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    Freedom to Play: We Made Our Own Fun
    Freedom to Play: We Made Our Own Fun
    Freedom to Play: We Made Our Own Fun
    Ebook304 pages3 hours

    Freedom to Play: We Made Our Own Fun

    By Wilfrid Laurier University Press

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    About this ebook

    “When we were children we made our own fun” is a frequent comment from those who were children in pre-television times. But what games, activities and amusements did children enjoy prior to the mid-1950s?

    Recollections of older Canadians, selections from writings by Canadian authors and letters written to the children’s pages of agricultural publications indicate that for most children play was then, as now, an essential part of childhood. Through play, youngsters developed the physical, mental and emotional skills that helped them cope with life and taught them to get along with other children.

    In both rural and urban settings, children were generally free to explore their environment. They were sent outdoors to play by both parents and teachers. Their games were generally self-organized and physically active, with domestic animals acting as important companions and playmates. Children frequently made their own toys and equipment, and, since playing rather than winning was important, most children were included in games. Special days, holidays and organizations for children and youth provided welcome breaks from daily routines. Their lives were busy, but there was always time for play, always time for fun.

    Norah Lewis has provided an entertaining view of the toys, games and activities in Canada and pre-confederate Newfoundland from approximately 1900 through 1955. Her book will be of interest to historians, educators and sociologists, as well as anyone who lived through, or wants to know more about,those early years in Canada, and the games children used to play.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilfrid Laurier University Press
    Release dateSep 29, 2010
    ISBN9781554587315
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      Freedom to Play - Wilfrid Laurier University Press

      Freedom to Play

      We Made Our Own Fun

      Studies in Childhood and Family in Canada

      Studies in Childhood and Family in Canada is a multidisciplinary series devoted to new perspectives on these subjects as they evolve. The series features studies that focus on the intersections of age, class, race, gender, and region as they contribute to a Canadian understanding of childhood and family, both historically and currently.

      Series Editor

      Cynthia Comacchio

      Department of History

      Wilfrid Laurier University

      Manuscripts to be sent to

      Bran Henderson, Director

      Wilfrid Laurier University Press

      75 University Avenue West

      Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3C5

      Freedom to Play

      We Made Our Own Fun

      NORAH L. LEWIS, EDITOR

      Studies in Childhood and Family in Canada

      This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

      National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

      Freedom to play : we made our own fun / Norah L. Lewis, editor.

      (Studies in childhood and family in Canada series)

      Includes bibliographical references.

      ISBN 0-88920-406-3

      1. Amusements—Canada—History—20th century. I. Lewis,

      Norah Lillian, 1935- II. Series.

      GV1204.15.F74 2002      790.1’922’0971’0904      C2002-903296-2

      © 2002 Wilfrid Laurier University Press

      Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5

      www.wlupress.wlu.ca

      Cover design by Kathy Joslin.

      Cover photograph: All sails set, undated (Kelowna Museum and Archives).

      Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publisher’s attention will be corrected in future printings.

      Printed in Canada

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

      In loving memory of, and in gratitude to,

      Mac and Mrs. Mac

      (Henry and Jean McAughey)

      CONTENTS

      List of Illustrations

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY

      Betty Bell: The Fair Land

      Anna V.M. Robinson: Happy Mountaineers

      Fanny Heeks: Good Times at Oakville

      Don Clay: The Absolute Freedom We Had

      Helga Erlindson: A Trip on a Steamer

      Wild Rose: Wild Flowers

      Eileen Scott Campbell: We Were Free to Roam

      A Farmer Boy: (untitled)

      R.B. Green: We Always Found Something to Do

      Earl Sherman: I Was Into Everything When It Came to Sports

      Peggy Sherman: Songs to Sing, Games to Play, and Places to Explore

      Rex G. Krepps: When Our Parents Were Away

      Dick Saunders: Growing Up in North-Central British Columbia

      Gary L. Saunders: Rattles and Steadies: Memoirs of a Gander River Man

      Judy Wells: I Can’t Remember a Dull Moment

      Paul Barker: The Effects of a Distant War

      Kim Gosse Hilliard: My Games Parallel My Life

      PLAYING IS PLAYING WHEN SHARED

      Ethel Swan: Maple Leaf Club Picnic

      Chick: Strange Bedfellows

      The Kay Children

      Scouts and Smoking: (untitled)

