Archive Record
Metadata
Object ID |
1991.78.18 |
Title |
Cecelia Bussey Interviewed by Bruce Flees |
Scope & Content |
Tape. Audio Cassette. By Cecelia Bussey. The interview of Cecelia Bussey is part of the "Pioneers on Tape Program" sponsored by the Leland Township Library. Transcript of the tape is available. The summary of the tape is as follows: My name is Cecelia Bussey, Cecelia Hahnenberg before I was married. I was born March 19, 1908 on the farm where Fred Hahnenberg lives now. I was the oldest in my family and had three sisters and four brothers. My mother was French and my father was German. My parents were very religious. My father was the one who led morning and evening prayers, read the Bible, and took care of our religious education . On Sunday when there were two masses, we went to both masses. We sang in the choir. Among my family we all had music lessons. And we learned to play for my family and were our church organists. We lived in a very strict home, but I feel it was very good for us. I was born in 1908 so that makes me 70 years old. The house was just a very small cold house, heated by wood. In the morning we used to all run down and dress around the "Buck stove" as we called it. We were off the road and we'd get snowed in the winter. We used to ski from the house to the road, to get to school. But we always walked home for lunch at noon. Our folks thought that was a good idea for us to go home for lunch and give us exercise and we didn't have a chance to get into trouble. We didn't have running water. We had a pump house outside, and we had to pump all our water for washing, cooking and everything. There was a trough out there and we kids had to take turns to pump water for the cattle and horses. In the winter the pump would freeze and you'd have to get hot water in a tea kettle and pour it into the pump to thaw it out. We lived on a farm. I think my dad had about 160 acres. He used to raise potatoes, and that was about the only money crop that we had. In the house we had lamps, no lights. I was about eleven years old when we got electricity. I can remember that very well. And I remember when my mother got her first electric washing machine and that was a big day for us I'll tell you. We worked on the farm all year round. There was always so much to do that we didn't have much time to play. Of my early childhood there isn't much that I remember. When I was four years old my parents went to Alberta, Canada. My mother's family moved to Canada with a lot of people from Lake Leelanau. In fact, my grandfather started the town of Plamondon there. It was because my mother was the only one of her family left here, so she was very lonely. So dad decided to take us and move out there. We sold everything on the farm, except the farm. He kept the farm and the house. We left in May. It was a terrible trip and it was awful travelling. We went part of the way by train but had to go 150 miles from Edmonton by ox team. We were there for three months and mother was ready to come back home. So we came back home in the fall. That is all I can remember of my very young childhood. As far as playmates, we were not allowed to go playing all over. We were kept pretty much at home. We had our games. We played house. Girls played with dolls. Our toys were tea sets and dolls and so on. The boys had their bats and balls. Our nearest neighbors were not within calling distance. They were quite a way away. We knew them, but we kids didn't play back and forth vary much. First school days. Well, I must have been seven years old when I started school. I remember that first year. I didn't spend very much time in school. I would go to school and when it was recess time I'd go home. So when I look back now I think the reason that I didn't like school was because I was left-handed. They tried to make me write with the right hand. Well, I was always getting my knuckles clipped because I was writing with my left hand. The next year my brother Fred started school and we went to school together. We were in the same grade, started the first grade and graduated together too. School was about a quarter of a mile and as I told you we went home at noon. The School was heated with a woodstove in the middle of the room. When it was cold, we sat around it with our boots and many times our coats on in the winter. The school was right where the St. Mary's School is now. But is was a different building. I think you see pictures of it. It was built in two parts. It had a center where it was sort of joined. On one side the nuns lived and on the other side it was divided into classrooms. There were 12 grades. We had about 12 nuns. One sister did nothing but do the cooking. And we had a music teacher. She also taught music pupils. In my family because liked music and we lived on a farm, we brought eight quarts of milk to school every morning to pay for our musical education. The subjects taught were the basics of course, math, English, geography, history. I'm talking about the grades right now. I think there were two grades in a room, except when I got to high school. In high school, I think when I was in about the tenth grade, there were only 22 pupils. There were four grades in high school. There were five in my graduating class. My brother Fred was Valedictorian and William Flohe, Mrs. Alvin Belanger, who was Mara Lee Gauthier, and Mildred Kirt, who was Mildred Hahnenberg, and myself. We were the five. Two or three years ago, we graduated in 1926, we had our fiftieth high school class reunion. All except William Flohe was there. The subjects I liked best in school were, in the grades, I lived spelling. I won several