Thelma Colbourne Rewritten from an Interview by Cathy Eaton and Adele Wick on July 12, 2010 March 2018
Thelma Colbourne Rewritten from an Interview by Cathy Eaton and Adele Wick on July 12, 2010 March 2018
At the Bank of Nova Scotia in Pugwash, I saw Charles Eaton, waiting in line, in the days you had to stand in line. Charles Eaton dropped a quarter accidentally. It rolled under a radiator. He got down on his hands and knees trying to reach the quarter. A little boy, who was standing in line with his mother, pulled the quarter out and gave it to Mr Eaton. Charles Eaton reached into his pocket and gave the boy $5. He had white shoes on – men didn’t wear white shoes in my childhood (I was about 10), but I could tell he was a good man.
I was Thelma Mattinson, born in Pugwash. My father was a lumberman with a portable lumber mill. He had 8-10 men working for him. They shipped lumber on boats and by rail. He thought that sons were great but daughters were just a bit of a liability. My two brothers worked for him and got paid as if they were men. I worked for my mother for my board. He thought the only thing girls did anyway was get married. Pugwash didn’t have Grade 12 in my day, but Tatamagouche did. You were allowed to send child there if you paid taxes – my father owned several lots of woodland in the Tatamgouche area and paid taxes there, so my brothers and I could go to their school. Dad questioned the sense of educating girls in higher grades. But mom had female teachers in her family, so eventually I was allowed to go and complete grade 12. Glenn, my brother, decided to be minister. No child of my father was going to go to university and waste his father’s money. Other kids could borrow from my father, but not his children. My mother convinced him to loan us money. We both started at Mount Allison. I started a year after Glenn, having taught school in West Pugwash for a year. After 4 years, I owed my father $4000. After graduation, I said, “Now daddy, I’m teaching at a school for the blind at Halifax, and I will pay you so much a month.” He said, “You graduated, and I didn’t think you’d do it. You don’t owe me anything. So Glen became a minister and I married one. I just attended the 50th anniversary of my husband’s ordination.
I taught one year at the school for the blind, and two years with developmentally challenged while my husband was still studying at Pine Hill in Halifax.
First, we lived in Labrador. Heber was asked “Would your wife object to Labrador? He replied “My wife doesn’t know a thing.” So, we went. His charge included NW River, Mud Lake, Cartwright and 11 other places. We had a little motorized boat and a heavy snowmobile thing. Dog teams and a mail plane brought visitors. People never knew who was coming. No communication, no news of whether he was okay. Wonderful people, wonderful time. Mixed ancestry – Indian or Inuit. A little girl asked me, “Is something wrong with your eyes?” I replied, “What do you mean?” She commented, “They look blue.”
We moved to Quebec with the United Church so our children could be bilingual. The English resented the idea of speaking French, and the French wanted to get rid of English. Here we were trying to learn something no one wanted. When Heber applied to evening classes to learn French no one else applied. It was very different in later years. He finished his years as a minister in Ontario. Up to that point we didn’t have our own home – it was always provided. At Kemptville we were given a housing allowance to buy a house. I also earned some money teaching developmentally handicapped children, I wondered whether I could do it. Some wonder with blind children. But soon they didn’t seem like blind children. They were just Wesley or Mary.
We had 4 children – two boys and two girls. They now live all around the country. 1 girl went to vet school for a year and then became a physiotherapist. She didn’t like to see animals suffering but her dad said “so, you don’t mind seeing people suffer!”
I was born in 1935. My only involvement in the conferences is what I would hear because by the time they started I was gone. I was married in 1958. I was in Pugwash in the summer Yuri Gagarin was here. At a meeting in the park, people all lined up on chairs in front; the parade went down to the stage. When they started down, all the people filled in the space where procession was going. I sensed Gagarin was a little fearful of what would happen to him. Howard Elliot, a VIP of the village tried to move the people as there was no obvious security or police presence. When Gagarin spoke, the translator translated. He seemed happy, almost honored to be here – It made me feel good. I was pushing a baby carriage at the time, so didn’t have a lot of time to help and at the time we were living in Labrador…
The other times there were conferences and I was in Pugwash, I would see the delegates walking around town. I could tell they were delegates by their dress, such as white shoes, long hair, shorts, sandals…So different from the locals in Pugwash. Most of the people were quite honored and just amazed at what Cyrus Eaton did. Now, my father wasn’t impressed, “You know, that Cyrus Eaton is just getting in with the Russians.” Father was totally against him. My mother would say, “There are good Russians and bad Russians, just as there are good Canadians and bad Canadians.” I’m thinking I got a good education from my mother. She was the reason I went to university.
My mother and father, Ivy Carter Mattinson, and Charles eloped. Unheard of! They went to Great Village. Father had a mill somewhere around Wentworth. They told people they were going for lumber, and they kept on going on towards near Bay of Fundy. They went to a minister. My dad was bald, my mother was grey. The minister said “I guess I don’t need your parents’ consent.” My father was 47, she was 31. A week later or so, mom had reason to go by train to Pugwash Junction. Who was on train, but dad’s previous girlfriend, who was working in Boston. She sat with my mother. She said she’d decided to settle down – (with the man mom had just married!)
Another thing I found is that the conference goers were very friendly. They always spoke to you, maybe in a different language. I didn’t feel in the least bit threatened. We lived in another part of town in big old white house, so came down to Water Street. Father’s father had a mill, but also went to Boston and learned to build houses, cut logs, and saw them. He made everything but the nails, glass and plaster for his house. It had 12 rooms. Mom vowed she’d never live in that ark. My Mom was tallying lumber when the girl who worked for her decided that Mom should move into the big house; each child picked their bedrooms and local young men moved everything from the old house to the big house….When my mom came home to find new digs she was very angry but she lived there for 50 years.
I used to help some in the dining room as a teenager. I had a friend, Gladdy Lockhart, who worked in the dining hall, worked for friend when she needed time. Not during conferences, but just when it was an open dining room for anyone who wanted to come. Meetings occurred here of other groups – women’s society.
I watched the fire at Thinkers Lodge from Mitchell’s beach. It was very sad for me. Afterward, we drove around and the fire was out! People had carried things over to the Dining Hall.
Note: Thelma joined Paola, Cathy, Mandy and Adele in a drive directed by tape of Cyrus Eaton giving a tour in 1970. She proved, as expected, a treasure trove of information, past and present.