Keith and Betty Noble January 24, 1991 About their family and emphasizing the story of Spence Lumber Company Mr. Moriarty* and Mr. Booth* and George Jackson will be interviewing them. Betty begins by saying her mother married Spence and her father was Alex Spence*. Her father s mother and father was James Spence who started Spence Lumber and he married Annie Down. They had Norman, Minnie, Alex, Emily, and Art and Emerson and Bell who was killed in the First World War None are currently alive. They all lived in Bradford at one time and grew up here. Betty thinks that Norman went to Brock...Her grandfather s home was on Barrie Street but she cannot remember the number but Mrs. Hamill lived there after her mother did. They determine that the house number was 23* Barrie Street. That was where Betty's father was raised. Annie Downs was the name of her grandmother and she came from the Sprucedale area and doesn't know their history but her grandfather met her in Huntsville where he worked at a Mickle and Dymte* logging and lumber company and then got transferred to their Bradford location as a manager. He bought the lumber location in 1918 but he came to Bradford in 1916. They think it was where the Riverview Inn was for a while before being moved. George remembers a lumber factory on the other side of the river past the marina. Art worked for her dad for a while after her dad bought the company in 1927. After her grandfather died Art and Emerson both worked there for a while. Betty has no brothers or sisters but had three kids Douglas, Barbara, and Ron. Douglas works in Ottawa. Ron is in the business with them. Barbara teaches. Betty and Keith got married in 1946. Betty and Keith originally lived in Kingston while he was in school and then moved to Colborne while he worked for Canadian General Electric and then they moved to the Sinclair house in Bradford. The Sinclair house is on Barrie Street. Betty's father was always in the lumber business and remembers that Art was a truck driver and always had to go to the lake. Sometimes Art would drive Betty and her friend with him to the lake on hot days in the summer. Art would deliver lumber to the lake. Betty remembers it being a fun drive and getting to stop at the ice cream stores along the way. Art also lived with his parents for an extended time until he was married. Asks Keith since it was a family business for many decades what would it have been like at the start in respect to the items you would carry and the types of lumber? Keith says that is a loaded question. He says that basically they carry the same products today as they did then even though they've expanded and have new products. Keith's first recollection is of being in a farmhouse and going in with his dad to pick up some foot long drainage equipment for barn drainage and loading it into the back of 1925 Chevy and helping dig the trenches to put it in. Most people in some time in their career on a farm had been introduced to a shovel. Just to go back Keith in the historical background where did Keith's family live? Keith's 1 P age
family moved to Newton Robinson in 1929. Keith was born near Creemore in Maple Valley and both his parents came from that area. Their farm was the first one east of 27 on the tenth line across from Orville* Road. In that year in September their house burnt down. They had it rebuilt during the winter. He recalls living in the house that Bill lives in. Keith went to continuation school in Cookstown for four years and came to Bradford for his fifth year. All of Betty's schooling was done in Bradford. Keith went on to Queens but didn't start until after he was in the service. He did do a year at McMaster for officers training before starting his service. Through the army he was credited with one year of university. He graduated in the late 1940s. Betty thinks it was 1950 because they moved to Coburn* and had their son in 1951 in Kingston. Lumber has changed an awful lot in the last few decades in measurements, how it s handled, dimensions of the wood and everything else like that. Keith says that the lumber has gotten smaller and more expensive. When he started there the lumber all came in on boxcar or the odd time by tractor and would load the wood by hand off the boxcar and pile it. Now it comes in by transport and moved by forklifts and then loaded into trucks on forklifts. That applies to the lumber at the mill as well. How many people would have worked at Spence lumber at any given time during the manual mode? Keith says it wouldn't have been many more than there are now which is about a dozen. He says that it was eight for a long time. Spence Lumber was open while the marsh was being developed. Keith says the marsh was a big part of their business for many years. The marsh was developed when Keith got into the business. A lot of the major storages were supplied by Spence. George wants to switch directions to talking to Betty about family life, he asks her about the recreation life during high school that she was involved in. Betty says there was a movie theatre in Bradford when she went to school. There were high school dances and dances in Cookstown that they would go to. They were held in the barn near the curling club and there was a good orchestra there. Tommy Doressy* and Max Bloat* were there. As far as any other recreation there were pool halls, but Betty says she did not go to them. Barens* Hardware had