Donnybrook - My memories of growing up there.

Where I grew up

When my parents moved into their first home in the valley called Donnybrook near Ireland Road (College Grant) in Ohio, Antigonish county, Nova Scotia, they used oil lamps for light, an outhouse and carried their water from a brook on the property.

My dad, Donald Keir Steeves had taken his army savings and helped his step-father, Claude John Steeves set up a sawmill near Din's bridge, a metal arched structure across a gorge and dam below, near Ireland Road.

Dad was able to acquire an old army truck which was selling cheaply and could be used to haul logs and lumber to buyers in Pictou county.

Mom came to Donnybrook as a young graduate from Normal College in Truro, Nova Scotia. She took a teaching job at the one-room schoolhouse at the bottom of the Marsh Hill along the Ohio West road.

Master Corporal John Steeves, Dec 11 1961 - March 4 20201

 

John was my younger brother and I miss a lot

Un-noticed by Canadian media, death toll from covid has passed at least 1000 in 150 different countries worldwide

covid-19 is restricting those few precious years  when a kid can be a kid...

Got that bit of sad and bad news from 40 gallons and a mule today, July 11th 2020....

here is the link to the story.

Doris & Stan Wortman raised a great family - except for grandson Gabriel

Bob Stanfield actually successfully caught footballs all afternoon during that election campaigning day event oh so long ago --- and the press photographers actually photographed him repeatedly doing so.

But what their subtly editorializing bosses all chose to publish -and publish  over and over and over - what the photograph of the one time Bob missed.

Stanfield narrowly lost that election to Pierre Trudeau by just one seat - and the football fumble scam is generally given the blame.

Canada's own "Gotcha !" and "The Sun What Won It !"  moment.

Think of that, whenever you read in mean stream media about that awful monster of a grandson of Doris Wortman.

Because as this 40 Gallons and a Mule blog post clearly shows, her children and grandchildren all bettered themselves from her and her husband's humble working class beginnings....

Gabriel Wortman story revealed at 40 gallons and amule blog

              Https://40gallonsandamule.blogspot.com

https://40gallonsandamule.blogspot.com/2020/05/gabe-wortmans-complicated-love-life-its.html

Detailed stuff not just speculation
Doucuments facts photos

Proposed Owl's Head golf course is wrong !

If golf courses are about anything, they are all about grass.

Rich deep grass over rich deep soil.

The proposed Owl's Head golf course along the Eastern
Shore near Ship Harbour basically looks like Peggy's Cove.

Would you build a golf course at Peggy's Cove ??!!

I can just see your and my hard earned tax dollars being
wasted during an election campaign to see that hundreds
of Liberal truck drivers are well paid to truck Musquodoboit
Valley farm soil all the way to Owl's Head to build a golf course.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs !!! (As long as you are a Grit.)

Maybe I am being cynical or maybe I am just being a born and raised Nova Scotian who knows how it works down here...

Why is Nova Scotia so slow to take profitable advantage of our ever-present ever-powerful winds?

We have windy politicians galore - but their wind is mostly NATO : No Action, All Talk , when it comes to seriously making our province a wind-power among nations....

Martin Henry Dawson's first medical role : was as a WWI Medic

Note the RED CROSS badge on Martin Henry Dawson's Cdn Med Corp uniform !

I am not sure he was ever on a combat battlefield as a medic though - he worked at base hospitals a few dozen miles behind the front lines.

He was , later, in the front lines leading the charges across No Nan's Land as a very brave  junior infantry officer.

New photo of Martin Henry Dawson !

Martin Henry Dawson 1919

Helen Creighton, the famous Nova Scotian folklorist, kept everything of her long life, and then left them to the Public Archives of Nova Scotia, where her lifelong friend Phyllis Blakney was director.

 Among the photos PANS put on his public website was a photo Helen kept of her brother Terry and a group of friends, including a very happy relaxed young Henry Dawson !!!!!


 The date was 1919 and the group of young Nova Scotian soldiers were simply glad to still be alive and in relatively good shape after years in the mud of the Western Front.

 One of Henry's Vancouver relatives found the photo online and I thought I would link to the PANS website so all the world could see a smiling Henry, instead of all those stern faced or glum photos Michael Marshall is usually publicly posting of Dr Dawson...

Martin Henry Dawson in middle, 1919