Sunday, October 9, 2011

Home building under the Veterans' Land Act (1942): an interview with Harry Hall.

Home building under the Veterans' Land Act (1942): an interview with Harry Hall. The Second World War has often been regarded as a critical momentin the formation of Canadian national identity. Programs that helpedveterans readjust to civilian life were very important. TheVeterans' Land Act (VLA VLAabbr.Very Large Array ) of 1942 was part of Canada's veteranrehabilitation program Noun 1. rehabilitation program - a program for restoring someone to good healthprogram, programme - a system of projects or services intended to meet a public need; "he proposed an elaborate program of public works"; "working mothers rely on the day care , and helped to establish veterans as farmers,fishermen, and part-time farmers on small holdings. Of the 1.2 millionveterans of World War II, over ten percent participated in the VLAprogram. In spite of this, little has been written about veteransprograms in general, or about the Land Act in particular. The architects of the VLA were determined to ensure that veteranswould make a success of their operations, and remain on their holdings.To this end, they incorporated safeguards providing the veteran with aliberal repayment plan: a twenty-five year mortgage at three-and-a-halfpercent interest.(1) As well, veterans were piloted through the programwith the assistance of VLA administrators who ensured they remainedwithin policy guidelines guidelines,n.pl a set of standards, criteria, or specifications to be used or followed in the performance of certain tasks. , and followed the spirit of the Act. Thesmall-holdings program was by far the most popular aspect of the VLA. Inpractice it became a housing program that provided veterans with homeson plots of land that typically ranged in size from half-an-acre to twoacres. The large lots were meant to provide the veteran with the meansof either adding to the family income, or of providing a safety net Ofself-sufficiency in times of economic hardship. Land development under the small holdings component of the Actoccurred in various ways. At first the Veterans Land Administration laidout its own subdivisions and engaged professional contractors. Later,especially after 1949, it supported owner construction. Minimum lotsizes were adjusted to meet the changing needs of veterans in theburgeoning post-war era. Over the life of the program the maximum loanamounts were regularly increased. Its adaptability and flexibilityhelped to ensure success for over one hundred and twenty-five thousandveterans.(2) As part of a study of the impact of the VLA in Hamilton-Wentworth,I interviewed thirty veterans, one of whom was Harry Hall. In May 1949.Harry Hall, his wife Flo, and their two children, began construction ontheir home in rural Dundas, Ontario This article refers to Dundas, a constituent community of Hamilton, Ontario since 2001, in south central Ontario. For the former Dundas County in eastern Ontario, see Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry United Counties, Ontario. . Mr. Hall had applied for, andreceived, tentative VLA approval to begin building. the family home, andwas waiting for final plan approval from the VLA before constructioncould officially begin. Afraid that his home would not be completedbefore the onset of winter, Mr. Hall went ahead and began constructionbefore final approval was received. Because he and his family had soldtheir previous home before they started building under the VLA, Mr. Hallerected a temporary fourteen-by-twenty foot "cottage". Heeventually received approval in September of 1949, and he and his familymoved into their new home in October of 1949. Unlike most otherveterans, the Halls already owned a home when they applied for VLAassistance, and so were able to buy their land outright, and pay for theconstruction of their "cottage". In other respects, however,their experience was broadly typical. In conversation, Mr. Hall recounted his participation in the VLAprogram. He was thorough, remembering many details of events thatoccurred fifty years ago.(3) Just as helpful was the detailedphotographic record of the building process made by Mr. Hall's latewife, Flo. Together the oral account and pictorial record provide manyilluminating il��lu��mi��nate?v. il��lu��mi��nat��ed, il��lu��mi��nat��ing, il��lu��mi��natesv.tr.1. To provide or brighten with light.2. To decorate or hang with lights.3. insights into one of Canada's earliest and mostneglected housing programs. I spoke with Mr. Hall for almost three hours. In the followingtranscription, which has been approved by him, I have edited the spokeninterview to eliminate redundancies. In places I have reorganized re��or��gan��ize?v. re��or��gan��ized, re��or��gan��iz��ing, re��or��gan��iz��esv.tr.To organize again or anew.v.intr.To undergo or effect changes in organization. thetext to reproduce, as closely as possible, the sequence of events bywhich the Hall family built their home. HH: We had bought a house in West Hamilton in 1939 -- about a weekbefore the war started. You could buy any house in West Hamilton forapproximately thousand dollars. We fixed it all up, and lived in it forten years. When the lawyer said, "No problem about this house, I can getyou twelve hundred bucks to buy a house." Anyway, when he phoned meand said that he had the mortgage money ready, all he needed was asignature, I said, "Wait a minute. What's this costingme?" He said, "Between thirty-five and forty bucks." Isaid, "While you're at it, borrow another fifty bucks so thatyou can pay yourself. I haven't got any money to pay you." Helaughed, and said, "You're kidding." I said,"I'm not kidding. Right now, as far as I can tell, when I moveinto this house, I've got to put a new roof on." So, he saidhe borrowed another fifty bucks. The bill was $37, I think it was. Andwhen we finished up the settlement, he said, "Here's fifteendollars change. That's yours." And, as I say, we were payingtwenty dollars a month on the mortgage. This was in West Hamilton. And when I came out of the service [in1946], the gratuity Money, also known as a tip, given to one who provides services and added to the cost of the service provided, generally as a reward for the service provided and as a supplement to the service provider's income. money, you could take it or if you wanted to furtheryour education, put it towards that.