From the harbour to the cove

It was a great find. My husband discovered some old slides, long forgotten and misplaced over the years. From the 1980s, they were part of an assignment he did for cultural geography. Photos of my mother’s hometown of Maddox Cove and my grandmother’s hometown of Petty Harbour, Newfoundland worked well with the subject for the presentation. They were easy to digitize last week.

There are many old photos of Petty Harbour, a well protected fishing town tucked in an harbour in Motion Bay, just south of the capital, St. John’s. This area, a fishing station for the English in the 1600s was captured by the French in 1696, as the two countries fought over the fish from the waters and the land as a way station between the Old and New Worlds. The English eventually won.

Petty Harbour, like many areas of Newfoundland is rock, with a thin layer of soil in places. 

Houses are stacked over one another on the mountainside, the exposed rock visible all around. This is not a place with gardens and vegetable patches as every millimetre of soil is hard-won.

My grandmother’s family, Hearn, lived on the other side of the harbour, 

up the road and around the turn, tucked in under the mountain. Her father was a fisherman. 

A kilometre or so from Petty Harbour is Maddox Cove, down a road which is carved out of the side of the cliffs.

Here my great grandfather Edward O’Brien, an immigrant from Ireland, settled with his wife, Bridget Kieley and raised a family. The youngest son, Gus, was my mother’s father. He was a fisherman out of Petty Harbour and worked the farm in Maddox Cove.

There was more soil in the Cove and vegetable gardens were common, though my mother’s family worked hard to amend the soil with seaweed and manure. They raised chickens, sheep, cows and had horses to work the land.  

When I was young I spent summers with my grandparents in the Cove, in the days when there were only twelve houses there. Large families meant I had lots of playmates although Mary, Bernard and Margie were my best buddies. We had wonderful summer days, playing in the pool we dammed in the river, on the beach, in the woods, playing house and school and games with the other children after supper, in the old schoolhouse yard. Days weren’t long enough to do everything we planned. 

My grandparents were loving people who worked hard their entire lives. They would have been around my age now when I spent those summer days with them. I can understand their interest in my life and spending time with me. It is how I feel about my grandchildren.

These photos were wonderful reminders of family and friends in a place which helped shape my life.