a pool hall in the back of it. The skating rink at the arena was one and in the summer it had a boxing hall arrangement called Tuxedo Hall and dances would be held there. Betty says that in some ways there were things there for them but people had to make their own recreation. The skating rink was a big place and had ice for curling. George asks about outdoor rinks and Betty is unable to recall any. Many people would skate on the canal. The fall fair was a big event. Betty's father built a cottage on the lake in the early 1940's. They bought the land for the cottage and then built it. Betty's family did not live at the cottage in the summer. Betty explains that when she had two small boys they spent a lot of time there and that mostly in the summer when they had the cottage it was more for weekend trips. Betty worked at a Dairy place and George asks if she knew Adel Jackson but Betty does not recall the name. After some prompting and reminding that Adel worked with Gladice she remembers working with a Jackson but believes it was Edith and not Adel. George says that might have been her because he was trying to work out his history. Edith/Adel worked for Laura Secord. Betty says this was in the 1940s. George explains that there were three girls in the family Edith and Adel were two of them so George confuses them from time to time. Betty says she was sure that it was Edith that worked with Gladice. The war was on at this time and there was a lot of traffic from 2 P age
Camp Borden and they would stop in for ice cream. George asks if Betty can remember the price of ice cream but Betty does not know. She does remember Edith quiet well. At the dairy shop Betty would wait on customers making ice cream and sandwiches. Betty remembers making $8 a week and would put in many hours but liked the pay. George brings the conversation back to things that stick out in their memory. George came to Bradford in the 1930s and remembers what Bradford was like on a Saturday night. Down at the four corners there were people coming out of the Salvation Army on one side and people coming out of the Queens or the Village Inn, he compares it to a circus. Betty says her uncle Archie Hamill had a grocery store on the corner and that she worked for him for a little bit as a teenager and people would come in half past twelve on Saturday night with a big long grocery list. Betty says that one lady was mad because people back then would call in their order and have it sent to them and Betty sent a lady the wrong kind of peas and the lady phoned upset which was around the time Betty quit. Archie Hamill's wife Minnie Hamill was Betty's Dad's sister. It was on Main Street where Town Taxi moved out of. The grocery store they would come to the counter with their list and Betty would go and get all of their things for them. George asks about the phone system and if there was a box that had to be rung and that the telephone operator was Ruthie Sutherland and that she was a nice woman and would give them the time if they called. The telephone company was part of the Beeton telephone company and they could not remember if it was in town or not but they remember that Bell eventually took it over. Betty remembers her house number was 43. You would call the operator and tell them what number they wanted. One woman being interviewed remembers being on a party line with 24 people and that you would have to listen to six rings to determine who the call was for. They talk about going to town on a Saturday night and that they had to be there by 5pm to be able to park on the main street. There were dances held on the main street as well. They were street dances that were fenced off and everyone would go to them and George says there were live orchestras too. They say Bradford has changed a lot. George asks about cars. Betty says they always had a car but they only had one. Growing up they did not get to drive like people do now. Betty didn't learn to drive until she was married and Keith taught her. George asks when Keith got his license and he said it was when he was 16 but they didn't worry about licenses back then as much. His sister went to school in Barrie when she was 17 so it was Keith's job to drive her to school every Monday when he was 15 so he had to do it without a license. Says nobody worried about it and that the police didn't bother him about it. Keith remembers taking his driving test in Bradford and they think it was Earl James or possibly Harry that administered the test. Keith is unable to remember what the test consisted of. Asks if Hwy88 was always a paved road? Tape cuts out. Tape comes back. Say it was a plank road. It was a gravel road when Keith was going to school in 1941-1942. George asks if it was paved before the 400 came through. Keith does not remember when the 400 was built. George asks about Bradford traffic on the weekend. Betty says it was very heavy traffic. She remembers trying to cross the road one Sunday night and that you would have to wait for a break in traffic and she got brushed by a car trying to cross the road. Talking about a Chinese restaurant that has been there for approximately 40 years. It was sold at one point but the deal fell through. The former Spence lumber is operating again. Down 3 P age