(4) I said, "I'll take themoney to pay the mortgage off on the house." That's what wedid. So, what we did, with the money that we made on this house,whatever money we had, we dropped it back into the [VLA] house. And wewound up with a house that was 1,420 square feet. TS: That's pretty big for the time. Most houses were muchsmaller. HH: Absolutely. Most houses were 700 square feet. The house that wehad [in West Hamilton] was thirty by twenty -- we were living in sixhundred square feet. But we had a bedroom and bathroom upstairs, so say650 square feet for a family of five. Then we decided that we'd go on VLA. And we had that house tosell. What we did was -- $6,000 wouldn't get you too big a house,you know.(5) Because at that time you could build a house ... if abuilder were building a house, I'd say, you couldn't build abig house for $6,000. Then you had land to buy on top of that. Both my brother-in-laws [sic Latin, In such manner; so; thus.A misspelled or incorrect word in a quotation followed by "[sic]" indicates that the error appeared in the original source. ] were under VLA. My one brother boughta 55-acre farm. ... My other brother-in-law bought a house [in theFreeman VLA survey in Burlington, Ontario Burlington (2006 population 164,415) is a city located in the Golden Horseshoe, across Lake Ontario and Burlington Bay harbour from Hamilton, in Halton Region, Ontario, Canada. ] in 1958, and there was waterin there then.(6) He didn't have a well, he did have a septic tank septic tank,underground sedimentation tank in which sewage is retained for a short period while it is decomposed and purified by bacterial action. The organic matter in the sewage settles to the bottom of the tank, a film forms excluding atmospheric oxygen, and .And they were built with VLA contractors. ... That house was builtwithin the $6,000 limit. There was only two bedrooms, a small kitchen,and a living room. That was all that was in there. I'd say thathouse was smaller than the one we had in West Hamilton. ... I thought atthe time that he bought it -- before he bought it, he had Flo and I hada look at it, to see what we thought. And coming home I said to Flo,"Holy smokes, they didn't build much of a house for sixthousand bucks after the war on those sites." ... TS: How much did your [VLA] home eventually cost you? HH: Eighty-four hundred dollars. That was complete -- floors andeverything down. TS: And that was okay with the VLA -- the size of the lot, and thecost of the house -- was okay with the VLA? HH: Oh yeah. They said that this house is going to cost you morethan $6,000. I said "I know that. But, as I've explained toyou, I have a house to sell in West Hamilton. I have money. And what weare doing is putting that money into a house, we're not blowing iton a car, or anything else, it's going into the house." Hesaid, "You got to make sure of that, because if you don't, wecan take that house over, and sell it." And I said, "Youdon't have to worry about it." TS: Where did your house plans come from? HH: They were made by Warren. I got him down on Hughson Street. TS: Was it your choice? HH: Oh yes. I had these rough plans of my own, and he translatedthem into plans. This house, by the way, was cinder cin��der?n.1. a. A burned or partly burned substance, such as coal, that is not reduced to ashes but is incapable of further combustion.b. A partly charred substance that can burn further but without flame. block and stucco stucco(stŭk`ō), in architecture, a term loosely applied to various kinds of plasterwork, both exterior and interior. It now commonly refers to a plaster or cement used for the external coating of buildings, most frequently employed in .The specifications that the VLA laid out, they're top notch. Ithink that any house that was built under the VLA, if those inspectorsdid their job, anybody who buys one of those houses -- they've gota house [original emphasis]. Well you saw the roof construction of that house, and when I seethe stuff that they are sticking in these $179,000 houses up here, Ican't believe it -- tin plates and two by fours. We didn't --there was nothing cheap in that house. But there wasn't anythingradically dear that we couldn't afford. But when it came to,let's say the front door -- you've got umpteen choices offront doors, Bill [Cameron] would say, "That's fine, but if Iwere you, I'd do this." And he said it would be better. So fora few bucks more, we'd say, "Okay." And we'd do it.... The specifications, they were excellent. You can see the frameworkon that -- those are all two by sixes. They don't use two by sixesin roofs any more. It's two by fours and braces all over the place.... I think that the plumbing, a pressure system, 40-gallon tank,shallow pump, wash tubs -- double cement wash tubs down in the cellar cellarPortion of a building beneath ground level, used for utilitarian and storage purposes. It is often called a basement, especially when constructed as part of a foundation. A cellar used for food storage (e.g. --upstairs was a double enamel enamel,a siliceous substance fusible upon metal. It may be so compounded as to be transparent or opaque and with or without color, but it is usually employed to add decorative color. It was used to decorate jewelry in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. sink in the kitchen, the white enamel sinkwas still the favorite, you know; in the wall, taps in the wall for theswing; four-piece bathroom -- shower, tub, toilet, sink -- stacks, allthe stacks, all hooked up to the septic septic/sep��tic/ (sep��tik) pertaining to sepsis. sep��ticadj.1. Of, relating to, having the nature of, or affected by sepsis.2. system. I think that the wholething came to $830. And the heating system. We had a large furnace furnace,enclosed space for the burning of fuel. There are many kinds of furnaces, the type depending upon the fuel and the use to which the heat produced within it is put. Most familiar are the furnaces used in the heating of buildings. . TS: I can see the picture right here -- 76,500 BTUs. HH: Yeah. It's got the name there. I think it's ImperialAnthise. TS: "Steel