| Notes |
- GOING TO SCHOOL IN CAVAN (from This Green & Pleasant Land)by Reg McKnight
From our farm on Lot 10, Conc. 5, I walked to the Fallis Line School, about 1 & 1/2 miles further west. It was a school with one room, classes from primary to 8th grade and from 20-24 students. I remember when Miss Gardiner was our teacher something happened that didn't please us students one bit. Perhaps Gordon or Marshall or Eric Fallis can remember what bothered us. As a result, the boys met after 4 p.m. and decided to sneak behind the Methodist Church across the road and break the windows in the north end with a few well-aimed rocks. Nothing was noticed until the next Sunday when the first arrivals for Church discovered the damage. It was soon found out who had done the damage. Strange to say, I had no part in it, and when my father asked, I could honestly answer that I hadn't. Anyway, the parents formed a "Bee" and purchased and replaced the windows. Can you imagine the fuss that would be raised today if such an event happened? It would reach the headlines for sure.
In those days, it was the "thing" to go barefooted. One day we were playing "follow the leader". One of the challenges was to jump from a log, over some thistles or whatever, and land on a board on the other side. Little did we know that there was a 3 inch nail in the board. I jumped and the nail penetrated the sole of my foot and came through my heel. I cannot recall any pain but what I do remember was that one of the older and bigger boys picked me up and carried me the mile and a half to my home. He was not a grown man and I was not a "babe in arms", but he carried me all the way. He was Arnold Fallis.
The kids of that time did mischievous tricks that could have been serious. One Hallowe'en night we expected to get into some devilment with certain people and Leonard Henderson was one of them. By cutting notches in the ends of a spool, with a nail through the centre and a string, one could raise an awful racket on the windows. Naturally we figured Leonard would come charging out of the front door and we would lead him down the front walkway to the small gate. Little did he know that we had placed a single furrow plough across the gateway. We knew about it but he didn't. We nipped through the gateway, jumping over the plough, but Leonard hit the plough at full speed. It's a wonder he wasn't killed but he was okay as far as we know.
Some organization of the Fallis Line Community used to sponsor a Fall Social evening held at someone's home. It was like a Pot Luck Supper and for some reason a pumpkin pie always seemed to be missing. The boys, and I was one of them, were blamed but no one could get the evidence they needed to nail the culprit. This night, they, our parents, had warned us as a group, that we were being watched. We, the boys, got together to plan our strategy. We walked into the house, single file but close, singing some fast marching tune. Our leader led us around the downstairs area, raising quite a commotion and the fourth or fifth last boy picked up the closest pie to the door and escaped using the rest of us as shields. The missing pie was noticed a few minutes later and then they came after us. Did you ever try to run over a newly ploughed field on a dark night? This happened in the home of Nattie Belch but there were no serious results.
Gordon Fallis and I drove to the Continuation School in Millbrook for one or two years. Gordon supplied the horse and buggy ~ cutter in the winter time, and I supplied the rental fees for the stable, hay and oats. I continued going to school either walking or using cross country skis, depending upon the situations. During the winter I would phone home and many times would be asked to pick up the mail, as the mail man could not get through. I usually picked up John George's mail, who lived two farms further west. Sometimes I ended up with a big load but with a bit of Irish bulldog determination, I got home.
Many times I felt that I could sit down and go to sleep in the snowbank but I knew this feeling meant something serious ~ go to sleep and freeze to death.
I took to the Cadet Training by Bruce Dawson and perhaps it gave me a special interest when I joined the R.C.A.E in 1941. Another interest was a curiosity about airplanes. One school day, a small plane swept down over the school and we all felt it had landed in the field at the top of the hill, southeast of the school, time 10:15 a.m. At 10:30 a.m. recess was called and almost everyone had to see that plane.Away we went and the plane was found a short mile over the hill, close to the Kennedy farm. I never found out what happened to the plane but nobody was hurt. We arrived back at school at 11:50 a.m. and needless to say our Principal, Mr. Howard Jordan, was not amused ... he didn't say a word but his looks did.
- The McKnight family was firmly entrenched on the south side of the 7th concession, east of Whitfield School, where my Aunt Ethel McKnight taught for 12 years. She walked to and from her home on the 3rd farm east of the Cavan to Millbrook Road. William McKnight (my grandfather and Ethel's father) owned the farm and raised 6 boys and 2 girls.
Immediately to the east of this farm, Jonathan McKnight had his property showing a beautiful house on the south side of the road. It is still standing.
The William McKnight house and barn were demolished a few years ago.
Immediately west was the farm owned by my uncle Robert J. McKnight who specialized in the showing of Clyde horses at many agricultural shows in the area. He was called upon to judge many horse shows. Robert married May Brown and they had one son George. George married Isabel Dawson (east of Bailieboro) and they were blessed with a son, David William and a daughter, Dorothy Armstrong (Mrs. Harvey Challice) Elizabeth Ann who married Glen Pinsoneault and they live in the Windsor area with their 2 children.
