Pickering Township Oral History

The following article below is an excerpt from a twenty-five audio cassettes collection called "Pickering Township Oral History Project" that was done in 1972. One of the contributors was James "Mac" Armstrong.

PICKERING TOWNSHIP ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, Summer, 1972


James "Mac" Armstrong, Cherrywood

Middle-aged farmer who was born on the family farm in 1923 - the same farm where his grandfather spent his entire life. Mac Armstrong remembers some of his teachers at Cherrywood school, flooding of Duffins Creek over Highway #2, and his cadet training at Whitby during World War II. Rationing was not an overburdening problem for his family but it was hard to preserve fruit without sugar, apple butter and maple sugar came back into vogue temporarily, and victory gardens sprouted along the routes into Toronto. At that time, people moved from the city looking for a cheaper way of life.
The farm didn't become mechanized until after the War, but hired labor was friendlier than machines, and although horses were slow, they got the work done and allowed a man time for leisure. People were displaced by D.I.L. There was more money to be made in Ajax than on the farm, so the farmers became accustomed to being short-handed. The influx of people from Toronto began before the depression with the summer cottagers and those who wished to invest in farm land. Eventually the cottagers sealed off the township's beaches from its residents with fences and signs, but there were still swimmin' holes in the Little Rouge; Petticoat Creek, and Duffins Creek.
He talks about the mills at Altona and Whitevale and their owners; the appearance of Cherrywood in his boyhood; the Petty brickyard; the village blacksmith; and the problems of going back to hand milking when the electricity was knocked out by hurricane Hazel.