Queen." HH: ... Now, this was cold air returns from every room -- sixrooms, cold air return -- from upstairs, down through, and the eavestrough eaves troughn. Northern & Western U.S.See gutter. See Regional Note at gutter. -- I think that it cost $534. TS: Wow. HH: I just put a new gas furnace Gas furnaceAn enclosure in which a gaseous fuel is burned. Domestic heating systems may have gas furnaces. Some industrial power plants are fired with gases that remain as a by-product of other plant processes. in here, and a fireplace. It costme $3,500 -- half the price of that house! TS: How did you find your lot? HH: When we decided that this [the VLA] was what we were going todo, I said to Flo, "Which way do you want to go? East orwest?" And she really didn't know. We used to go out forSunday drives with the kids -- take the kids out for a drive. I had beenup to Sulphur Springs Sulphur Springs,city (1990 pop. 14,062), seat of Hopkins co., NE Tex., in a farm area; inc. 1859. Vegetables, wheat, rice, and corn are grown, and livestock and dairying are important. There is clay and timber in the area. when I was a kid, with my father. ... We went outthere, and we thought, geez geez?interj.Used to express mild surprise, delight, dissatisfaction, or annoyance.[Shortening and alteration of Jesus1.] , this is a nice spot, and not too far intoDundas. Queen Victoria School was sitting right there on the highway.Then I found out that Bert Taft, this friend of mine who lived out therewas out there, so I went out to visit him, and I told him what I wasthinking about doing. And he said, "I don't know of any lotsor anything, that are for sale around here right now. But just acrossthe' road, there's a fellow over there that's going tobuild under VLA -- he's bought a lot." Anyway, we contactedthe farmer, and he said no. Evidently, they are only allowed to separateone lot over a period of time -- something like that. So, Bert says,"Oh, by the way, there's a family of women living down theroad. The name's McCarty. The old lady's there, and herdaughter, and five grandchildren. They've got a farm they'renot operating." Well, actually, when he said that they weren'toperating, they weren't plowing, and all that stuff. But Evelyn hadfour or five cows she used to milk. She used to raise geese geesedomestic geese which were derived from the wild goose Anser anser. There are many other species in this genus and in the other genus of geese, the Branta spp. of which Branta canadensis is typical. , she hadsome chickens -- just barnyard stuff. Chores for her. She was a goodhusky husky:see Siberian husky. woman. She didn't mind work. She could work like a man. Sheused to make butter and stuff. ... Anyway, we stopped in, and justknocked on the door, and told them who we were, and where we were from,and what we were thinking of doing. And Evelyn said, "Oh, Idon't know about selling any of the farm. You'd have to talkto my brother." She said, "Could you come back nextSunday?" I said, "Oh, sure." So next Sunday we went in,and Jack McCarty was there. He's sort of a funny guy. "Wannabuy some land?" And I said, "Yeah." I think at that timewe had to have two acres. TS: Yes you did. HH: They cut it to half an acre later on, I think. TS: When you couldn't get two acres anymore, when it becametoo far away from the city. That's when they said you could havehalf an acre. HH: Jack McCarty said "I paced [the lot] off, I figurethere's four acres in there." So we went and walked theproperty. Flo said, "What do you think?" I said, "I thinkit'll be alright." I said, "How much do you want forit?" "Six hundred dollars." I thought, "Holyjumping! Twenty-four hundred bucks for the four acres!" I said,"Six hundred dollars?" Mr, Carty said, "Do you thinkthat's a lot of money?" I said, "Well ..." He said,"I don't think that's too much, one hundred and fiftydollars an acre." Four acres for six hundred bucks - oh, thatsounded better to me. And I said, "Okay." I think this wasearly spring, March, I think. And Flo said, "What are we doinghere?" And I said, "We're going to buy that four acres ofland." "Well, how about the VLA?" And I said, "Well,let's see what they say. And if they don't, we can alwaysbuild a house there. We can borrow money, anyway." We had amortgage on the house, and we could get another one. That was when Isaid that we could build a garage and live in it until the house isbuilt. Well, you should have heard her! TS: Well, you were taking her from the city and putting her in acottage in the country. HH: That's right. But it all worked out all right. We hadeverything settled. I think I paid for the survey on it. Of course,things didn't cost as much as they do now. TS: Did you have any problems with the approval of the land? HH: Yeah, when they came out to look at the four acres of land, toapprove it. We had the cottage on it, and were living out there. Theysaid it wasn't suitable. TS: Because you were living on it? HH: No. The land wasn't suitable. TS: Oh. What was the matter? HH: Because it rolled. I said, "What are you talking about?There's nothing wrong with it. The site is good. It's welldrained." TS: How did you persuade them it was okay? HH: It's funny you asked that question. Have you contacted anyveterans on the Old Ancaster Road? ... They were building with VLAapproval -- two acres of land. How did I know about this? I think theyrecommended that I go out, when I went in to talk to them. That was it.And I said that I already had my eye on a piece of property. Ididn't tell them that I had already bought the thing. Herecommended that I go there. So, just for fun, I went to have a look. Tosee what this VLA was all about. ... So I went up there, and I thought,holy jumpin', I can't believe this. The Ancaster Roadwasn't too flat, and then, boom, it dropped off into the valley.And they were approving these. And I thought to myself, "Holysmoke, if you weren't careful, and lost your footing, you could endup down in the valley -- roll down the hill!" So, I said to them,"Look, you guys can talk about the four acres, but those approvalsthat you're putting up on the Old Ancaster Road, I don't knowhow the heck heck?interj.Used as a mild oath.n. SlangUsed as an intensive: had a heck of a lot of money; was crowded as heck.