      Barry Broadfoot: The Very Best Time for Us

      Janet McNab: School Field Day

      Byron Kingsbury: Sports Were Fine

      Ellsworth V. Griffin: Went to Picnic in an Ox Cart

      Margaret Muskett: Going to Make a Playhouse

      Reggie Meeks: Boys’ Farming Club

      Ann Thrasher Rogers: From Small Town to Big City

      Hattie Morrill: Camp Fire Girl

      Iola Crouse: A Charivari

      Ivy Moulton: How I Had Fun as a Kid

      Dawn McKim: We Had Freedom Galore

      Wilhemena Rosin: More Praise for the Red Cross

      Bill Wells: Being Youngest Had Its Advantages

      Janet Reid: Growing Up in the Ottawa Area

      Janet Marshall: Cut Outs and Other Games

      Olga Kudurudz: Dauphin Fair

      Mary Kett: (Untitled)

      Nellie Mailie: Camping with the Guides

      Pathfinder-in-Chief: Boy Scout Week

      Jean Wilson: A Very Busy Childhood

      Tony Plomp: Through the Eyes of a Newcomer

      Polly King: Paper Doll Poems

      PLAYING IS PLAYING GAMES

      Henry Barone: We Knew How to Have Fun

      Hal C. Sisson: Lefty Wilson and the Naked Lady

      Mariposa Lily: A Fine Coasting Tray

      Clarence Orser: Made a Pair of Skis

      Anemone: Tennis and Golf

      Ina Trudgeon: The Games Kids (Used to) Play

      Laura Whitelaw: A Game of War

      Ruth Pinder: A Skating Party

      Theodore Holden: Making a Rink

      Freda Mallory: We Organized Ourselves

      Margaret Walker: Every Season Had Its Activities

      Gwyneth Davies: A Skating Party

      Fred Greaves: Games of War

      Walter Kenyon: Scotch Games at Banff

      Helen Porter: Playing Marbles the St. John’s Way

      Hugh and Jim McCullum: Childhood Games in the Yukon in the 1930s

      Margaret Nichols: Growing Up in Quebec

      Lis Schmidt Robert: There Were Lots of Playmates

      Twilight: Spring Sport

      Helen Hansen: Seems Like Old Times

      Olive Kastaskuk: A Muligan Roast

      CREATING THEIR OWN EQUIPMENT

      Evan Shute: Insect Collection

      Simon Gaudet: A Mechanical Leaf

      Danny Goosen: Enjoys Doing Fretwork

      E.H. Harris: Building Boats Along the Skeena

      Margaret Dwyer: Birds Returning

      Carl Victor Friesen: Whoopie Ti Yi Yo!