where the gas station is there was a neighbour of yours where Grant Robinson is now. They say yes it was always a gas station. Jack Culbert and Greg Scott and Art Richardson all had it for different amounts of time and a Pringle had it as well. At one time they made hockey sticks there too. Brings up the history of the Luke s. Keith says he can't help very much with it. There was Oscar*. George talks about Joe Saint and says that he is the resident expert on the area and has a file on many subjects. George says his knowledge of Bradford is astounding. George explains that the other day they were talking about the farm on the 5 th and refers to the first lot east of 400 as the Davidson farm and Charlie who they were talking to said that was back 3 generations. George goes back to talking about the Luke s mill and asks what it was for. It was a wheat mill. Farmers would bring in their wheat and sell it and have it turned into flour. They would buy wheat and ship flour. George asks about high school. Betty says it s called Fred C. Cook now and has the additions on it now that it didn't when she went to it. There's a public school now but that's not the one that they went too. The school did have power. Keith has experience with the high school board during the time they were building the additions to Fred C. Cook School and they have built 2 additions onto it. Keith was there during the first. He was on the school board. Keith says that was approximately 24 years ago. He was there when Doug graduated (does not say who Doug is). George asks about the problems associated with making the decision to expand the building. Keith says he cannot remember exactly but that salary negotiations with the school teachers was a problem. He served with Clarence Ritchie. There was about 3-4 members of the board that did the negotiations but then the rest of the board would have to agree to the terms the negotiations came too. Percentage wise the salary then was comparable to what it is now. Keith's father was Samuel George Nobel and his mother was Mary Ida Nobel which was her married and maiden name. They could have been related but Keith explains that it would have been very distance. Keith had one sister Ruth Milligan of Milligan fuels in Beeton. Keith has two nephews who still farm about 600 acres in Beeton and the fuel business. George goes back to school and asks about the school bus. The school bus was in operation before the county system but Keith remembers that when he came to Bradford nobody had heard of a school bus so it was a post war system. Keith's sister stayed in Barrie for the week while going to school and when Keith went to continuation school he came in on a daily basis. George asks what they did in the winter. Keith says that he cannot remember how they got to Bradford. Irene explains that she went to high school in Bradford and in the 1930s her brother or sister would drive her and then when her sister went off to training she went off to training and then she got her license and would drive. They didn't have antifreeze so they would always have to find water to put into the car so it would be able to drive him. The McClouds hills were high back then and were hard to get over. Keith remembers his sister went sledding down the hill Newton Robinson near highway 27 and cut her eye and they wanted to take her to Alliston Hospital and they had to come up Hwy 11 and down Hwy 29 to get them to Alliston because Hwy 27 was not as good. George asks if they saw much of a change to the community when highway 400 came through or if it has been a gradual change. Keith says it was a pretty gradual change. People that used to go to Newton Robinson church changed to the Bradford one once the 400 went in because they could not get to it. George asks if people discussed the highway as a blessing or a curse. They don't remember people talking about the road and protesting about it as people do now. Keith was over in England and Germany during the war. He left Halifax in 1944 and landed in Liverpool on 4 P age
Christmas Eve. It took 24 hours before they got off the boat and then was put on a train without heat for 12 hours and then were put into a bunkhouse that had a fireplace but no fuel. Actually he got moved over to Germany and never had to fire a shot. Keith says it was luck of the draw that he never got into battle and he told them they had his records wrong but they told him they didn't which did not allow him to get letters or send any and kept him from seeing action. Keith says he does not know how or why the information got mixed up. After the war Keith went back to England and went to school there for 6 months because they did not have the transportation to send him home. Keith says he did not take a lot of classes there. Irene asks about the teachers they had while at Bradford and Betty says she remembers having the following teachers while at high school: Mr. Bond*, Bill Gray*, Ruth Stewart*, and Connie*, Margaret Graham*. George talks about doing another interview and using pictures to help refresh their memories. Before the interview ends George asks about Hurricane Hazel and Keith says that except for the yard they were not really affected by it and that his dad wanted the store to stay open for 24 hours in case people needed anything but Keith remembers that they did not stay open 24 hours. George thanks them for the interview and the tape ends. Banner image from the Local History Collection depicting cars lining Holland Street East. ID Number 3696. http://www.ibidnet.ca/details.php?idnum=3696 5 P age