Hill Interview

Interview with Joan Hill

Interview with Joan Hill recorded on March 16, 1987 at her home in Prince George, B.C. The interviewer is Thea Stewart. Joan Hill was born in Prince George in 1920, five years after Prince George became the official name of this community on March G, 1915. In 1920 the population was about two thousand. Now in March 1987, it is sixty seven thousand. Joan is now going to tell us something of the early days and the tremendous changes she has been part of.

Stewart: Joan, what do you remember about your first home in Prince George?

Hill: I lived in two houses but was too small to remember. The first one was a little house near the water tower in Central Fort George. The second one was at the bottom of Connaught Hill across from the present city hall. The first house I remember was on Eighth Avenue in the area of where the inn of the North is now.

Stewart: What type of house was it?

Hill: It was one of the Veteran's homes after the First World War. We called it a box, had four rooms. My father added two bedrooms upstairs for the three of us. I have two brothers, Jack and Hugh.

Stewart: Was your father a veteran? Did he serve in the war?

Hill: Yes.

Stewart: Your parents were Irish. What brought them to Prince George?

Hill: My father was a carpenter. He went through his apprenticeship in Ireland. Then he went traveling. He was in Australia, United States and then came to Canada ending up in Prince George. When the First World War began, he was working at Chief Lake. He joined up immediately. He belonged to the First Pioneer Battalion that left from Victoria. He knew my mother when they were children. They met again when he went back. They were married in Ireland, moving back to Prince George because he had an old shack here where he left his carpenter tools. He was going to get them and go to Victoria to live. When they got back, the shack was gone. He had to borrow some carpenter tools. He found they were his own except the name had been taken off. He got a job working for the City of Prince George. Eventually he got the job at King George V school.

Stewart: It was a fairly new school at that time.

Hill: I don't remember. It was the first school l went to.

Stewart: He was the custodian.

Hill: Yes

Stewart: Your mother was kept busy in the house.

Hill: Yes, she looked after the three of us. She did have some interests. She was a charter member of the Ladies Auxiliary to the Legion and a charter member of the Catholic Women's League. She was quite involved.

Stewart: At what age did you go to school?

Hill: I was six years old. I still remember the first day. I wasn't too happy. I didn't know what to do so started going home at recess but my father was keeping his eye out for me. He came and took me back.

Stewart: That was the problem of having your father working there. How big were the classes.

Hill: I would think twenty five to thirty, somewhere in that area.

Stewart: Were they all local people?

Hill: Yes, some came from across the river.

Stewart: How did the ones across the river get to school?

Hill: When the water was running, they would come across on a boat. In the winter they would walk all the way around.

Stewart: Were your teachers strict? Do you recall any of your teachers?

Hill: Yes, I certainly do. Every Christmas I send a card to my grade four teacher and get one back from her. I had some very nice teachers.

Stewart: Was the discipline strict?

Hill: Yes, it was. I was a shy little person and behaved very well.

Stewart: Did they use the strap?

Hill: Yes, that was the thing. If you misbehaved, you went to see the principal, Mr. Carmichael. You got the strap.

Stewart: The pupils who came from outside Prince George, you mentioned they had to cross the river. Could you tell me more about that?

Hill: Yes, they were the Chimilosky family. Two of the girls still live in Prince George, Helen Branch and Marie Jackson. I see them often.

Stewart: They survived the trip.

Hill: Yes.

Stewart: What games were played at school?

Hill: They had athletic teams, played basketball, softball and baseball. One of the teachers, Mr. Leversage, had a group of us out very early in the morning practicing jumping and running. I wasn't an extremely athletic person.

Stewart: You did skate, I think.

Hill: We skated at the outdoor rink.

Stewart: Where was that?

Hill: Where the mini mall is now on Fourth Avenue. After school we could go and skate and in the evenings.

Stewart: Did you enjoy that?

Hill: Yes, I did. The three of us would go down. You always knew when the skating time was over because they played Pop Goes the Weasel. That meant you had to go in and take your skates off.

Stewart: How cold did it get in the winters then, colder than now?

Hill: Much colder. I remember very well that I had several birthdays, February 7, when it would be fifty below. We never missed school as a result of that as we only lived a few blocks from the school. The people who came from across the river would have to miss school on those days.

Stewart: Did you have hotter summers then?

Hill: They seemed quite long, warm and enjoyable. As a child we were out playing. I lived two doors above the old ice barn. That's where most of our fun was. We lived in that area.

