Section 15

An icon of a harrow. My Present

A section of a spike-tooth harrow.
Illustration: the harrows bought with the wages from Ethelbert.

The best present I received from the Old Country was with the arrival of the Dzaman family. I fell in love at first sight with the daughter, Anastasia, and married her not long afterwards. Shortly after her arrival in Canada, at the age of nine, she went into service of a farm family in Ethelbert. For the first six months she earned $1.00 a month. Subsequently this was increased to $1.50 a month but she got none of her hard-earned money. Her father used it to buy harrows which were needed on the farm.

A distant tiny figure walks a farm lane; a spike-tooth harrow sits in the foreground.
Illustration: a farm where a child went into service, and the harrows her wages bought. No portrait.
A much later picture of Nicholas and Anastasia.
Family photograph A much later picture of Nicholas and Anastasia. Family photograph, from the 2011 edition compiled by Rene Nicholas Bilodeau.

Illustrated online edition. The memoir text follows the 2011 copy compiled by Rene Nicholas Bilodeau.