(This story was copied from a typewritten manuscript that Olive (nee Mitchell) Aylesworth loaned to Warren Mitchell. Since it was entitled an ‘autobiography’, it is assumed that Elfreda typed it out herself at some point in 1975. It is not known if any other family member assisted in this production.)
I was born on June 19, 1896, in the town of Harbour Grace, Newfoundland. My parents were Katherine and John Morris. My grandparents on my mother’s side were of English descent, by the name of Stephenson. My grandparents on my father’s side were of Welsh and Irish descent. They were very musical, and my brother and I inherited some of their talent.
I was christened Elfreda Beale Morris after a favourite sister of my father’s who was married to a Captain Beale. My mother never like the name and would never call me Elfreda. She always called me Effie.
My mother never liked the name and would never call me Elfreda. She always called me Effie.
My father was a sail maker and had a shop in the town of Harbour Grace. I can only remember my mother taking me there once or twice to see him. I was only four and a half years old then, and shortly after that my father passed away. I can remember the day of his funeral. It was snowing quite heavily that day and my mother was crying most of the time. After the funeral we moved in with my mother’s parents who had a small farm on the outskirts of Harbour Grace called Stephenson’s Hill. My mother was practically penniless with four children: my brother Bill who was seven and a half; myself; a sister Jessie who was just one year younger than I; and another sister Isabelle who was two and a half. I don’t remember how long we stayed with my grandparents; perhaps it was nearly a year. My mother tried to find work but Newfoundland wasn’t a very prosperous place at that time, and she didn’t have much luck.
I can remember part of my life at my grandparents. Our menu at that time was very simple. We had goats. In fact, I was brought up on goat’s milk. My mother cooked seal flippers, which are stewed with onions and tasted very much like stewing beef, and also lots of codfish. We also had lots of blueberries, as all the hills were full of them. My brother and I would go out some days and dig up young dandelions, which we had for greens. We had a garden with a few vegetables, mostly carrots, turnips and potatoes.
When I was nearly six years old, my mother decided she would have to split up the family and go to Nova Scotia as she could get work there but she couldn’t take all of us with her. She put my sister Jessie and I in a Methodist orphanage for girls in St. John’s. She left my youngest sister Isabelle with her grandparents and took my brother Bill with her. She found housework right away in Nova Scotia, in the town of Oxford. She kept house for a man who had lost his wife and had several children.
In the meantime, my sister and I were in this orphanage that was looked after by the Methodist Church. When my mother entered us in this orphanage she had to sign papers that we would stay there until we were of age to go out in the world and make our own living. The school was right in the building and we were taught to knit, sew, and so forth. There were forty-nine girls there at that time.
I have some very happy memories of my life in that orphanage but also some sad ones. Being gifted with a nice singing voice I soon became a favourite with the staff. Whenever the executives of the church came to visit I was always asked to sing for them. Also, I was the only girl who sang solos in the large church where we went every Sunday. We always paraded to church; all dressed alike in navy blue dresses trimmed with white braid, long lace stockings and black shoes, with our hair cut short like a boy’s. I had beautiful natural long curls when I entered the orphanage but it was the rule to cut everyone’s hair really short to make it easier to take care of.
The rules were very strict. We couldn’t talk at our meals or when we went to bed at night. If we were ever caught telling a lie we would have to wear a piece of white cardboard on the back of our dress with the ‘liar’ on it for a week. Also, we had to eat everything that was put on our plates. If not, it would appear at the next meal. I remember once that I had left some fat pork that I just couldn’t eat and it was on my plate the next meal. The matron said to me “you must eat it or get the strap”. I took the strap and it was the only time I ever had to be strapped.
Our meals were very plain. In the morning we had oatmeal porridge. Molasses and milk were mixed in a large jug to pour on our porridge. On Sunday, they put sugar in the milk instead of molasses that really tasted wonderful. We had lots of codfish, and some meat, but no bread…only hardtack, a hard round biscuit made in Newfoundland. Our fruit was mostly blueberries. We girls would pick pails of them when they were in season and then they were made into preserves. We had an egg once a year at Easter time, and to this day when I boil an egg and put it into an egg cup it looks just wonderful to me. We also had an orange once a year at Christmas time. We always hung our stockings up on the foot of our bed and we would get an orange, some candies, and one present…maybe a doll or something suitable to our age. We also had a Christmas concert and invited the trustees and others of the orphanage to hear us. I always had a special part in this.