[Alteration of hell. some of those people are going to live out there. They arenot flat land. They are absolute slopes that they are building on.""Oh, no, they're okay." "Alright, come out and haveanother look." The following week they approved it. This is a viewof the land, the property (Figure 1). I tell you, they really worriedthe heck out of me. TS: And that was your only problem with the VLA? HH: That was the only problem that I had with them. TS: What about the fact that they took so long to approve you? HH: No, I'd say that was normal working time. I was just tooanxious, I think. It was the fact that I knew that if we didn't getapproved by the VLA that I could walk into a bank and get a mortgage.(7)And there was private money around at the time. And then we went on to the VLA. I don't know how we managed todo it, but we did. The builder and I -- I had a chap, a friend of mine-- we put up this fourteen foot by twenty-foot garage ... we laid it on-- put the floor on the footings -- they're not footings,they're cement blocks. He said, "What are you going to do withthis thing?" And I said, "Look, right now, let's build itso we can live in it." We put up a fourteen-foot by twenty-foot garage, and lived in itall summer (Figure 2). And that's the inside of our cottage. Wewere living like gypsies (Figure 3). The kids were having a picnic. Wekept just the essentials. We put all of the rest of the stuff intostorage. We couldn't handle it all in there. But we had a fullstove stove,device used for heating or for cooking food. The stove was long regarded as a cooking device supplementary to the fireplace, near which it stood; its stovepipe led into the fireplace chimney. It was not until about the middle of the 19th cent. -- four burners, table top, warming oven, baking oven --there's a picture of it somewhere. And that was in the cottage. Ittook up more room than anything! We had a great start on building the house, May 14, 1949. And thenaround June first, they were digging [the foundation] out. And this areahere, with all this brush -- this is a couple of old apple trees pushedout of the way (Figure 4). And here are the footings (Figure 5). Theboys are starting to put the foundation in (Figure 6). The windows andthe door frames going up. And this is the painter, [Mrs. Hall] paintingthe window frames (Figure 7). Now, we were getting into a problem with the front of the housebecause of the depth of it. So we had to do some backfilling An early technique used with XTs and ATs that let DESQview run more programs concurrently. Motherboard chips were disabled and EMS chips were assigned the low memory addresses. . And me,I'm trying to save money all around the place, so I get myneighbour up the road that I knew, to bring his tractor down, with adump scoop. We actually back filled all the front of that house justwith a scoop. It took. us practically a whole day, but we did it (Figure8). TS: It looks like you had a wet spring. HH: Yes. We had a big rain storm. And we were digging a well at thetime in this area -- but we didn't know it at that time, but thewell was collapsing while we were standing there. And we lost the thing.And we had to dig another one. ... This was the well we lost (Figure 9). We were down about five tile,in blue clay. And this monster rain storm. And we never thought aboutthe well, and the water got down in there, and softened the wholebottom, and the bottom tile went down, and turned over, just like a cup.And there was no way we could move it. We left that one -- we abandonedthat one, for the time being. Incidently, we were hauling drinking water drinking watersupply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g. from the well next door. Now we've got the walls up, and were all ready to startputting up some woodwork woodwork:see carpentry; furniture; intarsia; marquetry; veneer; wood carving. . And that's Bill [Cameron] -- he'sthe carpenter (Figure 10). Now, this house, when it got laid out on theplan -- we had to reverse everything. And what we were doing here waspuzzling it out -- how to reverse the floor plan. As you drove in thedriveway (I don't have a picture of this) this is the front of thehouse. This would all be on the south side of the house, and we had tohave it on the north side. So, what we did with the floor plan was[showing me a floor plan] ... see this -- this would be the south sideof the house, according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. the plan. But what we did was this room overthere, this room over here ... and the front door, and the back door,naturally, went with the kitchen. And, what we also had to do was ...the front door was right, but the living room and the dining room -- wejust reversed them. TS: Why? Was that the plan that you wanted. HH: Oh, yes. This was the plan. TS: Why did you reverse it? HH: ... The way the plan [was], the back door, when you drove inthe driveway, it's on the south side of the house, where ifit's On the north, you drive to the door. And the house, accordingto the plan, the front door, would have been facing east. So we wantedit facing west. So all we did was just switch it around. TS: That makes sense. HH: And here we are. It's a Saturday morning. Early, cuz youcan see the slant of the sun (Figure 11). And this is the picture Sundaynight Sunday Night, later named Michelob Presents Night Music, was an NBC late-night television show which aired for two seasons between 1988 and 1990 as a showcase for jazz and eclectic musical artists. , 48 hours (Figure 12). TS: You got the first floor all framed? HH: Bill brought two guys, carpenters, so there were the four ofus. I was throwing wood around like crazy. And they were cutting, andspiking, and hammering, and banging. TS: Was Bill a friend? HH: Yes. We met him in West Hamilton. He was building housing inWest Hamilton for somebody. And Flo and I were out walking, which weused to do a lot of. And we passed the house in West Hamilton, and Billwas just hanging around. We'd talked about this VLA for about twoor three years, before we did it. So, I told him what I was thinking ofdoing. And he said, "Whereabouts?" And I said, "Well, Ihave no idea, but it's going to be somewhere out in the west end,but where I don't know. It could be in Ancaster. Or around