Anyone who has visited Morningstar Mill can easily picture what it must have been like to grow up in such a beautiful place—beside a waterfall, where sunlight and shade checkered the paths through the glen.  Jessie delights in recalling lazy summer days lying on the lawn watching ‘the big fluffy clouds drift by’, along with many other joys of a carefree childhood.

Jessie writes that with so many young people living nearby, there were always good times to be had. During strawberry season, lawn parties featured refreshments and homemade ice cream piled high with ‘luscious strawberries.’ In the summer, Nora, Jessie and their friends would ride a hay wagon to a picnic site, singing all the way. When autumn arrived, they gathered for corn roasts, building a huge crackling fire where they roasted corn on hot stones and ate it dripping with butter. They drank cider and ‘finished the feast with big, rosy apples.’

Winter brought its own fun—skating, tobogganing, bobsledding, and iceboating whenever the ice was clear and free of snow drifts. After an evening of skating, they would go to someone’s home for hot cocoa and treats. Sleigh rides under moonlit nights were a highlight. A team of horses would pull a four-runner sleigh that could carry about twenty people. They would snuggle down in the hay and bundle up under heavy buffalo robes. Jessie writes that the ‘music of the bells on the horses as they trotted along blended with our voices as we sang.’

Jessie writes that wildflowers were another delight—after a long winter, the joy of finding violets, trilliums, Dutchman’s breeches, and ghost pipes never faded. She also discovered a spring near a rock on the glen’s steep side, where watercress grew abundantly. When the mood struck, she would fill a bucket with the cool water. Nearby, there was a sulfur spring where she would drop in a penny and watch it turn white.

The Morningstars had a small garden behind their house that provided all the vegetables (and strawberries) they needed.  Emma had the fence lined with climbing roses and peonies. Of all the flowers, Jessie favourites were the lilies of the valley and lilacs.  She writes that they also had an arbour, with Niagara and Concord grapevines growing up and over the frame, which supported a hammock where they could relax in the shade on hot summer afternoons.  In September, when the grapes ripened, they would reach up and help themselves to the ‘delicious fruit.’

Jessie wrote these recollections of her childhood in the late 1960s – early 1970s when she was in her seventies; she describes a childhood filled with beauty, simple pleasures, and an appreciation of family, friends and nature. We can easily imagine ourselves taking part and enjoying the activities that Jessie so vividly recalls.

Carla Mackie is Historical Services Coordinator with the City of St. Catharines. Historical Services includes the Morningstar Mill, the Lakeside Park Carousel, and the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre.