Unsung Heroines
Opening September 28, 2024
Stained Glass Artist: Pamela King
Audio Scripts: Gail Hussey Weir
Narration: Teresita McCarthy
The Garden
Before mining began in 1895, the women of Bell Island were all members of farming families. After mining started, most households gave up large scale farming, while maintaining kitchen gardens and raising some animals to feed their own families in the ways to which they were accustomed. Many who moved to the island for work did the same, and this way of life continued for some, although to a lesser degree, right up until the mines closed.
While the men and boys did the heavy labour, such as tilling the soil, it was often the women who did the weeding and maintained the vegetable crops. They also grew a variety of berry bushes in their gardens, from which they made and bottled jam for the winter. Likewise, women would feed and help look after any farm animals.
In this image we see a woman who has washed the clothes and hung it out to dry and is now tending her garden while keeping an eye on the livestock.
The Home
The kitchen was the heart of every Bell Island home, and it was the housewife's domain. This is where she spent almost every waking hour, literally keeping the home fires burning, as the coal stove was often the only heat source for the whole house.
In the kitchen, she rigged the miner’s lunch before he headed off to work, baked bread, cookies and cakes, prepared two cooked meals every day, and laid out a bedtime “mug up” every evening. She washed and dressed the young children in the kitchen, and watched over them as they did their homework at the table after supper. This was the room where she did all the household laundry by hand, including the weekly chore of scrubbing the iron ore out of the miner’s work clothes, all of which she then hung on the clothesline to dry. More relaxing activities, such as knitting and sewing, having a cup of tea with friends to catch up on the news, and playing a Saturday night game of cards, all happened in the kitchen.
In this image, she is standing at the sink washing dishes for the third time that day. The hand pump is to her left. First, she had to pump the water from the well, then boil it on the coal stove. The average woman had seven or eight children. Four children was considered a small family, while some women raised as many as twelve or more. Here, the family dog naps in front of the stove while two children sit at the table doing their homework by the light of a kerosene lamp. No doubt, their mother will have tested them on their spelling and checked their arithmetic before they headed off to bed.
The Whistle
Pictured is the widow of a miner who was killed in a blasting accident in the mines, leaving her with six young children to raise on the widow's meagre compensation allowance. To help her make ends meet, the mining company has taken on her eldest son, just 14 years old, to work as a nipper, doing odd jobs such as fetching water for the miners, boiling kettles for their tea and relaying messages.
In this image we see that she liked to prepare her bread dough at night before bed. It would rise overnight, then she would bake it first thing in the morning. She has just made her son's breakfast and rigged his lunch, as we see the lunch tin and tea bottle on the table. Before she sends him off to work, she kneels in her kitchen to pray for his safety. The mine deckhead can be seen through the window and the whistle will soon blow to announce the first shift of the day, and his first time going underground.