Stewart: What's an ice barn?

Hill: They used to have ice boxes and Fred Lockyer sold ice. The ice was kept in this big barn which was full of sawdust. We were always there when the ice man came around begging for chips.

Stewart: What did you do with those?

Hill: Ate them. We played ball back there, prisoner's base, and run sheep run. We had our own form of relay races. My mother used to say that I walked on my knees. I was always falling. My knees are still scared.

Stewart: You had lots of friends to do things with.

Hill: Yes, we had a nice neighbourhood.

Stewart: Did you go on holidays at all?

Hill: Never.We didn't have a car and couldn't afford to go anywhere. The only time I remember being out of Prince George was going on the train to Shelly to pick berries at a friend's home. One time we went to Summit Lake on somebody's truck. I just got deathly car sick. That ended any traveling. I was happy to stay home. It was better than going somewhere and being sick all the time.

Stewart: There weren't too many cars in Prince George?

Hill: Not really. One of the big high lights of the year was the Elks parade on the 24th of May. They would take us out for a ride around the loop. I used to try and get on Mr. Van Sommer's truck. I didn't dare go inside a car.,

Stewart: Where was the loop?

Hill: We went out to where the Old Stampede grounds were, came back through South Fort George.

Stewart: That was on Victoria Day. You had May day celebrations, too, didn't you?

Hill: There would be a May Queen.

Stewart: Were you ever Queen?

Hill: No .My brother was a page boy once. That was the extent of our involvement. They used to give us balloons and ice cream cones, sometimes a free movie.

Stewart: You had movies then.

Hill: Yes

Stewart: You also had a Klondike night. Do you recall that at all?

Hill: I don't remember it. Possibly I was too young to go.

Stewart: You had a friend at school called Jessie Barnes Sugden. Was she in your class?

Hill: She was a year ahead.

Stewart: She wrote a very interesting book called, "In the Shadow of the Cutbanks" and you are named in that several times. She mentioned the Klondike night and said that prunes were painted in gold for nuggets.

Hill: I don't remember it.

Stewart: You went to a High School called Baron Byng. Who was Baron Byng?

Hill: One of the World War I heroes. We even had a school song to the tune of "Anchors Away".

Stewart: Perhaps you should should sing it for me. Where was it located?

Hill: Below King George V school. King George V school was on top of the hill and Baron Byng was down below. It was a four room school.

Stewart: What are your memories of those days? Did you enjoy them?

Hill: I didn't enjoy certain subjects, chemistry, physics, geometry. They were good days. We had some excellent teachers.

Stewart: What activities did you take part in at the school or extra mural ones?

Hill: I don't remember that I took part in very much. I was shy and didn't get involved with the drama group and I wasn't athletically inclined.

Stewart: You had a lot of homework?

Hill: Yes, mountains of homework. Every night you would spend a few hours doing homework.

Stewart: These were the days of the hungry thirties, the depression days. What can you recall of those days?

Hill: Money was rather scarce. We were lucky that my father was working. We didn't have money to go to the theatre on Saturday.

Stewart: Was there much unemployment?

Hill: Yes. A lot of people were on relief as they called it in those days. My father got some of the men on relief helping him at the school washing windows, etc.

Stewart: Were you able to have your Graduation Balls?

Hill: That's funny. We never had anything like that. My parents couldn't afford to get a dress for me. The year year I graduated was 1938. The only thing they had for the girls as a graduating class was an invitation to a tea at the KGV school put on by the first class of Home Economics. That was the only party we had. There were high school dances.

Stewart: Did you go to those?

Hill: I went to one to work in the kitchen because I didn't want to learn to dance.

Stewart: You graduated in 1938.

Hill: That summer we found that my father had cancer. He died in March 1539. Of course, that meant big changes in our life. I always wanted to be a primary school teacher but that was impossible. The best thing I found to do was take a commercial course. I went to Prince Rupert.

Stewart: Why did you go to Prince Rupert?

Hill: Mrs. Ellis had commercial classes. I remember Mrs. Ellis but she wasn't teaching at that time. I had this chance to go to St. Joseph's Academy in Prince Rupert. My friend, Mary Zimmaro, Mary Palumbo now, went with me. We took the commercial course in Prince Rupert.

Stewart: That was quite an adventure, wasn't it?

Hill: It certainly was. It was my first big travel anywhere.

Stewart: Were you homesick?