      Rolland Lewis: Infected by a Radio Bug

      John Fedoruk: A Radio Made from a Razor Blade

      Marilyn Barker: Alone but Not Lonely

      Audrey Kendall: It Was a Magical Time

      Hollyhock: Try Crab-apple Pie

      Glen Sullivan: I Made My Own Toys

      Shirley Sterling: Seepeetza Gets a Doll

      ANIMALS: FRIEND, FOE, OR FOOD

      Harold Zwick: Hunting Gophers in Saskatchewan

      Ken Strong: Very Special Friends

      Fred J. Bicknell: A Young Sportsman

      Arthur Kay: Fond of Hunting

      Lloyd Essex: Our Duck Hunt

      Everett Sharpe: Bunny for a Playmate

      Hazel M. Buckler: A Wonderful Pony

      Richard Asher: Feeding the Birds

      Laurena Saunders: Jottings for My Family

      THERE WAS ALWAYS SOMETHING TO DO

      Johnstone Willett: A Picnic Excursion

      Ernest Q. Herne: A Bob Sled

      Gladys M. Davidson: A School Picnic

      Shizuye Takashima: Christmas in a Prison Camp

      Sing Lim: Celebrating Chinese New Year

      Andy MacDonald: Oh! My Poor Duck

      Ian and Lee Rennie: Space, Freedom, Active, Love

      Lis Schmidt Robert: Victoria Day in Ponoka

      Norman St. Clair-Sulis: A Lot of Strenuous Outdoor Fun

      W.J. Phillips: Fun Was Seasonal in Edmonton

      Rural: Across the Prairies on a Pony

      Nick Green: My Favourite Pastime Was Going Trouting

      Donna Palmer Ebbutt: A Very Special Time

      Bibliography

      LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

      1. Just chatting. Barnett area of the Fraser Valley, 1907

      2. A tea party, with Adele, Florence, and Marion Newberry, undated

      3. The Newham girls with their dolls, undated

      4. Boy with Newfoundland dog and cart, undated

      5. Boys’ hockey, Sweetwater School #1156, c. 1938

      6. The good old days, 1952

      7. The Kay Children

      8. Ivy and Jack Moulton on their arse cart

      9. Children playing on swings, c. 1900

      10. Kite flying near Billings Bridge, Ottawa, 1930

      11. Paper Doll Poems, 1896

      12. Boys playing marbles in a Vancouver schoolyard

      13. Soap box derby

      14. Child in a toy airplane, 1920

      15. Girls’ hockey, Sweetwater School #1156, c. 1938

      16. Patricia and Rolland Lewis, Big Barr Lake, c. 1930

      17. Razor-blade radio

      18. Village Island children, undated

      19. The Pinsonneault children in a wheat field, undated

      20. Janet and Beth Emslie with Tamas, c. 1940

      21. The 24th of May parade in Victoria, 1925

      22. Colour-colour, 1952

      23. Adele, Florence, and Marion Newberry reading together, undated

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I am grateful to Neil Sutherland and Jean Barman for their encouragement and wise advice, Joyce McLean for her careful reading of the manuscript and my long-suffering and indulgent husband who served as critic and proofreader. I greatly appreciate those who contributed to this project either through interviews, conversations or written contributions: Don Clay, Eileen Scott Campbell, Harold Zwick, R.B. Green, Earl Sherman, Peggy Sherman, Rolland Lewis, Dick Saunders, Judy Wells, Paul Barker, Kim Hilliard, Tony Plomp, Ann Rogers, Ivy Moulton, Dawn McKim, Bill Wells, Janet Reid, Janet Marshall, Jean Wilson, Henry Barone, Ina Trudgeon, Freda Mallory, Margaret Walker, Fred Greaves, Hugh and Jim McCullum, Margaret Nichols, Lis Schmidt Robert, Helen Hansen, Laurena Saunders, Ken Strong, Marilyn Barker, Glen Sullivan, Ian and Lee Rennie, Norman St. Clair-Sulis, W.J. Phillips, Nick Green, and Donna Ebbutt. I also thank my extended family and many friends who discussed this topic with me and shared their memories.

      I am grateful to librarians at Richmond Public Library and University of British Columbia Library for their help in securing materials through interlibrary loan. And of course to Dr. Brian Henderson, Elin Edwards, Carroll Klein, and former director Sandra Woolfrey of Wilfrid Laurier University Press for their encouragement and direction.

      I also appreciate the generosity of friends and of the following archives for providing photographs: Archives of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster, British Columbia Provincial Archives, Vancouver Public Library Special Collections, National Archives of Canada, Saskatchewan Archives Board, Public Archives of Prince Edward Island, Kelowna Museum Archives, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Rupert City and Regional Archives.

      Section-Opening Photographs

      Go Outside and Play: found photograph, provided by Norah Lewis.

      Playing Is Playing When Shared: prairie children’s party c. 1900. Courtesy of Vera Hoknes.

      Playing Is Playing Games: photo of Keith and Kim Gosse, 1952. Farm near Nechako River. Photo courtesy of Evelyn Gosse.

      Creating Their Own Equipment: Ian McLetchie with Margaret McLetchie Nichols at Magog, Quebec, 1944. Photo courtesy of Margaret Nichols.

      Animals: Friend, Foe, or Food: boy with goat. Photo courtesy of the Vancouver Public Library [4845].

      There Was Always Something to Do: everyone absorbed in catching crabs. Behind Ivory Island Lighthouse. Kim and Cindy Gosse and the lighthouse keepers’ children, 1951. Photo courtesy of Evelyn Gosse.