theDundas area. "Oh" he said, "That's no problem."He was single at the time. He's about ten years older than me. Hewas living downtown. And when he wasn't building a house in hisspare time, he was working at Steel Car. That's when they used tobuild the wooden box cars at the Steel Car. So he said, "Yeah, whenyou get ready -- we'll keep in touch." And that's how itturned out. ... TS: Who did you get your materials from? HH: Snetsinger Lumber lumber,term for timber that has been cut into boards for use as a building material. The major steps in producing lumber involve logging (the felling and preparation of timber for shipment to sawmills), sawing the logs into boards, grading the boards according to . TS: They did a lot of work with the VLA. A number of the peopleI've spoken with used Snetsinger Lumber. HH: He [Mr. Snetsinger] was great. TS: Did you get any credit from him, where he would wait until theVLA paid you? HH: It was all credit. My bill got to a point one time, where hesent me a nice letter, and it said, "I'm afraid we'regoing to have to ask you to start doing something about this." And,of course, me, I was stretching my luck, that's what I was doing.And I think that I probably went in and gave him four or five hundredbucks, and that was the end of it. The only guy that really pressured mewas the plumber (programming, tool) Plumber - A system for obtaining information about memory leaks in Ada and C programs.http://home.earthlink.net/~owenomalley/plumber.html. , for some reason or another. I don't know why. ButBill said -- he'd used this plumber umpteen times, so he knew him.So he said, "Look, don't worry about it. I talked to him andit's all right." I think back to that time, and I think"How in the heck did I keep working, and doing this?"(8) HH: There's the lawn. You can see the shingles shingles:see herpes zoster. shinglesor herpes zosterAcute viral skin and nerve infection. Groups of small blisters appear along certain nerve segments, most often on the back, sometimes after a dull ache at the site; pain becomes coming on. Andthen, there was the big day, when the bulldozer moved in. We hadeverything cleaned up outside, put away. And were ready to go. ... Nowwe're in doing some inside work here. That's insulation. TS: Oh look, the plastering's done. HH: Yup. We were putting the light switches into this house when wegot approval to build it. It was September the fourth when we gotapproval to build this. TS: From? HH: From the VLA. TS: And when did you apply? HH: We applied in April. We told them, "Geez, we got tobuild." And he said, "Look, we'll have our inspectors popout at the right time, no problem." And they did. The inspectorscame out and made sure, and of course, we'd reversed the plans aswell. What the heck -- whether the house faces this way! ... But, thiswas built to the approved plan, except for the reversal of thedirection. TS: Do you remember who your inspector was? HH: The building inspector The following articles relate to the topic of building inspector: Building Inspector (United Kingdom) Building inspection was John MacFarlane This article is about the CEO. For the botanist, see John Muirhead Macfarlane. For the philosopher, see John MacFarlane.John MacFarlane is an American businessman who founded www.software.com and is currently the CEO of the company Sonos. , Regional Office,Dundas. But the plan that I got, they got a copy that they approved. Itwas dated September the second. Because when he came in he laughed. Iwas standing there talking to Noun 1. talking to - a lengthy rebuke; "a good lecture was my father's idea of discipline"; "the teacher gave him a talking to"lecture, speechrebuke, reprehension, reprimand, reproof, reproval - an act or expression of criticism and censure; "he had to him, and the electrician was putting thelight switches in, and putting the plates on, and he comes in and hesays, "I got good news for you." And I said, "What'sthat?" And he said, "You're finally approved, you canstart building your house." I said, "Great." We wereputting the electricity in. He said, "I don't know aboutyou." I said, "It was either you or somebody else that wasgoing to mortgage this place." He said, "Well, you gotapproval." And shortly after that, I think the next week, I got --I don't know if it was three or four payments. ... And then we raninto a snag -- we didn't have the stucco on (Figure 13). And thechap that was going to do it said, "No. It's too late in theseason, and it won't cure properly." ... But, because of nostucco, I had to apply to the VLA for an extension in time. ..."You're not going to get your last payment, you know. So, whendo you want to make it for?" I think that we made it for September1950. But I still needed money. So, if you'll notice those cars --I had a 1938 Plymouth at that time. But it was still ten years old. So Isaid to Flo, "What we're going to do is sell our car, until weget straightened around, because I'm not borrowing any money. Ibought a 1932, four cylinder Plymouth -- it was eighteen years old. Iwas driving that thing from there to the Firestone fire��stone?n.1. A flint or pyrite used to strike a fire.2. A fire-resistant stone, such as certain sandstones.Noun 1. down at the beach,pretty near, on Burlington Street. And I drove it a year and a half. Andthe only problem was in the wintertime. The roof leaked. Every time Iwould patch it, it would leak somewhere else. I'd come home fromwork, and Flo would say, "How's the seat?" And I'dsay, "Here's the blanket -- dry them up again." I'dtake a blanket out with me, and throw them on the front seat -- theseats were frozen solid -- blocks of ice. And then there was the septic tank. And, I don't think at thattime, that ... I didn't enquire en��quire?v.Variant of inquire.enquireVerb[-quiring, -quired] same as inquireenquiry nVerb 1. , I don't think. You could buya septic tank and it was delivered. ... My friend, we worked together atFirestone, and he used to come out -- part-time help -- digging, diggingholes. He helped me dig these holes by hand. TS: That's a big job. HH: This is the framework for the septic tank. Well, this onelittle problem that we were going to have, was that I hadn't gottenaround to -- I didn't have time to dig out to depart; to leave, esp. hastily; decamp.See