The Rural Voice, 1989-12, Page 29next morning when I went out, there
she was, wobbly, trying to eat hay.
Later on, I shipped that cow and got
$26 for a `dead' cow!"
"The biggest effect on our lives
was when the hydro went in in 1939,"
Gertie says. "It changed our whole
way of life," Bill adds. "Even tractors
weren't as good as getting the hydro.
There was light now on the long dark
winter evenings. All you had to do
was flick a switch. It was great!"
The winters were worse then than
now, the Mackeys say. Sometimes
there were three-day blizzards. Jan-
uary of 1943 was especially rough,
and hardly anyone went anywhere.
The Christmas the Mackeys
remember best was the Christmas of
1939. They were invited to celebrate
with family members in Heathcote.
"It was blowing terribly hard when I
went out to harness the team," Bill
remembers. "I could hardly see to
hitch the horses. We shouldn't have
gone anywhere, but the kids were so
disappointed that we thought we'd
try it."
"As we were riding along in the
cutter, a gust of wind blew the robe
right off our laps, over a rail fence,
and out into a field!" Gertie exclaims.
"We got there all right," continues
Bill. "But when we went to go home
around midnight, we went to the barn
and saw that the chimney pipes on the
house were on fire. By the time the
fire was out, without any damage to
the house much, we decided to stay
all night. The kids were simply
delighted."
"The next day on our way home,
we had to go off the roads in places
and around through fields to get
home," says Gertie. At times when
the roads were blocked, it was the co-
operation of all the neighbours and
their teams of horses that broke a road
through so people could get out.
"Two men usually rode on the
double -trees, and everybody helped,"
Bill says. "That's something that I
really miss — the old bees, like
threshing and wood buzzings. You
sure knew who the best cooks in the
community were!"
Another tradition for the Mackey
family was the school Christmas
concert. "I remember one Christmas
concert at Sandhill School, when I was
Gertie's wooden puppet follows
Bill's lead on the harmonica.
about nine years old," Bill says.
"They got me to play the mouth organ.
I was waiting my turn back behind the
curtain and when my turn came, I
stepped out on the stage. Well, I had
never seen such a crowd of people in
my life. We never went anywhere
much when we were kids. I can't
remember what I did or what I played;
I only know I played something and
then got off that stage!"
Gertie is an accomplished pianist
and also plays the autoharp. She
chords while Bill plays the fiddle, the
bagpipes, or the mouth organ. Bill has
played with the Collingwood Pipe
Band and the Durham Pipe Band. •
"To this day, I don't know one
note from the other," he says. "I
memorize the tune. I used to know
75 to 100 tunes up here," he adds,
pointing to his head.
Genie played the piano and the
autoharp for many Christmas concerts.
"Some adults helped entertain at the
concerts, too," she says. "Yes, you
got tired of listening to all those reci-
tations," Bill laughs.
Today the Mackeys are still enter-
taining. Recently, they performed
in the chronic ward of the Meaford
Nursing Home. Bill played the har-
monica, and Gertie made her wooden
puppet dance.
"He's the hired man," Bill says of
the wooden puppet. Gertie sits on one
end of a thin board and holds the
loose-jointed "dancing man" over the
other end of the board in front of her.
She bounces the board lightly with her
finger just under the puppet's feet. He
"dances" in time to the music Bill
plays.
Bill and Gertie celebrated their
61st wedding anniversary last month.
Back in 1928, they attended the first
Royal Winter Fair in Toronto on their
honeymoon. For their 50th anniver-
sary, they attended the Royal again.
"They greeted us in the arena with a
big spotlight and told us to stand up,"
smiles Gertie. "They announced that
it was our 50th anniversary, too."
Last year, the organizers of the
Royal invited Bill and Gcrtic to come
down for the opening celebrations and
to be guests at a dinner with Princess
Anne. A limousine drove up to
Thornbury, picked them up, and took
them to a hotel in Toronto, bringing
them home again the next day.
The Mackeys were driven around
the arena in an open landau and "were
treated like royalty." They were
guests at this year's Royal too.
How have the Mackeys managed
more than 60 years of farming? "Back
then," Bill says, "everyone lived in
hope. They hoped tomorrow would be
better. And tomorrow was better.
Stick it out. Luck will change for the
better."
"Be thankful for your health,"
Genie adds. "If you had a million
dollars and no health ..." She shrugs.
And Bill and Genie would say this
to young people today: "Don't try to
keep up with everybody else. Don't
buy anything unless you have the
money to pay for it."
"We did without until we could
pay for things," adds Gertie. "We
didn't have enough money to buy a
stove and a fridge and all that when
the hydro went in. A lot of others
went out and bought them all, but we
waited."
"Back then, no one wanted to owe
anybody anything. It was pay your
DECEMBER 1989 27