      INTRODUCTION

      My most pleasant memory of childhood is the absolute freedom we had. Absolute freedom! We could do anything we liked. We weren’t destructive, but we could just roam all over the country. It was ours to look at and enjoy. There was so much to see and do. We never had time hanging on our hands, not one bit.

      —Don Clay, recalling his 1920s childhood

      Play, wrote Friedrich Froebel, founder of the kindergarten movement, is the highest phase of child development and the purest, most spiritual activity of young children.¹ Through play, children test the rules of cause and effect, utilize deductive and inductive reasoning, and develop their imaginative and creative thinking skills.² They also experience strength in cooperation, challenge in competition, and satisfaction and pleasure in aloneness. Kinesiologist Glynn A. Leyshon believes play helps children build optimism and hope in their lives. Neil Sutherland, a historian of Canadian childhood, considers play the most important experience in the culture of childhood. Learning to function in their own milieu helps children prepare for the adult world they will enter.³

      This study attempts to view those games, activities, and amusements that were part of the culture of Canadian childhood from 1900 to the mid-1950s, the years before television became standard equipment in most homes. The sources used include: letters written to the children’s pages of five weekly rural newspapers; written contributions or interviews with thirty-nine people and short conversations with many others; and selections taken from the writing of nine Canadian authors.

      As Camilla Gryski observes in Let’s Play: Traditional Games of Childhood, children have been playing the same games, with local variations, for a very long time. Pieter Brueghel’s painting Children’s Games (1559) includes many games that chidren still play. British folklorists Iona and Peter Opie concluded in their study Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, that the culture of childhood is kept alive through games, rhymes, chants, riddles, catcalls, and retorts that children learn orally and pass on to others. Soeur Marie Ursula’s study of the Lavalois family of Quebec also confirms that traditional games, songs, and stories are part both of family lore and family practice. D.N. Panabaker recalled that among large Pennsylvania Dutch families in Waterloo, Ontario, adults often participated with children in the same games and pastimes.⁴ American historian Elliott West concluded that children moving to the western frontier brought with them the rich lore of childhood— rhymes, word puzzles, songs jokes and games.⁵ This lore and skill enabled newcomers to connect and build rapport with other children in spite of language and ethnic differences, although the content of some folk rhymes and songs may have perpetuated negative attitudes toward specific ethnic groups or social classes.

      Elderly Canadians recall, and historians and educators confirm, that playtime and playthings for today’s children differ from those of their own generation. They could, they recall, store all their toys in one apple box or in the bottom drawer of the kitchen cabinet. Life and pleasures, they feel, were simpler, and many believe that as children they had more fun than today’s children have. A walk through the local toy store reveals that many of the games they used are still available, although Lego for example, has replaced Meccano as a popular building set. Running, jumping, pushing, pulling, rolling, climbing, circling, and emulating the occupations and activities of adults, however, are still the basis for many play activities.⁶

      From another perspective, today’s youngsters are surprised to learn that the elderly were once young: Grandfather was marble champion of his school; Grandmother skipped Double Dutch to two hundred; Great-Aunt Eileen trapped rabbits during wartime and sold the pelts to line airmen’s helmets; Great-Uncle Earl shot his first Canada goose at age eleven. When questioned about the fun they had, these ancient ones respond with faraway looks in their eyes and slight smiles on their faces, and then relate the games they played and the fun they had. At some point they utter the inevitable phrase, In those days we made our own fun!

      The Players

      The players in this study were Canadian and Newfoundland children. (Newfoundland became a province of Canada in 1949.) A record of children’s activities is contained in hundreds of letters written to the children’s pages of five newspapers that catered to rural interests and concerns. When children wrote to the Pathfinders Club—Free Press Prairie Farmer; Maple Leaf Club—Family Herald and Weekly Star; The Beaver Circle—The Farmer’s Advocate; Young Canada Club—Grain Growers’ Guide; and Young Co-operators—The Western Producer, they automatically became club members, and hoped their letters would be printed on the children’s page. Letter writers ranged in age from five to sixteen years for most clubs, although both the Family Herald and Weekly Star and The Western Producer included sections for writers from seventeen to nineteen.⁷

      Children wrote to tell fellow readers about their daily lives and the events they witnessed that are now part of Canadian history. Each letter is the written record of one child at a specific time in the life of that child, and deals with play, games, or amusements. Letters writers were a select although diverse group, literate in English, motivated to write, and mostly rural.