Hill: I was a bit but surprisingly I was the only girl of the year who didn't break down and cry. I remember going to a movie on a Saturday afternoon, Nelson Eddie in "Let Freedom Ring". He sang, "Home Sweet Home". There were a whole row of girls sobbing.

Stewart: Did you like Prince Rupert?

Hill: I did. I loved the commercial class. It was the nicest year of school I had.

Stewart: What were the subjects you did there?

Hill: We had typing, shorthand, rapid cal, bookkeeping and spelling.

Stewart: It kept you busy.

Hill: Yes. I really enjoyed it. We had a wonderful teacher. There was a real class spirit. We had five or six boys in the class too.

Stewart: Did you like Prince Rupert as a town?

Hill: I didn't get to know too much about it because we went there in September '39 when the war had started. Prince Rupert was full of soldiers and sailors. We weren't allowed much freedom. We didn't get out very much.

Stewart: You came back to Prince George in June, 1940.

Hill: Yes, in June 1940. Then the problem was to find work.

Stewart: How did you go about getting your first job?

Hill: I was home for almost two months. I found there was an opening in Mr. P. Wilson's law office. It is now Wilson, King and Company. Josephine Monroe who worked there was going to marry Jack Aitken. They were leaving as he had joined up. I was very fortunate to get that job. It was part time, mornings only working for Mr. P.E. Wilson. In the afternoons I worked for the school inspectors. I did that for a couple of years. Then I had a chance to work in the afternoons for Mr. Charles Wisendon who was a bookkeeper. I took that because it meant I could stay in the same office all day. Mr. Wilson was in one room; I was in the middle room and Mr. Wisendon was in the other. I worked for the two of them.

Stewart: Where were their offices located?

Hill: On Third Avenue. It is now a restaurant. At that time it was the Assman building. There was a grocery store downstairs called the Crystal Market run by Harold Assman. There was a doctor, a dentist and the lawyer's office upstairs.

Stewart: Was that Assman a connection of the Funeral Parlour?

Hill: Yes.

Stewart: You started working full time.

Hill: Yes. Finally Mr. Wisendon went to work for the hospital. He moved to another office. I had my chance to go with him or to stay with Mr. Wilson. I stayed with Mr. Wilson and Mr. King came in as his partner after the war years. Things sort of grew. We moved to the Bank of Nova Scotia Building. Carl Anderson was putting up the new building. We were among the first people able to go into it.

Stewart: So more modern offices for you.

Hill: More modern for us. In today's world they didn't look like very much. Battleship linoleum on the floors. They looked beautiful on Monday mornings but once you started stepping across them, they didn't look very good.

Stewart: What office equipment did you have in those days?

Hill: I started out with an Underwood typewriter, the kind with the round keys all risen up. We pounded away at them, came home with a sore back and sore fingers. No adding machine, no copying machines. If you had to copy something, you had to use carbons, making the same mistakes as had been made on the original. In those years as Prince George was growing bigger with so many sawmills, we had a lot of agreements to make out. It's not like today's easy world. If you needed eighteen copies, it meant typing it about three times in order to get readable copies.

Stewart: If you made an error, you had all those copies to make. You didn't have training as a legal secretary. You taught yourself.

Hill: You learned it on the job.

Stewart: Did you enjoy it?

Hill: Yes. I always really liked it. Mr. Wilson was a very, very nice man to work for.

Stewart: You stayed there for forty five years.

Hill: I always thought I could never leave the office while was alive. He was seventy two years old when I started to work for him. People said that I was foolish to go and work for somebody that old. He was almost ninety when he died. He worked right up almost to the end.

Stewart: Then you worked for Mr. King.

Hill: Yes, I can remember one particular year when we had thirteen divorces. At that time, it meant a lot of typing, and working for two men, it was impossible to get all this done. That was the first time I worked with another girl. It just seemed to keep growing from then on.

Stewart: You moved again.

Hill: We moved to the Toronto Dominion Bank building. Finally we took over the top floor and some offices on the the second floor. Then we outgrew that and moved to the Tenth Floor of the Canada Permanent Building.

Stewart: By that time you were running the outfit.

Hill: Not really.

Stewart: You enjoyed your work.

Hill: I really did. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I must have to stay that long. One time I had thought of moving to Vancouver. I'm glad I didn't.

Stewart: That's good to hear. What other memories do you have of those office days?