My father had a cousin living in St. John’s at this time, a very prominent businessman, Sir Isaac Morris. He was mayor of St. John’s for years, a very clever man. He and his wife came to the orphanage one day, heard me sing and wanted to adopt me but the matron said no. I had to stay there.
After we had been in the orphanage about two years my sister contracted diphtheria and passed away. None of us could go to the funeral, as they considered it to be too contagious. I remember the matron sat me up on the kitchen sideboard so that I could look out the window and see the funeral procession going down the street. My mother was notified about my sister’s death but she couldn’t come.
By this time, my mother had married again, to a widower twenty years older than herself, and they had a small baby boy. This man worked on the railroad and they lived on a small farm in Pugwash Junction.
My mother wanted to take me out of the orphanage now because I could be of some help to her. So, she made the trip to Newfoundland. After a lot of meetings with the trustees of the orphanage, she was finally given consent for me to leave. I was eleven years old then. I came to Nova Scotia to live with a stepfather and my life from then on was anything but pleasant. My mother and my brother were almost strangers. My stepfather had no love for me. As far as he was concerned I was just another mouth to feed. He hardly ever spoke to me unless to correct me for something.
I was in Grade six when I left St. John’s but when I started back to school in Nova Scotia I was put back into Grade five as the studies were different to what I had been used to. I was ridiculed a certain amount at school owing to my haircut. And I didn’t have any nice clothes like the other girls so it was pretty bad for a while. I did make some friends though; one girl in particular always took my part and we became very good friends. I have been writing to her for over fifty years. I also went to school with a brother and sister of the famous industrialist Cyrus Eaton. I knew his father and mother. They had a little store in Pugwash Junction where I lived and I was in their home many times, as their son and I took organ lessons at the same time. I only had twenty lessons on the organ, but I was quite talented and could play by ear as well as by note. Then, my stepfather said I couldn’t have any more lessons. I had to work on the farm.
In 1910, my stepfather quit the railroad and bought another large farm in Middleborough that was two mile from Pugwash Junction. He bought this farm from an old lady who was a widow. The house had 18 rooms and the lady wanted 3 rooms for herself so she could live there, which she did until she passed away.
My brother couldn’t get along with our stepfather and so he left home when he was 15 years old and never came back.
The new place was a large farm. We had seven or eight cows, horses, chickens, pigs, a large garden, and lots of hay to cut. I was my stepfather’s hired hand for years. It was my job every morning to help milk the cows, feed the calves, chickens and pigs. Then, I had to walk to school three miles (in my bare feet in the summertime). Then I’d come home after school and do chores again as well as help my mother in the house. By this time, my mother had another baby boy who wasn’t very well. I had two half brothers now and I missed a lot of school as far as Grade ten but when I wrote my exams that year I failed and so I never went back.
In all the years I worked for my stepfather on that farm he never once gave me a penny or bought anything for me. He let my mother have the butter she made from the cows, as well as the eggs. Also, the neighbours would give her clothes that she made over for me. She was a lovely sewer and so that is how she clothed me. At Christmas time, I was lucky if I got a pair of mitts or a scarf. We never had a Christmas tree or anything like that.
When I was seventeen I became quite ill with typhoid fever. After I got over that, spots developed on one of my lungs. The doctor said that I was bordering on consumption, which is what they called tuberculosis then. He told me that I had to quit work, take it easy, drink lots of milk and get out in the fresh air as much as possible. My stepfather didn’t like it one bit that he was losing his hired man. But I did as the doctor ordered and I did get somewhat better, but I wasn’t very strong.
I had a girlfriend who lived a quarter of a mile from our home. She and I joined a Temperance Lodge and we would go twice a month. Nathan Mitchell, who would later become my husband, lived ten miles away from where we lived and used to come to this lodge every month. He started going with my girlfriend. I would walk home with them as far as her home, then alone the rest of the way. After awhile, he got tired of her and one Sunday appeared at our home and asked my mother if he could take me for a drive. He had a nice horse and buggy; the horse had been a racehorse and could really travel. We went down a country road and it was getting quite dark by this time. I had to be home by a certain time or else, so he started to turn the horse around but it backed up too far. We landed upside down in a ditch of water, horse, buggy and all. We couldn’t do anything for ourselves, so he went in one way to a neighbour’s house and I went the other way for help. Finally, we got everything on the road again; nothing was broken. We were a little wet but my mother wasn’t cross at me and she let me go out again the next time he came over.