also: Dig another well. I wascarefully going to take apart the pipe, and then we can move it over tothe other hole, and we can build a small cistern cistern/cis��tern/ (sis��tern) a closed space serving as a reservoir for fluid, e.g., one of the enlarged spaces of the body containing lymph or other fluid. -- a fifteen hundredgallon cistern. So, that was the septic tank, and then I carefully movedeverything over -- that's Bob (we were playing golf yesterday), putup another framework over there -- the cistern over there (Figure 14).That's the cement truck. Cement at that time was eleven dollars ayard. TS: How much is it now? HH:: About a hundred and ten. I could get three yards of cementdelivered from Aldershot -- alt the way out there -- for thirty-fourbucks. And I built that framework. And then I borrowed a cement mixer mixer,either of two electronic devices in which two or more signals are combined. In the type of mixer used in radio receivers, radar receivers, and similar systems, a signal is translated upward or downward in frequency. . Wepoured this one -- I think it took three yards of concrete to do thesetanks. But both of them needed tops on them. I did that separately. Iborrowed a mixer off of some guy, mixed my own cement, and dumped it.We're getting into fall here. TS: When is this? HH: It's about September, 1949. One morning we got up in October, and that is white stuff -- thatis snow. And I said to Flo, "Look, this is the end of thisnonsense. We've got a perfectly good house here, and the furnace isworking, and everything. I know that there is nothing in there --there's no trim, no floors, no nothing. But I'm not freezingmy butt over here any longer. And the kids." That bulldozer thatyou saw, way in the back there. You can imagine what that was like -- Ithrew some planks across here [the ground], and I was trucking stuffover to the back door, just like that. Shoving it in. Flo and the kidswere dragging everything into the kitchen. And that's how we moved.And then she said, "How about the stove? And the fridge?" Ohyeah, the fridge was in there, too. I said, "Well, tomorrowmorning, I'll get Bert down with the tractor, and we'll loadthem on the trailer." You never saw anything like it. We wound upwith Bert, myself, the tractor, and the trailer got stuck, and thetractor didn't have any chains on it, and the wheels are spinning,and we were about ten feet, I guess, away from the back door. "Andnow what do we do?" I said, "I'm going to round up threemore guys, and we're going to have to carry this stuff, and shoveit through the door." I went a got two of the neighbours This article is about an Australian soap opera. For other articles with similar names, see Neighbours (disambiguation). Neighbours is a long-running Australian soap opera, which began its run in March 1985. , and theycame over, and we had the stove on the trailer, and we got it up, andpushed it, and got it into the kitchen. And then we mucked around, andgot everything out again. And we got the fridge on, and the same thinghappened, half way across. So we picked that up, and carried it across,and through the door. I think that I was up til about two o'clockMonday morning hooking up. TS: How far apart were the house and the cottage? HH: Oh, I'd say around seventy-five feet. TS: That's still a, big haul. HH: This is coming over to the back door (Figure 15). And whenyou've got a dresser on your shoulders ... That's as far as wegot, and that's when we moved in. It was about the end of 1949. There's the house (Figure 16). And we were planning a newwell, and I rented a chain horse. With a lot of fooling around I managedto save some tile. TS: From the old well? Were there six or seven [tiles] in there? HH: No, five. TS: Did you save them all? Even the bottom one? HH: No, not that one. And the fourth one broke. So we saved three. That first well -- that was enough digging for me. So, I got theidea of drilling holes. Have you ever seen one of those old hand-heldpost-diggers? TS: Yes, I have. HH: Well, the grape farmers used a four inch, and they used todrive in these four-inch cedar poles in to hold the grapes Grapes - A Modula-like system description language.E-mail: <peter@cadlab.cadlab.de>.["GRAPES Language Description. Syntax, Semantics and Grammar of GRAPES-86", Siemens Nixdorf Inform, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-8009-4112-0]. in. So, Ibought one of those, and made five five-foot extensions out of pipe. So,I started where I wanted the well. I thought, "Here's whereI'd like to have a well. And I'll drill some holes." So Idrilled a series of holes, twenty-two feet deep, but I found that afterI got about ten feet on the thing, I was having trouble getting thething out of the ground. So when I got the -- I'd arranged with oneof the neighbours, or my brother-in-law, and I'd get down ten feet,and they'd show up, and between the two of us we could get downtwenty feet. Some holes, we drilled them twenty-five feet. Anyway, rightin that area we hit a good bed of sand. Water -- lots of water. In fact,it got so bad in the hole that when you were in the hole, the waterwould wash out the sides, so that you couldn't get in and out ofit. The week we did the well, I think we started on Saturday or Sunday-- Saturday, I guess it was. I had two of my brother-in-laws, myself, myneighbour was there. ... When we first dug the first well, we were just hauling bucketsof stuff up on a rope and a pulley. And I thought, "To heck withthat. That's too hard work." So, I made a windlass windlass:see winch. out of anold post and a couple of handles. With a gang of us there, we'dtake turns digging. We'd only dig for ten or fifteen minutes. Or ifa guy got tired, five minutes. So, we ran this well down -- I think itwas Saturday and Sunday, I think we got it down about twelve feet, andit was starting to get soft. And I said, "No, we're not goingto dig it any further, we going to get in trouble." So anyway, Iput some planks underneath it to jam it so that it couldn't do whatit did before. Cuz these are big pipes, you know. They have female andmale ends on them, and they fit together". And by the time you getfive pipes, you've got an awful lot of weight, because you'vegot to dig the hole about three inches larger, all