Ontario 1959-1964

Mum chose to move to Oshawa because it was a major settlement for Seventh-day Adventists - there was a large church group,
along with Adventist schools that ranged from elementary to college.

The first place we lived was a basement apartment in the home of a Japanese family, the Wanaka's.

The SDA's had a food and book store in Oshawa. Mum bought a couple of the vegetarian tins of meat substitutes,
but they were very expensive, so we did not eat them very often.

Mum got a powder blue Princess phone installed. The dial glowed in the dark. I don't think that anyone ever telephoned,
but I think she did call my sister, still in the foster home, once.

From there, we moved to an upstairs suite in a large house. The Taylor family lived nearby. Another friend of Mum's was
Mrs. Webster, an elderly lady who left Mum some furniture when she passed away.

We moved to the home of Mr. Acker, out in the country. He had several children, and his wife had left him.

At one point, some friends of Mum's from Montreal came to visit. They gave me a little white dog, a 'Spitz' they called it.
I have no memory of what happened to the dog. The couple stopped coming before I started school. I think the lady may have been
a penpal of Mum's.

We then moved to Garden Hill, a little town near Port Hope, where Mum worked for Earl Taylor. He had a small store and auto wrecking
business. At first, we lived in his house, but then Mum moved into a house on his property.

Mum bought a car from Mr. Taylor, a blue Chev, a 1950 or 51 model.

One day, while returning from shopping with a neighbour, her little girl and me, Mum turned the car into
the yard at the house, and ran into the concrete front step. The sun was shining in her eyes, and she hadn't seen
how close she was to them. She never drove after that.

From Garden Hill, Mum moved to Port Hope, located on the shore of Lake Ontario, bordering the south side of Highway 401,
about 100 km east of Toronto. We lived in a small apartment directly above a bakery on the main street. We next lived in a basement
apartment, then in an old house that had been converted into a 2 storey multi family complex.

We moved to Oshawa agin, for a short time. Mum stopped attending church there. She began to experience fainting spells, and
she was afraid this would happen during services. It may be that, due to our poor diet, as we often had little food to eat,
she was malnourished, it may have been anxiety attacks, or a heart problem (which was diagnosed many years later). The money from
welfare and the Mother's Allowance did not supply us with enough money for rent and food.

We moved to Pontypool, then to Pickering.

Many of the places we lived were cold and drafty, and often rundown and dilapidated.

At Pontypool, Mum's son came home, after spending some time in a penitentiary in Saskatchewan. Mum bought Harold a car -
a 1949 or 50 Ford. He wanted a convertible, so he cut the top off! We were living in the country in a farmhouse then. For some
reason, Harold got angry, and he started to drive the car up and down the hills at the farm - trying to wreck the vehicle.
He left soon after that.

We moved back to Port Hope, to that same apartment complex. By this time, I was in grade 3.

In the summer months, Mum and I would go for a walk on the Sabbath (Seventh-day Adventists observe Saturday
as their holy day of rest) sometimes to the town park, sometimes to the town dump area, and its country setting.
Here we would sit (far from the dump area!), read the Bible or Bible stories, then come back home.
The apartments were not very nice, and I'm sure this was Mum's way of getting away from them, even though for only a few hours.

Dorothy Hall lived across the street. She was an older lady who looked after her grand daughter every summer.

At Christmas, Mum sent letters to a few of the service organizations, telling them that we were a poor family in need
of help to celebrate Christmas. We had a wonderful holiday, with good food to eat thanks to these organizations.
Mum made Carrot Pudding and served it with 'brown sauce', which was a sweet brown sugar topping. She often made
pies, lemon meringue, butterscotch and raisin.

Pets we had at different times included a canary, a blue budgie and a goldfish.

Mum had a friend named Ross Smith, who would often take us for a drive in his car.

Mum always hoped that her daughter who lived in the north, in the foster home, would come to visit.
Once, a woman came to the lower apartment door, and left again immediately. Mum worried that perhaps her
daughter had come and not gone to the right apartment.

She ordered alfalfa tea from the Free Press Prairie Farmer newspaper. She frequently traded houseplants by
mail, with people who had advertised in the ads.

She always signed her name, "Ellen R. Capps" and used her full initials "E.R.C.".

One month end, the welfare check did not arrive on the expected day, and we had no food to eat. This was on a Friday.
On Saturday, after the Sabbath was over (at sunset), Mum took me with her to a restaurant, and she asked the waitress
if we could order food, and pay for it the following Monday. The waitress refused, and we went back home.

We often scrounged for food from the large waste bins behind the supermarket. Mum's oldest daughter had finished
school, and was now working as a teacher. She would send a few dollars every month to help out, and often made clothes
for me. I always looked forward to the parcels she would send, containing lovely new dresses to wear.

She stopped sending money when she came to visit one Christmas, and saw that Mum had bought some furniture with
the money she'd sent. The money was meant for food, she said.

Mum and I travelled by train up to Bracebridge, to meet a man who wanted a housekeeper. We stayed for a couple of
days, and then returned to Port Hope, Mum did not take the job, though I do not know the reasons.

We moved to a house at the other end of town in 1964. There were times when there were only plain
pancakes to eat, with no toppings, and we often went hungry. I would go to school without breakfast sometimes,
and occasionally had fainting spells in school.

Mum found work, this time in Rainier, Alberta. She wanted to be near her oldest daughter, who now lived in Calgary,
and also closer to her dad and sisters, who lived in Sylvan Lake and Calgary. In late June, 1964, we caught a train for the west.