We went together for two years and then decided to get married on June 7, 1916. I would be twenty years old on June 19. I wanted to be married at home but my stepfather wouldn’t have it, so we went to another town and got married at a minister’s home. My mother was so upset she got sick and couldn’t go to the wedding.
When we were married, we moved to a farm ten miles from my home. My stepfather never came to see us or spoke to me until our first son (Norman) was born in 1917, a year and a half after we were married. We went to visit them with the baby and he was a little more friendly and started talking.
A few months previous to our marriage my youngest sister (Isabelle) who had been brought up by my grandparents on my mother’s side, came to Nova Scotia. She was sixteen and our grandparents had passed away. She wasn’t a very strong girl as she had developed asthma when she was eight years old and of course she couldn’t work on a farm. She came to live with my husband and I, as I wasn’t too strong myself.
On November 29, 1918, our second son (Elwin) was born. In the following spring of 1919 there was an awful lot of pneumonia in Nova Scotia, especially among infants. Our son Elwin, who was only four months old at the time, became very sick with pneumonia in both lungs. He was a very sick baby for weeks but he did recover. When he was six months old I became pregnant again. My health wasn’t very good and the doctor advised us to sell our farm and move to Saskatchewan where the air was hot and dry.
So, in August 1919 we came west to Saskatchewan. My sister came with us and we moved in with a bachelor who had a large wheat farm. My husband worked for him along with tow other hired men. My sister and I did the cooking and the housework. We were in the southern part of Saskatchewan then, not far from the South Saskatchewan River. The only people we knew were a cousin of my husband’s, Laura Smith and her family, who lived about ten miles from the bachelor’s home.
A few weeks after we moved to the bachelor’s home, our second son Elwin, took sick again with pneumonia and poisoning of the bowels due to the change of water. We had to take him to the hospital that was thirty miles away in Kindersley. He was in hospital for six weeks and we didn’t see him again until we brought him home. He was nearly one year old and still as helpless as a newborn babe.
When Elwin was fourteen months old our third son (Earle) was born. My husband had to go into town on horseback for a doctor. It was snowing pretty badly at the time. The doctor came but he had been drinking. He said the baby wouldn’t be born until maybe the next day and so he went back to town again. An hour or so later, my husband had to go and get him again and the baby was born shortly after he arrived.
We had three children now and the bachelor couldn’t keep us any longer, so we bought a wheat farm two miles from my husband’s cousin, Laura Smith and her husband Harry. We lived on this farm for four years, and during this time our fourth son (Howard) was born. My health improved steadily throughout this time, as I practically lived outside. My husband had a job then as a trouble or repairman for the telephone company. We had an old Ford car and I would take the children and go with him whenever I could. My sister Isabelle continued to live with us until she got married in 1923.
In 1924, we had a cyclone one evening that took out all of our buildings except the house. We had a small dugout basement underneath part of the house with a trap door in the floor of the kitchen. When we saw this storm coming we took all the children and went down in the basement. There was thunder, lightning and a terrible wind with hail that broke our kitchen window. After the storm abated, we came up, opened the kitchen door and saw that our barn was all smashed and lying on the ground just outside the kitchen door. Our wheat crop had been quite high, but it was all beaten into the ground. It did come up again though, and we got a small crop.
The next year, we decided to leave Saskatchewan and move to Alberta. The government was giving land away to homesteaders for $10.00 and so we took advantage of this. Our land was right in the woods with plenty of poplar trees. We rented a house for a while and my husband worked in a sawmill as a sawyer. In his spare time he would go to the homestead and build on our house, after clearing some of the land first. He also built a barn and in 1924 we moved onto this homestead. Our oldest son, Norman, was seven years old now, but there was no school in this district. My husband was away a lot of the time, as he had to make a living for us working in the sawmills. Sometimes his work was a long way from where we were living. In the summer he would build a small tarpaper shack and the boys and I would move into it for a few months, and then to back to the homestead again.
In 1926, our fifth son (Gerald) was born. We moved to a small country place called Styal about four or five miles from our homestead. There was a school there, so our children started school for the first time. Our oldest son, Norman, was nine by this time and when he was fourteen he passed into Grade Ten with honours. Our fifth son, Gerald, was born with asthma and infantile eczema. He was covered with this for years. We took him to doctors and to specialists but they all said that he would outgrow any eczema, as he got older. He did grow out of the eczema but he still has asthma today (1975). I had to keep his arms in splints so that he couldn’t scratch his face. I also kept flannelette mittens on him. He would rub his face until it bled because it was so itchy. I hardly slept or had my clothes off for the first year of his life. He was so bad but the eczema gradually left.