the way around. Sothat this pipe is just sitting there, sliding. Anyway, I said -- I thinkit was the next weekend -- "How about the next weekend?""Okay." Well, they come back next weekend on a Saturday, andby eight o'clock Saturday night, we had it down twenty-four feet,we had all the tile in it, and we threw in, I think it was two foot oftwo-inch crushed stone, and it was dry as a bone. We couldn't seeanything. I got up at six o'clock the next morning, and there wasthree feet of water. And I thought, "Holy smokes. Three feet ofwater." We used to have anywhere from twelve to fourteen foot ofwater sitting in there, all the time. TS: Was it because it was close to the stream? HH: It was because the water table was there. TS: Oh, okay. HH: And we were digging a hole into the water table. It allowed thewater to flow. It just needs releasing, you know. TS: How long did you live on Sulphur Springs Road? HH: We moved out there in 49, and left in the summer of 64, I thinkit was. TS: Fifteen years. HH: What happened though was, I worked at Firestone, and I hadworked myself up into this department, and the type of work that we didthat Firestone bought a plant in Lindsay, and moved the whole motorgoods department to Lindsay, and I was asked if I wanted to go. Ithought that was something. It was 1964 now, and we'd been outthere fifteen years, and all this work. And, of course, we were in ourlate forties. And I told Flo what was happening. I said, "What doyou think?" "I don't want to move. I don't want togo." I said, "Oh." I had lots of time, about six monthsbefore the move. And we talked about it some more. Finally she said,"Okay, if this is what you want to do, we'll do it." Isaid, "What we'll do is rent the house. We'll rent thehouse, and see how things go up there. Play it safe." We rented ahouse in Lindsay for a year. The Firestone job was going good. I said,"How bout we sell the house in Dundas?" "Okay." Sowe sold it. A fellow by the name of Dyment bought it. TS: What were your monthly payments on the Sulphur Springs house? HH: Nineteen dollars and ninety cents. That was whittled right downto the $6,000 -- two thirds of that, $4,000 at 3 1/2 percent, over 25years. Some of the guys, later on, paid more than that - for theirhouses - the prices were going up. Taft, he never bought his til'63. ... He wound up, he told me, his payments were $49.50 a month,I think. He had the half acre of land, but this was '63, fourteenyears after I built. And in those fourteen years, the prices reallystarted to zoom cuz, we were surprised, when we sold the house inDundas, we got a nice price for it. When we moved, after fifteen years out there, I think, when we toldthe VLA that we were selling, they gave me a statement, I think that weowed them about eight hundred dollars. We paid that off, and the housewas then ours, and we could sell it. We couldn't sell it under theVLA. But if you paid it off, you could do what you wanted with it. But in 1952, for something extra to do, we decided to get somechickens. So, Evelyn, next door, the people we bought the property from.And she needed a new roof on her house. As that time she had a great bigold hay barn sitting in the field, just down below the house. Itwasn't doing anything. It had been moved, and set up on some rocks,and it was tilted. But there was an awful pile of good wood in it. So, Iwas telling her about the chickens. And she said, "I'll tellyou what I'll do. I'll give you that barn if you'llshingle shingleThin piece of building material made of wood, asphaltic material, slate, metal, or concrete, laid in overlapping rows to shed water. Shingles are widely used as roof covering on residential buildings and sometimes also for siding (see Shingle style). my roof for me. I'll buy the shingles." TS: Well, that's good. HH: I thought, "That's fair enough." So, I shingledher roof for her, and I started taking the barn apart. So we had thetractor at that time, and the trailer, so it made it easy. I just keptbringing the stuff over, below the house, backing it up. Then it came tothe framework -- you know, those great big beams? TS: Yes. HH: Now, I'm trying to think of the fellow's name up inLinden Linden, city, United StatesLinden,city (1990 pop. 36,701), Union co., NE N.J., in the New York metropolitan area; inc. 1925. During the first half of the 20th cent. ... he ran a saw mill. I went up and talked to him. I said,"Do you cut barn beams?" "Oh yeah, but not outside beams.No sir." It ruins his saw -- broken, rusted nails. I said,"What about inside beams?" "If there's nonails." I said, "Okay." When I got this thing down, whatI did was joist and mortice mor��tice?n. & v.Variant of mortise.morticeor mortiseNouna slot or recess cut into a piece of wood or stone to receive a matching projection (tenon) on another piece, or a the beams together, and drive the pegs out,and cut the mortice with a bow saw -- Swede swede:see turnip. saw -- until I could justhear things starting to crack a little bit. And I'd take it out. Iweakened the whole thing like that. And then I put a great big ropearound it, and got far enough back, and got on the tractor, and justjogged it, and kept jogging joggingAerobic exercise involving running at an easy pace. Jogging (1967) by Bill Bowerman and W.E. Harris boosted jogging's popularity for fitness, weight loss, and stress relief. it, and then all of a sudden the whole thingjust cracked, and cracked, and collapsed, and the whole thing came down.We took the inside beams up to -- I can't remember this fellasname. I made a list of the lumber that I wanted cut out of the beams --two by eights, two by fours -- he cut me all the two by fours, and weput up a twenty foot by twenty foot chicken house. And we startedselling eggs. TS: A twenty foot by twenty foot chicken house? That's biggerthan your cottage. HH: Yeah. And things were going so good in 1955. And not only that,my daughter was getting ready to come out of high school, and she wasgoing to be a nurse. ... So, I thought that if we expand the chickenhouse, that money will put Anne through her nursing course, no problem.So, there was a chap on Mineral Springs Road who was going to build ahouse, and he put a foundation up, and a floor on it. And he was allowedto move into it - in the