Uncle Martin's Farm

By Frank A Healy

At Uncle Martin's Farm, circa 1923. The writer is the small boy at the far left.

Year after year, from our early grade-school ages, when the first spring thaw arrived in the city, the bug hit.

By the time the summer holidays actually arrived, I was beyond constraint as we jammed into the family car and headed for Atherley, Ont. and our summer home with the wonderful Martin Healys. We kids who were lucky enough to be able to get away from the hot city streets of Toronto and experience the adventure and freedom of country life on a real farm were the envy of all our schoolmates.

Joe Healy, the writer's father, at the farm

The Martin Healy farm was our utopia. It had horses to ride, to feed, to harness and to drive. It had cows to milk and to be herded to and from pasture, pigs to feed, fields to help harvest, a nearby lake to swim and fish in and a rolling apple orchard with many trees to climb.

Our daily routine (if you could call it that) was to pitch in and help with the chores half the day, under the supervision of Martin and Mary’s daughter, Tish, who, as a Toronto school teacher, also spent her summers back home on the farm. God help any of us who tried to avoid carrying out her orders! But it was all worth it when she rewarded us with a climb aboard the old Chevy for a swimming session at Fawn Bay down the way on the Rama Road.

Some of my fondest memories of those wonderful years were the warmth of Uncle Martin and Aunt Mary and the whole family.

The oldest son, Brad, whom I used to call "Best-friend-Brad", spent most of his time in the city when we were visiting.

Left to right, Margaret (the writer's older sister), Louis and Mary Rita Healy, circa 1920

Louis, handicapped by a serious congenital heart defect, loved us all very dearly and nearly worried himself to death over some of our crazy, dare-devil antics day in an day out.

Little Mary was my dear friend and sidekick. (She was just a few years older.) Bob Heslin (a nephew of Aunt Mary) and I spent a lot of time together. There were so many other fun-loving cousins, too.

One of my greatest joys was winning Uncle Martin's confidence and his approval as we tried to carry out "men's chores" around the farm, in the fields, in the stables and so forth. He was a man of few words but he had a delightful sense of humour.

One hot August afternoon, cousin Bob and I (aged 12 or thereabouts) had finished our morning chores and had snuck off to the delightful solitude of a corner in the apple orchard, a good distance from the farmhouse.

Here we would stretch out on the grass and use a huge boulder as a resting backdrop. And this is where I trace the beginning of my later addiction to tobacco.

This day one of us produced a nickel package of British Consols and the other a small box of wooden matches.

Feeling grown up and naughty, we lit up and puffed away to our hearts’ content. The world was our oyster... until we heard footsteps approaching from the other side of the boulder.

Quickly smothering the cigarettes in the ground and fanning the air with our hands, we stood up and tried to look nonchalant and innocent as Uncle Martin approached, seemingly from nowhere.

We were sure he had seen the smoke and had caught us red-handed, but all he did was give us a glad "Hello, boys!" with a bit of chitchat before continuing on to another part of the orchard. We felt great relief and thanked our lucky stars.

We forgot about the close call until dinner that night when Uncle Martin brought the conversation around to the evils of smoking and drinking among young people. Alarm bells rang in my head as he looked directly at Bob and me and said: "Well, one thing I know for sure, is that you'd never catch these two lads puffing on a cigarette."

A mischievous look came over his face as he added: "No siree, not those two boys," and changed the subject to something else. His sense of humour prevailed and we loved him all the more for it.

We spent a great deal of time with him in the barn, in the stable and the other outhouses and  enjoyed long walks with him in what we called "the woods" on one edge of the farm property. We learned about wildlife and the seasons and so many things pertaining to life on the farm.

One night I will always remember is the time he drove Bob and me to a garden party at Uptergrove in a horse and buggy. 

With the top down, we returned along the Rama Road at night as he mesmerized us with stories of the galaxy. To this day I can't look into the bright skies at night without seeing Uncle Martin, the rein in one hand as the other pointed out to two excited little boys the glory and the mystery of such things as the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper.

We had the best of two worlds, what with horse-drawn buggies, hay wagons and a variety of barnyard machinery, because we also enjoyed the only motorcar the Martin family ever owned.

It was a magnificent 1928 Chevrolet touring sedan, a five-seater with a top that folded back like a convertible. It had no windows, of course, but counted on self-attached leather-like side curtains to keep out the cold in winter. In the summertime they weren't needed, of course.

We all loved that old car, which sometimes sounded like a locomotive. Uncle Martin wasn't much of a driver and did so only when absolutely necessary. He counted on Brad or Tish, but they weren't always available.

I guess that's why he let me talk him into trying out for my first driver's license, which I could legally apply and test for when I reached the age of 16. So on June 22nd, 1936, the day after my 16th birthday, off we went to Orillia, about 10 miles away, to give it a try. It's a day I'll never forget.

A very unprofessional-type examiner took one look at this skinny, city kid who wanted a license to drive his uncle's car.

After he stopped laughing, I was put through the ropes. He made me drive all over town at various speeds, park in difficult situations and at one point even had me drive up Orillia's main street which rose from bottom to top at about a 45 degree angle. When we reached the top, as dozens of locals looked on in amusement, he said: "Now let's see you drive it backwards to the bottom ... in a straight line."

It was agony, for by this time I was exhausted and the temperature was in the eighties. With no such luxury as today’s power steering or power brakes. I never thought I'd make it. Just turning or holding steady the huge old wooden steering wheel and trying to control brakes (that even in the best of times hardly worked) was next to impossible.

I wanted to throw in the towel right there, but with the thought of Uncle Martin and the gang back at the farm cheering me on, I gritted my teeth, mumbled a "Hail Mary" and got the job done.

