Mom's sister "Georgie" did some teaching for a year in one of the outports.  She later went to McGill where she took training to be a medical lab technician.  While in Montreal Georgie shared an apartment with her younger brother, Gordon, who was attending McGill for electrical engineering as his father had.  Gordon had a hand in surveying the site of Gander Airport.  Aunt Georgie met her future husband, Robert Baxter, while working for a montreal hospital.  They were married in Montreal where their first child was born.

When war was declared, Bob Baxter joined the airforce as a doctor.  Gordon Morris joined the RCAF also and was sent overseas to be stationed in Britain.

The war years involved black out curtains, rations and concern for the men and women who had gone overseas.  St. John's was a port town so all the ships going overseas eventually came into port there.  Faddie often came home with several servicemen in tow.  They were made welcome and fed a home-cooked meal.  Mom made the acquaintance of many young sailors, soldiers and airmen that way.  She also attended many of the social events organized for the servicemen.  Sadly, some of the good friendships were doomed, ended by bullets or torpedos.  Mom shed tears for many friends  who were lost at sea or over Europe.

Tragically, one of those lives lost, was that of her dear younger brother, Gordon.
Mom was home the day the telegram arrived and she had to deliver it to her father, who then went slowly upstairs to tell Muddie.  They never recovered from that blow.  I often think of what a wonderful reunion they all must have had in heaven.

 

My mother had dark brown hair and brown eyes.  She was shy as a child but also very stubborn (or so she said).  She and her sister always shared a bedroom and a big double bed.  Their house was on Atlantic Avenue on the top of a very steep hill.  It was half of a double.  There was a wooden verandah on each side of the home with broad wooden steps leading up to it.  Each of the four bedrooms had a fireplace, as well as the living room.  The basement had a large coal furnace which gave Faddie troubles from time to time.  

Atlantic Avenue is not far from Water Street where all the shops were and close to the harbour.  Mom told us many stories about going shopping on Water Street and of the dentist and the doctors that worked so hard for so little.  She attended school locally and made four very close life-long friends - Helen, Ruth and Emma. 

Mom recited a poem on the very first radio broadcast from St. John's.  She was only about ten years old at the time.

Mom loved dancing.  She took lessons and performed in recitals locally.  She was offered the opportunity to attend Julliard in New York, but declined the offer.

Mom eventually attended Memorial University and then went on to the attend a university in Sackville, NB.  She took Home Economics there, but said she had problems with Chemistry classes.  After her first year she decided to go back to Newfoundland.  She said she was too homesick to stay.  Upon her return she took a secretarial course and went to work first in a private company and then with Newfoundland Light and Power. 

Mom said that her father, Will, was playing baseball the day she was born and when told about her birth he said, " Oh, another girl" and went back to playing.  Well, I don't know how much of that is legend, but I do know that Faddie doted on his family.  He certainly wanted them to be healthy and happy.  He did not discriminate.  He taught them all how to fish, shoot and ski. 

Faddie worked as a manager for the Newfoundland Light and Power Co.  He was an electrical engineer who had always wanted to be a doctor, but there was already one brother who was a doctor so he had attended the University of McGill in Montreal for electrical engineering.  After university he had travelled to some of the Carribean islands to help set up the electrical companies there.  His leg was injured in a street car accident in Kingston, Jamaica.  This injury prevented him from taking a more active role in WW1.  Instead, he helped train the Newfoundland regiments in marksmanship for which service he was presented with an OBE.  His interest in medicine never wavered.  He often spent time at the hospital operating the movie projector to show the medical teams new methods of surgery and treatment.

Mollie (or Muddie as Mom called her) was a woman of many talents.  She loved writing letters and carried on a lively correspondence with relatives all her life.  She also was very interested in interior decoration and being talented with a needle and sewing machine, she made pillows, slipcovers and curtains for every room in her home.  She was a talented cook and baker who delighted in hosting dinner parties and teas.  Although she had the help of maids who came from families in the outports of Newfie, she did a lot of baking herself.  Muddie also made dresses for her daughters and clothes for her grandchildren.  My sister and I would often receive packages in the mail that contained beautiful hand-made dresses, mitts, scarves and one time matching wool coats.

Whenever Muddie and Faddie came to visit us from Newfoundland they would take on projects.  Faddie would do mechanical repairs around our house.  Muddie would sew, patch and darn.  Once I remember she repainted and redecorated my and my sister's bedroom.  

Muddie was also a wonderful story teller and joker.  Growing up with five sisters, she had spent a great deal of time dressing up in costumes and taking on roles.
We have many photos of her in costume.

Faddie was a real tease.  He called Muddie "Jim" their whole married life because from the beginning of their marriage she learned to take an interest in his outdoors activities just like a "pal".  They went fishing and hunting together.
One of their favourite retreats was a line cabin and a dining hall once used by the men who set up one of the power stations.  Faddie got permission from the company to use them as a summer cottage.  The "Shack" at Gull Pond was the site of many wonderful parties and summer vacations. 

William Morris owned a general store in Wallace, Nova Scotia.  His ancestors came from Cumberland, England and orginally settled in Connecticut and then moved north to Halifax, Nova Scotia.  He numbered among his ancestors sea captains, soldiers and poets.  He married Katherine Steele whose ancestors had come on the Hector from Northern Scotland.  They had three sons and one daughter.  Their second oldest son, John William Morris (known to us as Faddie and to others as Will) married a young woman from Pictou, Nova Scotia, named Mary (Mollie) Thurston Robley.  

Mollie was twelve years his junior and her Scottish ancestors had also come over on the Hector.  Her mother was Georgianna Davis (of New York)
who had been married initially to a man named McGee.  She and her first husband  (a ship's carpenter) had one daughter.  Sadly Georgianna's first husband and her small daughter died.  Georgianna then married her husband's best friend, Thomas Robley who was also a ship's carpenter.   At the time they lived in San Francisco and there they had two of their eight children.  They moved back to Pictou, N.S. where Tom Robley had grown up.  They had two sons who died when quite young and then had four more daughters, the youngest of whom was Mollie.

Mollie and Will were married in 1910 and moved to St. John's , Nfld.  At first the move was intended to be temporary, but they fell in love with the island.  There they had three children - Georgianna Katherine, Elizabeth and David Gordon.
Elizabeth was born in July 1915 .