of the barrells and a pile of cull cukes. I'll tell you later what we did with them.
This picture is from August 1959, I don't know who the people are but probably realatives of Roddie's. This picture shows his office from the Allen Street side as well as the back doors leading to the brine vats. You can see how high they were. Fred Gallant worked there many years and his sons did also, usually in the fall. I think every kid in Parkdale worked there for a time. It was heavy slugging. The cukes were dumped into the brine tanks and when pickled they were placed into smaller vats that were on railcars, the first picture shows this and shipped to Welland Ont. for packaging. The pickle plant was a big part of our early years in Parkdale. The vats are long gone and Walter Picott stands on the site today. Tks To Ray Bertram for the pictures.
Here is another picture taken from the front in the winter no pickles. Look at the roof of the building, you can just make out the name MATTHEW AND WELLS
Walter ran this service station for many years , just down the street from my home.He would always give us the waste oil so we could burn it for heat down at the car club. The top photo is probably 1950. The second photo is taken after Walter moved the station back from the road and renovated the station. Thanks to the Burhoe girls for the photos. The Ladner family lived upstairs at this time, we had alot of fun with Stu & Hal, trading comics. Charlie and Jeannie Bartel lived with them for a few years and one day disappeared. No one ever tells a kid what was going on. We always wondered what happened to them. Then in the mid 90's, after we got on line, I was able to track Charlie down in Ontario. A few weeks later he arrived on PEI with his family and i met him down at Mother's. We had a great time catching up on our lives. Mother said that after they left and hearing how well Charlie had done in life, she had her best night sleep in years. During the 50,s Walter had a contract to tow the cars that were involved in collisions, these mostly occured on Saturday night. Walter had two old Army Trucks that he used for towing. After a car had it's transmission wrecked from towing , Walter always crawled under the car and removed the drive shaft. As I said most of the serious accidents occured on Saturday night, this was pre seat belts, airbag, collapsable steering column, padded dash or safety glass. These cars were usually a mess, heads smashed into the steel dash, or through the windsheild. Lots of blood and other things. He would park these wrecks behind the station on Belmont Street. We would run down early Sunday morning to get alook at the mayhem that occured the night before. In this era most people went to Church on Sunday as a family. After Church people would head out to Walter's to look at the wrecks. If it was a bad accident with people dying the crowds would be enormous. Men would park their cars with their family inside and go to look at the carnage. Kids would be begging daddy to let them look. My brothers and I would usually be there to watch these men and listen to their commments. This was a Sunday ritual for many years. Walter was a good guy , as was his son Wen and Allison Moore. In the evening many men, like Juice Longaphee, Bun Duffy, George Beer, would come into to walter's to chat , have a smoke and a bottle of Pepsi. When we were kids Walter would let us work on our bikes there and help us to fix them and patch the tires for a penny. Thanks Walter.
Jack Ferguson gave me this picture of Barry's. The "A" belongs to Ralph Thompson. I'm not sure of the date but you can see the Fire hall is there, also notice the two guy's against the building. I hope to have some additional photos soon and some stories about Barry;s. Gary ( Ralph's Brother) told me that the "A" burned in N.B> during a parade.
In earlier stories I told of the first days of the Hearse and the last days. But as you may have guessed there are a few stories in between. I purchased the Hearse in early 1966 while I was working at Maritime Motors, I was earning $40.00 a week. The pay scale there was based on your needs, if your were married you earned more than a single guy and for each child you earned more.The married men with kids made about $70.00 per week. We were paid each friday afternoon, in cash ,always new bills. I would recieve two new $20.00 bills , the guy making $70.00 one $50.. and 0ne $20.00, hence the pay envelopes were the same thickness, hard to tell who made the most. In the mid 60's you also had a booklet from the Gov't to record your employment. Each pay week you would receive a stamp, yes about the size of a postage stamp, you would stick this in the book. When you had enough stamps you could collect Unemployment Insurance. Today people still refer to "stamps" without knowing the history. Also at this time unions were rare,and anyone caught trying to organize one was fired. Donnie Mackay and Leo Cannon tried to organizie on at a car dealership and were caught and fired. The poorest off were labourers, they had seasonal employment and worked in dangerous enviroments, with no job protection. They began to organize and walk off construction sites in protest for a living wage.
One day at the shop a couple of men came in looking for the owner of the "Hearse", Charlie Currie took them down to me. One of the guys was named Rejean and he wanted to rent the Hearse for a demonstration.They had stopped by my home and Mother told them where I worked. Making forty bucks a week, I didn't have money to register the Hearse, at this time all veichles had to be regeistered by April 1. The office was in the old Queen Square School. Working people could only go there on their lunch break and half the staff would be on their break. It was very difficult to not only find the money but the time to do it. The hearse was not registered at this time, so the men went down and paid for the registration, insurance and filled it with gas. Almost two weeks pay for me. Well they took the Hearse and drove around the city going to construction sites. They went by the shop, the Hearse in front a few dozen workers following behind. The owner came down and watched the parade while shooting stares at me.
We went to Summerside one day after this for a demonstration, Paul "Buff" Connoly was laid out in back and would pull the curtains open every now and then and rise from the dead. I don't remember how much they paid us for this.
Rejean stooped by the house and asked if I would go to Moncton for a demonstration, the guys were excited to go, so we planned to catch th 6am boat and be there for noon. Rejean told us this one might get ugly as there was alot of opposition to unions. I got up early Sunday morning and found Rejeans card and $50.00 on the front seat of the Hearse and a note saying"the demonstration was off, they settled". I never heard from him again. So in retrospect the Hearse did bring life to the labour movement on PEI.