The examiner gave me what he said was a reluctant license. Evidently I hadn't made quite enough mistakes to be failed. The bystanders clapped.

There was joy on the farm and no one got a bigger kick out of the whole thing than Uncle Martin and Aunt Mary.

The Martin Healy Home

Picture a two-story, white, clapboard house set several hundred yards from the Rama Road out of Atherley. You'd have to squint through dozens of knobby-looking apple trees of all shapes and sizes to see the outline of the house with its rambling verandah.

The barn and outbuildings were fenced off, again hundreds of yards to the left or farther down the road. This exposed a huge, green span of rich lawn bordered by magnificent Maples and Oaks.  This is what we in the city looked forward to all winter long. An entire book couldn't do justice to the happiness it produced.

The house had four large bedrooms upstairs with double beds, single beds and cots all over the place. Another downstairs bedroom was the domain of Mary and Martin. It was so out-of-bounds to us kids that I don't remember ever inside. We were free to roam anywhere else, though, and we sure did.

As you entered through the front door a very, very formal parlour stared at you from the right. Straight ahead was the front stairway. On the immediate left, in stark contrast to the formal living room, was as warm and welcoming a dining room as one would ever find.

It had a grand old table, (with an old-fashioned chandelier), which could seat up to 10 people at one sitting. The chairs were circa 1900 or older, and an old gramophone stood in the corner. One of the first hand-cranked wooden telephones hung majestically from one wall beside the main window, which looked out over the long span of lawn to the fence and gate housing the barnyard and buildings.

At the far end of the dining room, to the right as you entered from the front, stood a charming old pot-belly-stove with large shiny black pipes mushrooming off to three or four vents in the ceiling ‒ spreading the warmth (supposedly) to the upstairs rooms.

Over to the left of the stove and against the side wall sat what I can only describe as a black-leather farmer's couch. It was the sole domain of Uncle Martin who grabbed, without fail, his 20-to-30 minute nap immediately after his noon lunch. This was the one time of the day we children had to maintain total silence or risk the wrath of God. The fact that these siestas frequently stretched to more than 20-to-30 minutes sometimes severely tested our self-discipline. Tish was the self-appointed policeman and made sure there wasn't a sound out of us during these silence periods.

Then came the old country kitchen with another huge wooden table in the centre, and a four-burner wood stove against the far wall.

A little to the right and almost behind the stove was the door to a rambling old wooden shack which housed, floor to ceiling, what seemed like a never-ending supply of chopped wood for cooking needs and winter-time fuel. A single passageway wound through to the end of the shack.

A door on the immediate right opened into an outhouse or what was sometimes called the privy. Many years before the introduction of the septic tank, the privy was the only output for the disposal of human waste. This particular out-house was what we called a three-holer. When you opened the door you were faced with what looked like a solid-looking bench with the top about four feet from the wooden floor. You would sit on top of this structure with your posterior settled into your choice of any of three holes that were spaced about two feet apart. Nature then took over.

But back to the kitchen. A familiar sight was a counter with wash basins and jugs, which today are highly valued as much sought-after antiques. A water-well with an old wooden-handle pump was just a few yards away from a side door.

One of the chores we kids were responsible for was filling pails with well water and seeing that a supply was always sitting on the floor from morning to night.

Another common country-kitchen sight was a cream-separator also standing near the side door.

After the cows were milked and, while the women did the dinner dishes, we kids helped bring in a few pails of milk, still warm from the cows. This was poured into a large white round metal container on top of the separator. We took turns rotating a heavy, slow turning handle on the side.

When the rotation became easier and faster, and the motor began to hum, a tap was turned to allow the milk to proceed through the machine. As the heavier cream separated from the milk, each poured out individual spouts into waiting pails on swivel trays attached to the separator.

Seems to me it took only about half an hour. And if you wanted, you could make buttermilk out of the skim milk. I loved to, but most of the gang didn't like the stuff and would almost gag at the sight of Uncle Martin and me enjoying a glassful.

The kitchen was the heart and soul of the Healy families: the heartbeat. I can still smell that wonderful aroma ‒ which seemed to be ever present ‒ of Aunt Mary's rich apple pies and blueberry pies and butter tarts and cookies and tea-biscuits ‒ not to mention the smell of freshly-baked, home made bread that was so tantalizing and always there to be devoured by hungry kids.

The family and all the guests, young and old, spent many a cherished evening telling and acting out stories, playing dice games and card games like "Hearts" and "Crazy Eights" and "Rummy" and "Twenty One". And many a Saturday night Uncle Martin and my father Joe and other brave souls would sit around that kitchen table and play "Euchre".

The games frequently became war games as the players shouted and laughed and pounded the table and accused each other of cheating. It was great fun and we spectators enjoyed it as much as participants.

Today, young people often ask me what people did at home in the olden days when they had no such thing as television and very little even of radio except for world news. And unless you lived very close to a good-sized town or city, even movies were out of reach. So we had to manufacture our own entertainment.

Sunday morning Mass, annual garden parties in Atherley and Uptergrove as well as family picnics served as a meeting place for cousins and neighborhood friends.

The Healy clan was made up of very devoted, practicing Roman Catholics who would rather die than miss Mass on a Sunday morning. I recall several summers where, for some reason or other, the visiting priest had to celebrate in a very non-Catholic local spot called Longford. Guess where? There was no church in Longford, and so, through unusual arrangements the Loyal Orange Lodge, the Catholics rented the Longford Orange Hall.

As the little Catholic Healy congregation bowed our heads in prayer, we could forget where we were. That is, until the altar boy rang the bells at the Consecration.

As we raised our heads when the priest elevated the Host for adoration, staring us in the face from the back wall behind the altar was King Billy himself, astride his white horse.

These were the country Healys of the 1920s and 1930s.

A time to be remembered.