In 1929, we moved into a small town, Entwhistle, so that the children could go to Sunday School and have more advantages. My husband would be away two and three weeks at a time. Wages were not very high in those days. When payday came they would only pay him part of his wages; he would have to wait weeks for the rest. Consequently, we had to buy all our groceries on time and pay when we could.
In 1930, our only daughter (Olive) was born. When she was three years old, we moved to another homestead in Drayton Valley, Alberta. Once again, we were right in the woods. My husband built a log house. He was able to stay home now because we had some timber on this homestead. He got a sawmill and cut the trees down, made them into lumber and sold part of it, which helped us quite a bit. But this time, the Depression had hit the country. Most of our neighbours were on relief, but my husband was so proud he refused. Instead, he went and cleared land for a neighbour at $1.00 a day, an amount that didn’t go very far towards feeding a family of eight. We had one cow and a small garden. We would shoot rabbits that were plentiful. Some of the neighbours would get a deer or a moose occasionally. They would always share the meat.
At this time, our children still didn’t know what a mattress was. We had built bunks for them with straw covered with flour sacking. We bought our flour in 100 lb. sacks and I made everything from those sacks. They were a natural colour. I dyed them and made shirts for the boys to wear to school. All of my daughter’s underwear was made out of these sacks.
My husband had a sister who was a stenographer who worked in Philadelphia for some years. Later on, she sent me a lot of her clothes. These fit me and I could make them over for our daughter. This was a great help.
We had a neighbour, a bachelor who lived half a mile from us, who kept sheep. We visited there sometimes. We didn’t know that his house had bugs in it. Eventually, we got them so bad in the log house that my husband burned the house down and built a lumber house. After that, we got rid of all the bugs.
While we were in Drayton Valley, I joined the Anglican Church. I played the organ there for years. We had a lady preacher. On special occasions a minister would come from Edmonton who carried a portable organ with him. He and I would go to the schoolhouses in the district and hold services. I would play the little organ.
The school, church and stores were three miles from our homestead. We decided to move down into the village. My husband obtained a lot and built another house. He was working in a sawmill again by this time and we had a little more money.
In 1939, our youngest son, Gerald, (who had asthma) took very sick with pneumonia. He was thirteen years old then, and we nearly lost him. When he got better we decided to leave Alberta and come to British Columbia. We thought perhaps that the change of climate would help him. We had an old Ford car and a two-wheel trailer we hauled behind the car. We sold our home but we didn’t get much for it. We loaded what we could bring into the trailer and the eight of us into the car. We started for the west coast via the U.S.
My husband had a brother (Lawrence) who was living in Idaho at the time. He had a mink farm and we stayed with him for a few days. Then, we came over to Vancouver Island. We arrived in Ladysmith in June and drove to Saltair where a lady had some cabins on the beach. We rented one from her for the rest of the summer and winter.
My husband and the older boys tried to get work in the woods or sawmills but were unsuccessful. Then, they decided to buy a salmon boat and go fishing. We had a lot of pleasure with the boat but didn’t make any money fishing. Finally, they did get some work in the woods. Some of the boys went to the prairies in harvest time. They could always get work there. When that was over and they came home again the Second World War had started. All of the boys (except Gerald) joined up.
Two of them (Earle and Howard) were with the Search Lights in Victoria for some time and while they were there we moved to Victoria. Also, while there, our oldest son (Norman) got married (to Ada). He was in Nanaimo at the time teaching small arms training. He didn’t go overseas, as his health wasn’t good enough.
The other three boys were sent overseas. Our second oldest son, Elwin, was in the Forestry Corp. and was sent to Inverness, Scotland. We didn’t see him again for four years. (Our fourth son, Howard, was in the Canadian Scottish Regiment and saw action in Holland and Germany.)
Our third son (Earle) drove a tank and he was badly injured while out on an icy road. He had his neck broken and the back of his head was crushed quite badly. He was in hospital in England for some time before coming home. When he did come home he had a cast on from his head to his waist. He used to have terrible headaches that finally eased up.
