Growing up in Lyn

Remembrances of Growing up in Lyn

By Mamie (Stillwell) Robinson

I have been reliving those old days and getting a great deal of pleasure in doing so. We didn’t know it then, but those were very happy days, with loads of fun and very little responsibility. Our main worry was to make the grade and do as little work as possible.

My first year at Brockville Collegiate Institute (BCI) we went in with Milton Perley. He had remained behind when his father moved and was staying with Dr. Sharpe. Jessie and Herb Kilpatrick, Gertrude, Milton and I made up that load. He drove a sorrel horse called “Katrina”. I can still hear him say “You’re not pullin’ together thar, Kit”. After Milton left Lyn, we went in with Alfred McCready. It was a three seated democrat and quite a load for one horse. The occupants were changing now and again as they graduated or were satisfied with a short term. I am a little hazy about this load, but Mabel Greer, Sam McCormick, Harford Steed, Ed, Pettem, Fred and Helen Barlow, and always Gertrude and I. It seems to me that Arthur Judson was along too. The last two years we went with Howard Everts with and old white horse that used to take blind staggers and try to climb trees. Quite frequently something would break, and no matter how near we were to Brockville we always ‘turned tail’ and walked home in order to enjoy a day’s skating, snow shoeing or tobogganing on Billings’ Hill. We thought the fresh air would do us good, and Tommy Marquis (BCI Teacher) always took our excuses. He had a soft spot for the Lyn kids.

Occasionally we used to buy bottles of soft drinks and each have a straw in the same bottle, to see who could get the most. I remember one night the girls bought a basket of peaches, and the boys took the same notion that same night. Of course we thought we ought to eat them before we got home. I am ashamed to say that Gertrude and I each ate 24, but Helen being smaller, and of smaller capacity, could only manage 20. Of course the peaches were not of the large variety. It is a wonder we didn’t burst, but nothing happened. Some contest!

(This note was dated Feb, 24, 1952, from Prescott, Route 2)