Summary

The protagonist of our story, Margaret, is a ninety-year-old retired teacher who enjoys keeping every tiny memorable item she’s gathered in her life. Those photos and small objects are regarded by her as part of her life. They describe in detail the whole interesting life story of this great mother of four children who grew up on a farm in British Columbia. One object is a hand-made hat she made herself; the hat is now seventy-five years old. Margaret collected all her neighbours’ signatures and their favourite colors when she was about sixteen years old. She then embroidered these names on this hat using lines with different colors. Although it is quite aged, it still looks nice, owing to its owner’s good care. Some of her other treasured objects include an insignia from her father and a locket with photos inside from her mother.

Early years as a child

Margaret was born in a large family in September , 1924. Being the only girl in her family, she has three elder brothers and a younger brother who is four years younger than her. Unfortunately, the eldest child in this family died in his age of fourteen, when Margaret was a pretty young girl.

Both of Margaret’s parents came from Scotland and settled in Ottawa, where they gave birth to all their children. When the Great Depression swept over the whole North America, Margaret’s father lost everything like everyone else in the city. In her age of six, the whole family had to move away from Ottawa to find a new place to live in. This was when they finally found a farm that could accommodate all the family members after a long trip.

 

Attending school in her new neighbourhood

After moving to their new home, Margaret started her life as a student in local schools following her two elder brothers. She was such a hardworking student that she pushed herself to learn more and more, which made her stand out from her peers. When she was in grade seven, some people was considering closing the school she was attending and opening a new one two miles away. Since the new school would be six miles from Margaret’s home and would not offer grade eight courses, the kids in her neighbourhood would not be able to go to school anymore. However, the administrators needed the current school to have one less pupil in order for them to close it. By holding a test that was a level higher than their current grade for all students in Margaret’s school, they had Margaret pass the exam and she was promoted from grade seven to grade nine directly. Now having one less pupil in the original school, the administrators managed to close it and opened a new one as they expected. Margaret did nothing for a whole year after that and skipped her grade eight works. She still feels guilty now about writing the test, as she could have stopped them closing her school by doing nothing during the test. After the one-year gap, Margaret went back to her new school where there were only eight students and one teacher who made up the entire school.

 

During War time

When Margaret was about to become an adult, the Second World War started to affect Canada, as it stood on the Allies’ side. Her two elder brothers left home to join the army. They stayed overseas and didn’t get the chance to go back home until the year 1945, when the war was ended with the victory of the Allies. Starting from that time, Margaret  had to become a farmer and took over all the work from her brothers as her younger brother didn’t care about these things. During these days, she struggled a lot for what she got and she her mother was her only companion on the farm.

 

Farming life

Margaret spent most of her life living in a farm, thus she doesn’t remember much about life in city. Nevertheless, her knowledge about farming can always surprise a lot of people who hear these old stories.

Most of the houses on her farm were built using wood as the main material. They had a chimney on the roof and were surrounded by so-called snake fences, which were also built with local logs. Door and windows were installed on the walls where there were saved blanks for them. The neighbourhood also shared a wooden sauna house where people took their bath. A wooden gate stood at the entrance of the farm where Margaret and her younger brother once took a photo together as they were playing around. Margaret’s room was on the second floor, facing the side with the front door of their house. Their water supply was provided by a water puller from a nearby lake directly.

On her farm, which was known as a family farm, Margaret’s daily activities mainly included hay cutting, making haystacks, and bridge binding. They used to make their own ham and bacon with what they  harvested from their farm. They also used to raise up a couple of pigs and feed some chickens every year. There was several cows on the farm that provide people with plenty of fresh milk. In winter, when snow covered everything, Margaret and her brother would play snow plow to have fun.

Life changing event

When Margaret’s husband died in 1957, her life changed a lot. Being the mother of four children, she was left along to find a way to raise them up and earn them the chance to get well educated at the same time. She managed to achieve her goal by putting her best effort into everything that she could do. Works like milking the cow and driving a car made it possible for Margaret to earn her family a living as the only labor in her family.

Closing

Margaret moved to New Westminster in 1960s to work there. She lived in Port Coquitlam but had her job in New Westminster. Margaret enjoyed her life a lot in this oldest city in Canada. Currently belonging to two writing groups, she is a very active writer whose stories and poems tell the old memories of her past life several decades ago. She can write almost everything quite well, therefore she seeks challenging topics to write about. In the meantime, Margaret is also making a chart for her family, which is quite similar to a family tree. She records the names, relations, and addresses of her relatives and sends everyone a copy so that they can know where others are living and maybe pay a visit if possible.  Her retired life seems to be very happy and enjoyable for her.