By Charlie Bown
During the severe depression of the 1930s, Bell Islanders fared better than many people living in other parts of the country.
The iron ore mines were operating on Bell Island, working two days a week: Friday and Saturday one week, and Monday and Tuesday the next. This was done so that men from off the island would have a longer stay at home, almost two weeks.
The company was good to their men during these hard years. They loaned out their horses so that each family was given a chance to plough up land for farming. A man would go to the company barn early in the morning where he was given a horse and a bag of oats to feed the horse for the day.
People set out their gardens with all kinds of vegetables. One family man was heard to say that the only things on the dinner table that did not come from his garden were the salt and pepper. Today appears to be a replay of these hard years of the depression. Record number of people on Bell Island are again in their gardens. As you drive around today, you will see people weeding and trenching their potatoes. The women have beautiful flowers and small trees set.
Many a family on Bell island will be sitting down to their Christmas dinner eating vegetables from their own gardens, and home grown hens and ducks, as their parents and grandparents did during the Christmases of the 1930s.
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