TRANSCRIPT

AS - Ada Summers, interviewee / LR - Lyn Royce, interviewer

LR: What are the other activities that the church... or the function that the church had in your life from the time you were... from the time you were young.

AS: Just religion, period. I mean, we were here in the morning for Sunday School. And then we would go up - you probably heard this from George and Marjorie and June all too - then we'd be up to the Baptist Church was a coupla doors up. And then we'd be back here for either Sunday School or church or vice versa. Then we'd go home for dinner. And then we'd be back again, you know. And we did that all day Sunday. That was the thing. And then I remember the time, um, around Thanksgiving, they had what they called Harvest Home. And the church was always decorated. I've got a picture on the fridge actually, Margo just gave me, of the church decorated with the straw and everything, you know. And, um, and the fruit. And Mr Nicholson would go up and they'd bring it in. There'd be squash, and tomatoes and potatoes, you name it - every fruit and vegetable. And then after they would auction it off at the end of the service or give it away or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. We still do that. We still have Harvest Home. Yeah. Mr Harper brought some... a thing of hay in a couple of years ago and I said please don't ever do that again - I have to clean it! [chuckles] Yeah. Because it was a mess to clean - it was nice when it was done. So now I just do the great big fruit basket; huge... we have a big wicker fruit basket and I stand it at the table and we decorate it with everything, all the fruits and vegetables... that's good enough for me I tell 'em - I don't want any more hay in here.

LR: Were... Did you consider that a social activity as well as the religious study kind of thing?

AS: Oh yeah. Because there was always ... back, looking back, um, like I said I was the 1 heard everything, there was little nitpickies [sic] that go on as usual, but overall, everybody was friendly, you know; they looked out for each other's child and, what have you so, and we were taught respect. There was no 1st names. You know. If it wasn't Aunt and Uncle then it was Mr or Mrs, kind of thing. But everybody was Aunt or Uncle back then.

LR: Really...

AS: Yeah, yeah. And, um, like I said, having grown up in this whole area, and been around because I... when I was born, I was born here on Water... on uh, Frances Street but then I had relatives living on Woodland and on Greenlaw, all through here; North Street, all over the place; Welland Avenue. So it was... Everybody knew everybody; everybody was a close kept community, so it's really, really weird, unlike today where everybody is so scattered, you know, so... But when we stopped frequenting Zion Baptist, when we had special things going on, they'd still come here and frequent us back and forth, so you know it's kinda that old rapport but still... still going on.

LR: That's great...

AS: Yeah. So... Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, we definitely every Good Friday, we go over to their church service. We don't have it here anymore. We go for the Good Friday Church Walk of all the downtown churches and we go to church at Marjorie's. Yeah.