Collection search - Abernethy, Wilson - Interview

Record information – Brief

1

Abernethy, Wilson - Interview

Item number (ISN):

379052

Series title:

[The Great War and Canadian Society]

Hierarchical level:

Item (Accession level)

Date:

1974-07-25

Item number (ISN):

379052

Type of material:

Sound recordings

Found in:

Archives / Film, Video and Sound

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Record information – Details

Fonds/collection:

THE GREAT WAR AND CANADIAN SOCIETY PROJECT

Accession:

1975-0098

Media:

Sound

Part:

2 of 2

Production date:

1974-07-25

Production company:

Opportunities for Youth

Production credit:

interviewer, Lori Rotenberg

Description:

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Interview of Wilson Abernethy of Toronto, age 76, who was born in 1898 on a farm near Bond Head, Ontario. He talks about: his father’s interest in new methods of farming, in political and community affairs and in church affairs; his mother’s interest in the church, her membership in the Women’s Institute, her role as a midwife and her participation in her community; his father’s work as chair of the school board; Wilson Abernethy’s enlistment in 1916; the role of the Women’s Institute; his father’s role as one of the founders of the Beaton Telephone Company, which was later taken over by the Bell Telephone Company; telephone operators; the community of Bond Head; his grandparents and siblings; the family farm; the apple orchard; raising thoroughbred stock; raising and selling cattle; growing corn; farm chores; his father putting up a windmill on the farm; spraying apple trees with a mixture of sulphur, lime and arsenic; growing hay and wheat; rotating crops; shipping grain; neighbours helping each other; entertainment such as square dances and singing around the piano; box socials at the church; community activities; the Beaton country fair; the need to get along with people; having to go to Sunday School; discipline in the farm; having to do what your father told you to do; farm chores; walking almost two miles to school; elementary and high school; enlisting in the army; getting into university after the war because admission requirements were more lax and studying engineering there; more about life on the family farm; women’s work on the farm, keeping house, preparing meals, doing laundry, gathering and selling eggs, and milking cows; getting the mail; shopping in Bond Head; subscribing to newspapers and magazines; reading; reasons for enlisting; lying about his age to get into the army; his three years in the army as his greatest learning experience; learning the need for discipline and accepting responsibility; the causes of war; not understanding the cause of the war at the time; the view that the war was a situation that needed to be faced; his training in Toronto, Ottawa, England and France; the need to accept discipline during military training; sleeping in a tent during his training in Ottawa; the role and selection of officers; training in Canada and England; arriving in France in March 1918; a signaller during the final drive; seldom being on the front line; exchanging courtesies with enemy troops when the front was quiet; support for conscription because the government had the right to force people to serve; how military service broadened his outlook on life because it improved his ability to judge people; the attitude to conscripts; the role of the Women’s Institute near Camp Borden in feeding soldiers and organizing women to prepare parcels; wartime scarcity; his father’s sale of the farm; his father’s facing opposition because he was on a board trying to stop farm boys from being sent to the war; pressure from women to enlist; injustice done to men who appeared healthy but were not, and were not in uniform; higher prices; the scarcity of farm labour; support for the war effort; participation by his sisters and other women in the farmerettes to contribute to the war effort; rationing of goods such as sugar; rationing not noticed in the rural areas; a near-riot in his camp because the soldiers wanted to get home; the lack of control during a riot; his return to Canada and taking a math course set up for veterans so that he could get into practical science; taking the census; the difficulty in getting a good job; working in a lumber camp; adjustment to civilian life, which was easy for most people but hard for people whose health had been affected; the reluctance by veterans to talk about the war because other people did not understand; his decision not to join the Legion because he had enough of the war, but joining it after the Second World War; and his seriousness as a university student.~The interview concludes with his comments on: getting a perspective on life because he had gone through the war; how the war helped boys to grow; the feeling that Canada had accomplished something in the war and was being listened to in the world; unions; lack of sympathy for riot situations such as the Winnipeg General Strike; and how the war taught him essential things about his character, taught him self-assurance and how to meet situations.

Language:

English

Notes:

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1. The interviews took place in 1974 and resulted in the publication of a book entitled "The Great War and Canadian Society" edited by Daphne Read - copyright 1978 - New Hogtown Press, Toronto.~2. Release forms, data sheets, and summary analysis/transcripts are available in binders labelled Opportunities for Youth - War and Canadian Society in VSA's audio-visual section.~3. Part of a series of recorded interviews with elderly citizens who lived in Canada during the period of World War I. The interview material consists of their opinions and observations about the war, the war years, and the effect on Canadian society during and after WWI.~4. The interviewee signed an agreement giving consent for a recording of this interview to be placed in the Public Archives of Canada for the purposes of historical research and also signed a publication agreement allowing any transcribed portions of the interview to be used in the book under the condition that no full names, addresses or phone numbers would be published.~5. Subject description is based on information found in the fact sheet, deposit agreement, publication agreement and summary analysis.
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Conditions of access:

Open

Consultation copy number:

A1 2007-06-0011
A1 2007-06-0012

Restrictions on consultation:

No Restrictions / Pas de restrictions

Reproduction access:

With written permission of Copyright Owner / Avec la permission écrite du détenteur des droits d'auteur

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Date modified:: 2024-07-04