Hill: In the early years of working, I can remember coming in one Monday morning. I couldn't get my typewriter to print. We didn't have typewriter repairmen living in Prince George. When they came through on their travels, they would phone and let you know they were here. In the mean time I was using Mr. Wisendon's typewriter to do all the work. The typewriter repairman came into town, came over and looked at my machine. He reached over and flipped it up. Mr. Wilson's grandson had been in the office that weekend and had put it in on stencil. Never in the world did I think of looking for something like that. It was so funny because Mr. Wisendon was working at the Prince George Hotel doing the books. Someone went in and said there is something wrong with this typewriter, we can't get it to work. He looked at it and the same thing had happened. He just flipped the little button up. He had quite a reputation as being a repairman.

Stewart: Prince George in the 40's became a very changed place due to the war years.

Hill: It certainly did. When I came back from Prince Rupert, it was a very quiet place. A lot of the men had joined up.

Stewart: Did many of your school friends join up?

Hill: Yes, and many of them never came back.

Stewart: You had a military camp here.

Hill: Yes, we had a huge military camp.

Stewart: Where was it located?

Hill: They had different places spread over the town but most of it was out by the Kin Centre. It certainly made a big difference to life in Prince George.

Stewart: Do you remember any of the regiments.

Hill: Yes, I remember the first ones that came in, the Prince of Wales Rangers, the Brockville Rifles and the Oxford Rifle plus all the medical and dental divisions.

Stewart: You had some French regiments.

Hill: Yes, we had french regiments too. I personally always got along with anyone who was French. I remember Everall coming up to me at a K of C hut dance one night and saying you'd like the fellow I just danced with. I said, "Why?" She said he was French. I had no trouble with them at all.

Stewart: Did you go to their dances?

Hill: That's funny. I didn't want to learn to dance but when I took my commercial course at the convent in Rupert, the Sister Superior told the girls that I was to learn to dance. That's where l learned. When the soldiers moved in, the K of C hut was right across from where the downtown post office is today. My mother was one of the volunteer women who worked. She practically dragged me over. I got over my shyness and learned to dance. I used to go twice every week to the dances. It was very enjoyable.

Stewart: Were you chaperoned in those days?

Hill: There were chaperones, yes, always two or three women there. You weren't supposed to let the fellows take you home afterwards but those rules weren't always followed.

Stewart: The population of Prince George almost quadrupled then, not only the military but there was a great demand for lumber. How did the town of Prince George change?

Hill: I just know that the work at the office certainly kept us going all the time. Mr. Wilson was looking after all the land that was expropriated to build the army camp which involved a lot of typing. With all the people moving in, it was an entirely different world. I can remember standing at the corner of Third and George watching a military parade. You couldn't see an end. There was just so many people coming.

Stewart: You got your first covered skating rink then, didn't you?

Hill: I think it was built before the army came in. At that time we were living on the same street, just a hop, skip and jump to go and skate. We had some wild hockey games then. The French women who came with their men didn't hesitate to punch a player if he was passing by.

Stewart: Did many wives come to be near their husbands?

Hill: Yes, there were a lot of wives. It was hard finding places for them to stay. We had one for awhile, got to know her husband. He asked if he could bring her out. We made many good friends and still keep in touch with some of them.

Stewart: You were living with your mother and two brothers. Did either of your brothers join up?

Hill: Yes. My brother Jack was in the seminary. When my dad got ill, he had to come out and come home and work. He got his call to the army. My brother Hugh couldn't pass the physical so he didn't go,

Stewart: What about your personal interests, your hobbies? What did you do after work?

Hill: The first thing l remember being interested in was the library. We didn't always have a library where you could go and get books. They had the Provincial Library but if you lived inside the city limits, you couldn't borrow books. The only library I knew was in W.J. Pittman's music store. He had a room where he had books. My mother went one day and got me a membership. When the ladies got a library going, I did volunteer work before I took my commercial course and then afterwards when I was working.

Stewart: Could I just get back to the library for a minute. Was the Provincial Library on Brunswick Street where the Senior Citizens is now?

Hill: No. That was the City Library. The Provincial Library was where the Princess Theatre is now.

Stewart: Now we have this fabulous new library which I'm sure you make good use of.

Hill: I certainly do. I walk home with twenty five books.

Stewart: You love reading obviously but you have another great interest.

