Aubrey Anderson
In 1914, the War started. I was eight years old at the time. Things were very hard. People are very well-off today. The war went on until 1918.
My Father's brother, who lived in Patton, Maine, was married and had three kids. His wife, Amber, had cancer of the throat. They come over home and asked my father to move to Patton, Maine.
In the spring of 1919, Dad sold our house to Banty Robison, and we moved to Patton, Maine. Dad took the horses and cattle, and what we had for furniture, by train. Mom, us four boys and two of the girls went by train as well. My other sister, Tressa was married and didn't go.
Mount Chase is where we moved to. This is three miles outside of Patton. We did not like it very well. We planted a little crop and in the summer we hayed. We also had our cattle and horses.
In the fall my uncle married his wife's sister Mabel. Amber had died before we moved there. We did not get along too well. She had three kids of her own. This meant there were fourteen people living in the same house. She kicked us out and we moved down the road a ways to Nate Arbeau's.
That fall, we picked potatoes for a month. Uncle Arthur, could pick one hundred barrels a day. Dad could pick ninety barrels, and I could pick fifty. I couldn't lift the basket of potatoes after I filled it, so Dad had to empty my baskets, and that put him back so he couldn't get his hundred. I was only thirteen.
Dad bought an old farm place with wood on it. He cut wood that winter with an old gasoline cross-cut saw. I hauled the wood to Patton, which was three miles away, by a horse-drawn team. There was a lot of snow; a solid six feet with a heavy crust on it. The horses could walk on top of it.
In the spring, I couldn't get all the wood hauled so Dad hired a fellow, by the name of Mel, to help haul. He had a big heavy team with two sleds hooked on. This is the same fellow who we picked potatoes for.
Two fellows by the name of Dr. Woodbury and Dr. Cobb, came up from Patton. They had heard about the Kilburn place in Kingsclear for sale, which was 750 acres. The wood had never been cut on it. They asked Dad to go down and cruise it. Dad said yes, he would be glad to.
They headed for Kingsclear in an old Model T car. They were down there three days. They cruised the land and had it surveyed. Dad bought the farm in the meantime because they said Dad could cut the pulp on it to pay for the farm.
When Dad came back, he came in the house and jumped up in the air and said "We are going to Canada!". We were all keen as we didn't like it there. I did go to school some.
Dad sold the cows and the old farm. Mother, the three boys, Guy, Burens, and Milton, and the youngest girl, Ruth, came to Kingsclear by train. Dad and I came with the team. Flora didn't come because she had met a fellow out of the army and married him.
We headed for Kingsclear on May 20, 1920. We were two days on the road. The first day we got almost to Houlton. We stopped as it was getting dark, at a farm to see if we could spend the night. The fellow said he had room for the horses but not for us. Dad asked if we could stay in the barn. He said it would be alright but he had to take our cigarettes and matches from us. We slept well after being on the road all day.
The next morning we got up early and headed out again. We had a little bite to eat with us. We went on to a custom house office before we stopped. It was in a house in those days. A big man, weighing 250 lbs, with a blue suit with brass buttons, wanted to know what we were doing and where we were going. We told him, and he said we would have to unload our stuff. He made us unload the wagon. After he looked it all over, he said we could put it back on. Dad was as mad as a wet hen.
The next place we stopped was at Eel River. That was on the Trans Canada Highway between the main road and Canada. We talked to a fellow who asked us if we have had anything to eat. We said we hadn't had much since yesterday so he told us to come in and have dinner. After dinner we fed the horses and went again. It was a long way from Eel River to Kingsclear.
Along about dark, we were going up Kelly Creek Hill and one of the horses went to its knees. Dad said we are not going to make it. We went up on top of the hill and stopped and fed the horses some oats and gave them a rest. It was twelve o'clock that night before we got to Kilburn place. Talk about tired.
Mamma and the kids came on the train to Veysey Siding. This was the next farm above where we were. Mr. and Mrs. Ellingworth lived there with two boys and a girl. When they saw them coming on May 21, they went out and stopped them and took them in for the night. We got there on May 22. The next morning they came down to the farm. There was nothing in the house. We had a few head of cattle and some sheep. From there on, we cut pulp to pay for the farm. We lived there for thirty years.