Oliver, Felix; Oliver, Violet. Interview with Felix and Violet Oliver about their childhood, schooling, special days, and family.

Felix and Violet Oliver share their childhood memories, their school life, and about their family. Violet shows some of the clothes she knit and photographs of her family.00:06-02:54 Violet was born on 26th March 1931 in Corner Brook, moved to Stephenville in 1941, brought up and got married there, moved to Toronto in 1955, and came back here again in 1962, Felix was born on August 1st, 1927 in Gull island, worked in St. John’s for 30 years, then moved to Toronto and came back again; 03:00-03:26 Violet’s mother died when she was three and half years old, her mother had six children, her step-mother had nine and she has also a brother, in total they are eighteen; 03:30- 06:23 she had to quit school when she was thirteen to help her mother as they were a big family, woke up in the morning, made bread, sometimes made bread at night and her mother used to bake them, she helped her mother to raise all her step brothers and sisters, when her youngest brother was born then Violet was two months pregnant who is now 51 years old, her sister lives in Ontario, one of her brothers died of cancer in 78 years old, another brother also got prostate cancer, Violet tells that she does not like to call step-sister as they are all a family; 06:27- 07:13 Violet points to the photographs of Felix’s parents hanging on the wall, Felix father is 113 years old and his mother is 105 years old, he has three brothers and two sisters, two sisters and two brothers live in Ontario; 07:21- 08:42 it’s been 56 years they got married, they have five children, they have four and adopted another boy, they have eleven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, one of his son is a doctor in St. john’s, another boy is a lawyer in Montreal, there are nurses, lab technicians, doctors, petroleum engineers, lawyer, actors in their family; 08:57-11:42 Felix went to school when he was six years old, there were only two rooms in his school from Kindergarten to grade seven, Violet went to a big school when she started her school, her school was a two-storied building and there were many kids, in Stephenville she went to a catholic school, she had nuns to teach her, Sister Merry Everden was her favorite nun, Sister Merry gave her first Bible and she turned catholic, she was a salvation army and then turned to catholic and got married, she done her grade 6 at home, she had to leave school at thirteen because she had to help her mother to raise her siblings, then books had to leave in school, she did homework in arithmetic, geometry, spelling, Violet’s favorite subject was arithmetic; 11:49- 14:47 Felix says that most people did fishing at his time, his father used to work in railroads and fishing too, Violet’s father worked in paper mills in Grand Falls, he was a scalar and painter, he made all around furniture, he was also a hunter, her father also worked with American navy; 14:58-22:58 Felix says most people bought clothes from little stores in the community, there was just one store, people used to sewing clothes, Felix’s mother knitted clothes, people grew vegetables in their garden, his father had cattle, 4 sheep, 2 pigs, 12 lambs, still now he grows his own vegetables like potatoes, beans and onions, Violet’s mother used to knit clothes for them, Violet can also knit clothes, she knows to bake cakes, they used to bake wedding cakes and birthday cakes, Violet can also make Christmas dress, baby shower dress, she shows some of her and her daughter’s knitted clothes, she says all of her kids can knit and they know sewing, she shows some white shawls and sweaters she knitted, she also shows a little white dress knitted for her granddaughter and different colorful sweaters she knitted, she says that she made almost hundred sweaters, she can make two sweaters in a week; 23:21- 31:15 Felix says they used to drink in Christmas to celebrate the event, Violet’s special holiday was also Christmas, apart from Christmas they used to celebrate other holidays, she used to celebrate Mother’s day and still now she celebrates this day, she thinks it’s a special day for every mother, she celebrates this day for her step-mother because she finds her step-mother very caring, in Christmas they enjoy dinner, Violet dresses herself as Santa Clause, she could remember a special doll made by her step-mother as a gift she received in a Christmas, it was special for her, she used to polish her shoes on Sunday, in the evening they played; 32:03-39:02 Violet’s brothers played music, they had even bands but she was not allowed to go for dances, she used to listen to music with her mother; Violet shows some photographs of her family and her marriage certificate; 39:04-end of the interview