Hill: Music. I took my first singing lessons in Prince Rupert. When I came home, one of the war brides, Kit Mooney, gave singing and piano lessons. I went there every Friday night and really got involved in music. I always sang in the church choir. I belonged to the Ladies Glee Club and for the light opera. I did quite a lot of solo singing at concerts and weddings. I used to play the organ at weddings too.

Stewart: Where did you learn to play the piano?

Hill: Some people by the name of Hern who lived here had an apartment building. They moved to California. They asked my mother if she would keep the piano for them. They would eventually send for it. It was a beautiful Heinzman. It came to our house on Eighth Avenue with horses and a wagon. There was a little slope in front of the house. Over went the piano out on the road so the poor old thing got the keys rather chipped. The people never asked to have it back and l eventually bought it from them. It had quite a history behind it. It was the first piano that came in over the Cariboo Road up to Prince George. It was in one of the houses of ill repute as they call them in South Fort George. I remember the first time we had it tuned and cleaned. We got quite a few old black quarters out of it.

Stewart: This is the piano you now have in your living room.

Hill: Yes. In my will I have left it to the Museum as I think it is something that deserves to be there. None of my family is interested and I would like it to go to the Museum.

Stewart: It is a really nice thought. Were you the only musical in your family?

Hill: My brother, Hugh, has a really good voice and does one quite a bit of singing too. He now sings in one of the Barbershop Quartettes in Victoria. I belong to the Silverthreads Choir here.

Stewart: So you've kept up your singing. Who are the Silverthreads?

Hill: It's a group of seniors. We meet every Friday and we sing at the different seniors homes and wherever we're invited. I was also very interested in drama over the years. I belong to the Music and Drama Festival Association. We had a Catholic drama group. I experimented. I even did some directing. One of the, biggest thrills of my life was when we won the festival with our one act play, "The Monkey's Paw". I don't think I'll every forget the thrill of that night. We had the best play, best actress from our play and two honor performances from the men.

Stewart: What year was this?

Hill: In my working years.

Stewart: You seem to be kept pretty busy.

Hill: Yes, I belong to quite a lot of things.

Stewart: Was there anything else you did? You didn't have much time.

Hill: Yes, I was involved in the Prince George Association for the Mentally Retarded for about sixteen years. I have a nephew who is retarded. In fact my brother and his wife were among the few people who started the Association. I have always been interested in it. You can work only so long in an association, then it's time for new blood. They gave me a very nice award when I left the Association. I also have been involved particularly in the last five years in the Catholic Women's League as Secretary. I'm also Secretary of the Sacred Heart's Seniors Association. I can still use my typing skills..

Stewart: Do you have a typewriter at home?

Hill: Yes. When I left the office, they gave me my old typewriter and my old chair. I'm quite thrilled with those.

Stewart: What a lovely idea? They gave you something else.

Hill: They gave me a beautiful big silver tray with the names of all the partners I'd worked for. They also gave me a holiday to San Francisco and a week in the Sir Frances Drake Hotel. The girls that I worked for gave me a beautiful chair which I use every evening.

Stewart: Was that your first holiday out of B.C.?

Hill: No, after my mother died, I went on quite a lot of trips. I went to Ireland that same year and met a number of relations. I've been to the Maritimes, Michigan, Wisconsin, Los Vegas, Reno, Disney Land and San Diego.

Stewart: You certainly made up for the years you only had a train trip to Shelly.

Hill: Yes. Roads are better now. There is medicine for people who get car sick.

Stewart: Transportation is so easy.

Hill: Cars are different.

Stewart: Of course, the roads.

Hill: The roads were terrible. The dust was so bad. I can remember going to the doctor; l was in such a state. It turned out to be a dust allergy just from the dust flying on the streets. One of the big interests in my life was the pre 1945 School Reunion. It was started by Alex Clapperton. I phoned and said I would like to help so I ended up with the job of Secretary Treasurer. It has been very interesting and kept me in touch with people who have lived in Prince George. It's my job to send out the flyers telling them about the dance and dinner that we have every two years.

Stewart: Was this KGV or Baron Byng?

Hill: Both and Central Fort George and South Fort George. Those were the schools. We started out with pre 1940's as we thought that was a very definite change in Prince George before the war when classes were smaller and you knew everyone in the town. Children today will never have a chance like we are having now because our year started in the area of 1912 to 1945.

Stewart: You'd walk down the street and you'd know everybody.

Hill: Yes, on the wooden sidewalks. Those were the years that you didn't go by the name of streets. You would say where a certain person lives, go to that corner and then turn. It has really changed.