basement. And then he got into financialproblems. The township left him alone, for about three years, and theytold him, "You've got to either build a house, or out."So, he had to move out. So I said, "What are you going to do withthat?" "Why?" I said, "I'll take it down, andI'll give you three hundred bucks for it." But in themeantime Adv. 1. in the meantime - during the intervening time; "meanwhile I will not think about the problem"; "meantime he was attentive to his other interests"; "in the meantime the police were notified"meantime, meanwhile , when he started this business, he come to me, because ourcottage was sitting in the front yard, and he bought it off me, andmoved it, for three hundred bucks. And they were living in that, andthen they built the basement, and moved in there. So, I said,"I'll tell you what, I'll take the basement down, andclean everything off for you, and I'll give you three hundredbucks." "Fair enough." So we hauled all the blocks out ofthe basement, dug the hole under the chicken house, raised it up -- itwas built into a bank, in the back of the house -- and we added twentyfeet to it. So we made it forty foot by twenty foot, and a full basementunderneath it, and a double decker chicken house. At one time, we raisedfour hundred chickens in the thing. But, we couldn't handle all theeggs. We knew that. SO, what I was doing, was we'd raise thesechickens up, layers, til about three or four months old. Then we'dsell them. Incidently, the chap who's got the house now, and hestarted renovating it, and he figured that the chicken house was builtso well, he changed it into a guest cottage. TS: One more question about when you were out on Sulphur Springsand Governor's Road -- did your wife, Flo, have any transportationout there? HH: She never drove a car. TS: There was no bus service was there? HH: We had a bus service the first year we were there, then theystopped it. The bus used to run to Copetown. I think it was four times aday, or something. No, she made friends with the lady next door, DorothyJevens. Dorothy drove, and they used to go shopping together. EvelynMcCarty had no car, cuz she needed one with the kids. Flo and I used totake the kids to church on Sunday morning Sunday Morning may refer to: "Sunday Morning (radio program)", a Canadian radio program formerly aired on CBC Radio One CBS News Sunday Morning, a television news program on CBS in the United States Sunday Morning (TBS TV series) . Mrs Stroud stroud?n.A coarse woolen cloth or blanket.[After Stroud, an urban district of southwest-central England.] , Kay Stroud andArt Stroud, another neighbour. She drove a car. They didn't havetwo cars, but there was always a car when you needed to go shopping.She'd call, "I'm going shopping Flo. Do you needanything, or do you want to go?" So we never found transportation,when I wasn't there with a car, a problem. TS: Do your kids remember the house in Dundas, fondly? HH: Oh yes. They had a great time. They had the run of the valley.Dr. Schmidt, up the road, he had a Christmas tree Christmas treeEvergreen tree, usually decorated with lights and ornaments, to celebrate the Christmas season. The use of evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands as symbols of eternal life was common among the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews. farm. He used to hireall the kids to cut trees, and stuff in the summer time. TS: Thank you, Mr. Hall. This has been a wonderful interview. (1.) "The Veterans' Land Act 1942," Unpubl. ms.,Department of Veterans' Affairs, Charlottetown, PEI. (2.) For a more in-depth examination of the Veterans' LandAct, see Tricia Shulist "My Little Piddly House and All thisLand:" The Veterans' Land Act in Canada and theHamilton-Wentworth Region," Unpubl. MA Thesis, McMaster University McMaster University,at Hamilton, Ont., Canada; nondenominational; founded 1887. It has faculties of humanities, science, social sciences, business, engineering, and health sciences, as well as a school of graduate studies and a divinity college. ,1998. (3.) My interview with Mr. Hall took place on August 28, 1997, athis home in Winona, Ontario Winona () is a small community in southern Ontario.Winona is home to these internationally known entities:1. The Winona Peach Festival began in 1967 when it was just a local street festival organized to raise a little money . (4.) The gratuity money was a lump sum Lump sumA large one-time payment of money. that the government gave aveteran upon discharge. The amount of the gratuity depended on thelength and location of service. (5.) Six thousand dollars was the maximum that the VLA would loanfor the construction of a home under the. program. (6.) Between 1943 and 1947, the VLA undertook the construction ofhomes in VLA-planned subdivisions across Canada Across Canada was an afternoon program that formerly aired on The Weather Network. The segment ran from early 1999 until mid 2002. The show ran from 3:00PM ET until 7:00 PM ET. . Even though the homeswere modest, the VLA still incurred substantial cost overruns anddiscontinued dis��con��tin��ue?v. dis��con��tin��ued, dis��con��tin��u��ing, dis��con��tin��uesv.tr.1. To stop doing or providing (something); end or abandon: building homes, instead shifting the focus from VLA-builthomes to the veterans as the owner builders of their own homes. In theVLA-built surveys, the VLA hired contractors to build homes within the$6,000 maximum, which were then sold to veterans. Mr. Hall'sbrother-in-law purchased one of those homes. (7.) Mr. Hall was the only one of the veterans interviewed who hadpreviously been a home owner home ownerhome n → propri��taire occupant. For all of the other veterans, the VLA wastheir first foray into Verb 1. foray into - enter someone else's territory and take spoils; "The pirates raided the coastal villages regularly"raidencroach upon, intrude on, obtrude upon, invade - to intrude upon, infringe, encroach on, violate; "This new colleague invades my home ownership. (8.) Mr. Hall worked at the Firestone plant in Hamilton. (9.) Even though the VLA had not given final approval, the buildinginspectors visited the site, unofficially, to ensure that Mr. Hall wasbuilding to VLA standards.

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