David William married Kathleen Ada Mills. With the early death of his wife May, Robert's second marriage was to Mae McCredie and their family was one daughter Ruth who married Fred C. Hill of Alberta. Robert's brother John Henry (my father) married Mabel Connell in 1912. They started their farming north of Ida and then moved to a stone house on the north-east corner of the Centre Road and the 8th Concession.
On Jan. 21, 1918, we were burned out. It was about 2 a.m. when my father realized that fire was breaking through the upstairs bedroom ceiling. These were the days when there were no fire trucks. I can recall the event very clearly. I was wrapped in a blanket and placed in a snow bank. My parents attempted to retrieve some valuables. Mother had received a fur coat (possibly for Christmas) and a cash present was in the pocket. My father charged back into the house, raced to the upstairs bedroom, grabbed the coat and started to come down when the steps gave away. Fortunately, some of the members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows were returning from their lodge meeting in Millbrook and were able to get my father out. One of those men was Arthur Vance, a long time resident of Millbrook. My memory of that night is vivid. They wrapped my mother and me in horse blankets and rushed us over to the residence of Lloyd Sutton. That trip, although not very far, was one of the longest I have ever had. The horse blankets had had repeated soakings of horse urine and had been saturated with horse sweat with the result that the ammonia fumes nearly stifled me. I can still smell that odour and I remember the pains in my chest when I tried to hold my breath.
During the early spring and summer of 1918, we lived in a driving shed where the sliding doors could be opened up to expose the total interior. There must have been skiffs of snow through the cracks as I recall my father coaching me how to get out of bed and not allow the snow to tumble back into the bed. There must have been a gap in the driving-shed wall as I can remember a pig coming through at another time it was a flock of geese. It was always a big event when friends dropped in and we could slide the driving shed doors open, making an excellent front door approach.
During 1919, my father purchased the 5th Concession farm about 1 1/2 miles west of the Centre Road past the Presbyterian cemetery. Incidentally this cemetery, sometimes called McMahon's cemetery, holds the graves of my father and mother, my grandfather and grandmother, and my great grandfather and great grandmother.
This farm, Lot 10, Conc. 5 was originally owned by James Hunter. It is interesting to note that the down payment, the balance, the interest rate, the surveyors' stakes and timing were all done by the shake of the hand.
Around 1935 I left to go to Peterboro Business College and started to work. I was married in 1942 to Madeline McDowell.
Going back to my father, John, and his brother, Robert, they had 2 sisters, Ethel and Margaret. As I said before, Ethel was a school teacher, and to my knowledge, that was the only school in which she taught. She was married later in life to Ken Reid of Reaboro, and adopted 2 children, William David and Eleanor. Eleanor has 3 children while William has 1 daughter.
Ethel's sister, Margaret, married Ernest Armstrong and settled on a farm about 3/4 of a mile west of the Cavan Middle Road on the north side of the 8th concession. They had 2 daughters, Mary and Dorothy. Mary married Hugh Moore, near Lindsay, and they have 4 children, all married, making a total of 20 for their 1988 Christmas family gathering.
Dorothy married a local Millbrook boy, Harvey Challice, who has made a name for himself far and wide as the "Potato King". They have 3 daughters and 1 son.
My uncle Jonathan McKnight lived in the house owned now by John Tinney and worked in McDowell's Egg Grading Station on the south side of the main street. He had one son, Fred who enlisted in the Army in World War L Fred was the victim of a flu epidemic in England and died on Noy. 11, 1918. His body was returned to Canada and his father made sure he had a proper funeral. The funeral consisted of muffled drums and bands,the parade of a large regiment complete with 21 gun salute and horses and buggies that reached from the cemetery back to the corner at Coombe's store (now Becker's Milk). I was told recently that a school teacher of that time, said that she heard the firing of the guns in the Whitfield School one mile away.
Our son Paul McKnight is happily married to a very clever French Canadian, Louise O'Donnell from Quebec. They have 2 lovely children, Robert and Jacqueline and live in North Vancouver, B.C. Our daughter Maribeth is married to Christopher Koester and they have a beautiful blondish-red daughter and live in Toronto.
My sister Edna married William Dean of Garden Hill. They have a family of 2 girls, Donna and Marilyn. Brother Donald McKnight and his wife Shirley Palmer live in Peterborough and they have 3 daughters, Pamela, Margot and Jennifer.
What I am trying to say is that, at one time, McKnights were common in Millbrook and Cavan Township. Today the only McKnight names in the community are carved on the stones in the cemetery. If you ever want a queer sensation, go back for a visit to your birthplace after fifty years and I am sure that you will get that feeling "Who's that stranger in town?"
Reg McKnight
This Green and Present Land
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1916 - 1999 (82 years)
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