Stewart: Not all these people live in Prince George.

Hill: No, they are scattered all over the place. In fact, we give a Mr. Pee Gee to the person who travels the furthest to come to our reunion.

Stewart: Who has won?

Hill: From California, Montreal, Florida and I believe we had someone from Jamaica once. The last reunion we tried something different. We had a lunch at noon hour for ladies only. We had seventy three ladies. It was really fun. That was the time Jessie Sugden brought her book, "In the Shadows of the Cutbanks". We changed our date to August because of the 70th birthday we had in that special week. Right now we are planning another one this June. I just started addressing envelopes to send to the out of town people.

Stewart: How many would you be sending out?

Hill: We ordered one hundred and fifty flyers. Yesterday I addressed seventy of them. This time we are also going to send to all the smaller newspapers to see if they would put a letter in for us so these people will know about it. This is the thing we don't know how to get in touch with all of them.

Stewart: There must be some well known Prince George personalities.

Hill: The first reunion we had several of the teachers got up and said how proud they were when they saw the people who had graduated and what they were. We've had twenty one doctors, lawyers, dentists and judges.

Stewart: Any well known ones?

Hill: Judge Perry, Judge Monroe, Harold Moffatt. We were very proud of having a local man as Mayor. We should also be very thankful that Alex Clapperton came up with the idea as he has done a wonderful job. That first year he started, we started with nothing. We didn't have any money. Until the actual night, we didn't know but we made it; we didn't have any debts. When he got up and asked when they would like to have another reunion, next year, two years. Somebody got up and yelled, "Every Saturday night". It really has been great. I was just looking at this book of Jessie's. I see there is a picture of Connaught Hill, the first ski hill in 1927. From where we lived on Eighth Avenue, when l went to bed at night, I could look out the bedroom window and watch the skiers coming down the hill.

Stewart: Did they ski at night?

Hill: Yes, they did.

Stewart: They had a ski jump there.

Hill: Yes, I can remember it coming down with an awful crack. It used to be quite something to watch that. It makes me think of when I was just a kid. It was up in 1927. It must have been that first winter that I went over with a school friend and somebody bought us a hotdog. It was the first time I had ever seen or had them. I said what on earth is this. I threw the hotdog out and ate the bun. Food was very different then compared to now. You just ate the certain same things all the time. Every Sunday it was like Mom and Dad coming from the old country. You always had a roast on Sunday.

Stewart: Then you made it do for one or two days during the week.

Hill: That's right. For years I couldn't eat cold roast beef because we had so much of it.

Stewart: Your mother would have done a lot of baking.

Hill: Yes. She always told the story of learning to make bread. She had to bury the first lot out in the back so nobody could see it. It didn't rise.

Stewart: She was a young bride having to learn too.

Hill: Things were very different.

Stewart: In the war years you would have rations.

Hill: We did. It wasn't so bad for people who lived in Prince George because you knew the stores and they would let you know when silk stockings came in. The people would save them for you if you were a regular customer. I can remember bananas coming in too. Mother started liking bananas just because you couldn't get them. We didn't seem to have a shortage of things here. When you went to Vancouver on holidays, you would see long, long lineups of people wanting to get silk stockings, chocolates and things that were very hard to set. Really, we didn't suffer in Prince George

Stewart: The house you're living in now on Ingledew, when did you move to this house?

Hill: We built this house in l957. We had lived in the house where the Outrigger is now and decided to move to a smaller place. We moved to the house at the bottom of Sixth Avenue. My mother was getting older and we had this wood and coal furnace so took the big plunge. We built our house. We got a contractor and had a house built. That was wonderful to move to a house with a furnace in it. I heard people grumbling about the noise of a furnace but it sounded lovely to me. During the night you didn't have to get up and do anything. Nobody had ever lived on this property before. We were very lucky to get a house so close to downtown, to the .library, and right near a bus line. It's very handy when you don't have a car.

Stewart: This is where you live now. You're happy to live here.

Hill: Yes, I hope I can live here for a long time yet.

Stewart: You obviously had a very busy life Joan. Are you enjoying your retirement?

Hill: I love it. I can do things during the daytime which I was never able to do before. I seem to be involved in my different groups. There's always something going on.

Stewart: That's good. That's what keeps you young. I do thank you very much Joan Hill for sharing all your past memories and experiences with us. Thank you very much.

Hill: Thank you.