      A number of individuals were asked to reflect on their memories of childhood games and activities. They, too, represented a diversity of childhoods including both single-child and multichild, working-class and middle-class families from diverse cultural and geographic backgrounds. Most provided written accounts, although seven contributors were interviewed.

      Three individuals who initially agreed to contribute found recalling their childhoods so painful that they withdrew their offers. This was a reminder that not all childhoods were happy, nor does time necessarily ease pain. Many others contributed memories during casual conversations when the subject of play was raised. The third source is selections taken from the writings of eleven Canadian writers who described specific games or activities in their own childhoods or, in some cases, the activities of other children.

      Just chatting. Barnett area of the Fraser Valley, 1907 (Vancouver Public Library, Special Collections [7686]).

      There are, of course, problems in reconstructing the past through adult memories. First, memories can be faulty as they can be coloured by time, subsequent experiences, and frequent retelling. Second, individuals tend to be selective in which memories they retain. Contributors tended to focus on idyllic childhoods filled with pleasant events and happy times, the kind of childhoods we pretend are normal for all children. Although this collection does not reflect the darkest of children’s experiences, it does provide a window into the world of children’s games and activities of fifty to a hundred years ago.

      Elliott West suggests three standards that minimize the bias of materials used in this book. First, the more clear and exact the memory, the more likely it is to be accurate. Second, repetition of the same memory from many different persons lends credence. Third, congruence lends credibility when reminiscences correspond with those of other sources. Taken together the sources reveal that play was very much a part of the culture of childhood, and that the sources used provide a reliable record.⁸ Further support for the use of such materials is given by Australian historians Gwyn Dow and June Factor who, in their book Australian Childhood: An Anthology, demonstrate how clearly the previously unheard voices of historical children can be heard through the judicious selection of a variety of sources and resources.⁹

      Go Outside and Play

      When children completed their work, or parents and teachers tired of their noise, they were ordered to Go outside and play. And children fled, hoping that out of sight was out of mind. Girls probably had less free time than boys, as they helped with never-ending housework and child-minding.¹⁰ Few girls wanted a small child tagging along, but siblings were important playmates and many families, including parents, played games together.¹¹

      But as both memories and research indicate, not all children found or were allowed time to play. The family economic situation may have required that children help about the home or find a paying job outside the home. Children were a cheap and readily accessible source of labour. At the age of fourteen, Ben Powell, from Carboneau, Newfoundland, worked a man’s job to help support his parents and eight siblings; at age nine, Chinese-Canadian Sing Lim worked for a farmer, thirteen hours a day, six days a week, during the summer months.¹²

      In other cases, parents, guardians, or employers were determined to control every moment and movement of children’s lives. In a letter dated January 13, 1904, to the Maple Leaf Club of the Family Herald and Weekly Star, a young Ontario boy wrote to tell of the appalling abuse suffered by a little English orphan who had been placed with a local farmer by a Children’s Home.¹³ Sing Lim described the ill-treatment of a young Chinese-Canadian boy by the child’s guardian, and a survivor of the pioneer era reported to Barry Broadfoot that when he was about six years old he put away his toys, slingshot, and pets because work took precedence over play.¹⁴ In other families, religious teachings or cultural attitudes deemed play as frivolous if not sinful; time was not to be wasted on such foolishness.

      Many children ranged far and wide as they explored their world, alone, with their dogs, or with other children. Jacqueline Bliss concluded that Girls appear to lead an unrestricted life on the prairies, working and playing hard. Eliza Eby and her brother roamed the prairie, picking berries, digging Indian turnips (Jack-in-the pulpit), and fishing.¹⁵ An elderly Alberta woman observed that to her the open land opened up the possibilities of running wildly, freely, and seemingly endlessly.¹⁶ And in recalling his Alberta childhood, physician Charles MacKenzie said, We roamed everywhere, we explored the creek, we found birds’ nests, coyote burrows, and even a bob cat up a tree.¹⁷ The Daleys’ Prince Edward Island farm bordered Fullerton Marsh where it emptied into the Hillsborough River. The Daley children swam, rowed,

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