While living in Victoria, my husband and youngest son, Gerald, worked on the boats that they were building for the Army and Navy (Corvettes, etc.). Nathan hated city life and wasn’t very happy. Everything was blacked out at night in case of enemy invasion. Bus travel was terrible. His health was affected, finally. The doctor ordered him to leave the city.
We moved up to Qualicum Beach and rented a small house on Mills Road. Our youngest son, Gerald, had a taxi business for a while. Later, he and his dad decided to form a contracting business. They built quite a few homes in Qualicum Beach.
In 1945, our sons came back from overseas and decided they would like to be part of the contracting business. It didn’t work out very well, though. Their dad was the head of the company and they didn’t like taking orders from him. Three of them had been overseas fighting a war. It wasn’t easy for them. Finally, they all decided to go out on their own, except for our youngest son who stayed with his dad until he retired. This break up affected my husband to the extent that he became sick both mentally and physically. He was very despondent and unhappy. The doctor advised him to leave Qualicum Beach for a while. He went to Penticton as he had heard of carpentry work there.
Before moving to Penticton, my husband and sons built a beautiful large home for us. I was very happy in Qualicum Beach as I sang in the church choir and belonged to a lodge and a glee club. Also, while we lived in Qualicum Beach the rest of our sons all got married. Two of them (Howard and Gerald) married two sisters (Patricia and Maureen Orr).
One night my husband phoned me and told me he was leaving Penticton and moving to the prairies. Our oldest son, Norman, had already gone to Alberta. Our youngest son, Gerald, was also there as there was a building boom on. Nathan told me to sell our home in Qualicum and go back to Alberta. Our only daughter, Olive, was getting married in June (to Don Mills). I stayed until she was married and then sold everything and went to my husband. This was a very sad time for me as I had lived on the prairies for years. I didn’t want to go back but I had always gone with my husband no matter where it was as I believed it was the right thing to do.
I arrived in Edmonton at the end of June. My husband and son (Gerald) were building a house there for sale. They had rented an upstairs suite in a large home, which the four of us shared. My son and his wife (Maureen) were expecting their first baby. Maureen was a very quiet girl. Some days there would be hardly any conversation and not enough work to keep us both busy. Consequently, I got very bored and unhappy. I started going to work with the men several times through the week. I helped them build the house. When it was finished they sold it. In November (1949) our son’s baby was born in Edmonton, a boy (Dennis). Shortly after that we moved to Cochrane, Alberta. We lived in a motel. Where we were there, my husband and son built a school in Morely.
After that, we moved to south Calgary. While there, Gerald and his dad built a flat top house in Bowness. We all moved in there when it was finished. My husband and I had a living room and one bedroom. Gerald and his wife had the rest of the house.
The men went to work every day as they were building homes. I didn’t have anything to do all day. I became very bored. I decided to go to work. I found work in Calgary, which was eight miles from Bowness. I did alterations in an exclusive ladies’ wear store and took a bus every night and morning. It was the first time I had worked away from home since I had been married.
One night I came home from work to find our car in the yard but nobody at home. I didn’t know what to think. Our son, Gerald, had two children now. He and his wife and children and my husband must have gone away somewhere. I phoned several places, even the hospitals, but couldn’t find anything. About midnight, a knock came on my door. A man stood there with (which was?) my husband. He told me that he had been in a car accident and landed in a hospital in Calgary, but that he wouldn’t stay. He wanted to come home to me. He had a broken sternum. I ran to one of the neighbours and asked him to take my husband right back to the hospital. He was only in for a few days. Gerald had a punctured lung, but he was home the next day.
When the men got better they built a home for us in the village of Bowness and also one for Gerald and his family. When we moved into the house I quit my job and stayed home.
There was a building boom in Saskatchewan at that time. Gerald and my husband were contractors. They wanted to go where there was lots of work. So, we sold our home in Bowness and moved to Regina. My husband and I lived in a motel for a short time and then moved to Moose Jaw. We lived there for quite a few years. First, we lived in a basement suite. Then, we lived in another suite in a large home owned by a policeman and his family. Gerald built a nice home for his family there. He had quite a large lot so he built a one room cabin on the back of it. My husband and I moved into that and lived there until he retired.
Later, we moved to Sidney on Vancouver Island. We rented a small house first. Then, we bought a house on 6th St. and we lived there for nine years. In the meantime, our youngest son Gerald, who now had five sons, moved from the prairies to Victoria. He was a contractor and built many homes.
Mitchell Family History 