spelling contests. I liked to write stories. I had a good imagination. I loved to read and liked history but I didn't like math. Math was always difficult. In high school we had lots of plays. At the end of every year, we always had a nice play. Our senior year play was "The Path Across the Hill". I have some nice memories about that. Subjects we had were algebra I and II, I had geometry and I took shorthand, bookkeeping and typing. I was going to be a secretary. We had Latin, and after our class, they had French. We had history, four years of English. You know, the basics. They are still the basics: history and so on. My favorite pets? Well, when we were kids at home we always had a dog.. I can remember two of the dogs we had. They were collies. One of them was tan and white. That dog was killed. Then we had a white collie that was really quite a pet. Those were the only two I remember as we were growing up. I don't remember about the exciting things that happened. We had tragedies. My little brother died from a ruptured appendix when he was four years old. I can remember that very well. That was around 1918. And around that time too, during 1918, that terrible flu epidemic. My mother almost died of it. I remember that very well. I was twelve years old. We all had the flu. We were all very sick. I also remember the end of the First World War. I remember how the bells rang, whistles blew. There used to be a mill down here where Kalchik's are. The mill whistle blew and blew because we were happy the Armistice had been signed. I was eleven years old at that time. I had a brother that was killed when he was nineteen. He had been in the seminary. He was going to Acquinas College and doing part-time work. He was working for a grocery store and was killed making a delivery. What did we do during the holidays? Well, we were a very close family I would say. We liked to do things together. In the Winter we used to ski and sleigh ride a lot. And Christmas and Easter, I can remember those days very well. We never helped color the eggs because that was something the Easter bunny could do. And Santa Claus, until we got older, I can remember happy days, you know, holidays. My parents always gave us a nice Christmas. We used to get an orange in our stocking at Christmas. That was a special treat. Can you imagine, an orange. After I graduated from high school, I went to County Normal and learned to be a teacher. Then I taught school in Maple City. The school I taught in was called "Roundtop School". As I had to drive up there and back on weekends, because I stayed up there during the week, I had to have a car. So I bought a little Model T Ford, with straight fenders and a crank. I couldn't crank it. It was hard to crank. In the back of the school was a hill, so when I'd come to school in the morning I'd run it up to the back of the hill with my car and park it there. And at night I'd get into the car, put it in gear, come down and it would start. There was a hill in back of the place where I was living, so I would get up the hill and do the same thing to get it started to go to school. That is how I managed. If I went somewhere and had to park on the level, I'd just stand around and hope somebody came and cranked it for me. I had that car only one year because it was such a (headache?). It go me in more trouble. So I got another car the next year. Was it your first job away from Home? No, that wasn't my first job away from home. I worked at Fountain Point in the summer. I worked there seven years. Seven summers. I worked as a waitress and as a maid and all kinds of jobs there. And then I worked in the store. It was O. J.'s store after I graduated. I got $12.00 a week for working there. And that was very good pay. After that I went to County Normal, then I was able to teach. I also did house work in the city. Since you were a child, what changes have come about in the area: Well, when we were kids, we did a lot of cherry picking. We used to go way out to Northport Point to a cherry farm and pick. We'd leave at six o'clock in the morning and come back about six at night. We picked around all of the orchards like that. We earned our money for our school, for our clothes, and we didn't get paid very much. You know after we were first married. We were married in 1932 and that was when we had a Depression. You probably studied about that in history. Well, we lived through it. 1932 was one of the worst years and it didn't get better for about five years after. My husband worked for ten hours a day for 17 cents an hour. And he loaded potatoes for a dollar seventy cents a day. A couple of years after that he got a WPA (Works Progress Administration) job and made $12.00 per week. So you know, wages were not very very good. Was the Depression hard? He was glad even to have a job. So around this area there was farming? Yes. And people depended on potatoes. Now, it's all cherries. Potatoes were big around here? Yes and during the war, the got $4.00 a bushel for potatoes. That was a fortune you know. Some people kept planting potatoes year-after-year thinking they might get $4.00 again, which never happened. Then they had cherries. My dad was on of the first people to start a cherry orchard. And now you see it, there's cherry orchards all over. Do you yearn for the "good old days" or is it better to be able to enjoy just life as it is right now? I like it better now. I don't yearn for the "good old days". We really didn't have very much, but we had enough to eat. We had clothes to wear. We were poor, but let me say we didn't know it. We really didn't suffer. We had enough to eat. Other than that, we didn't have a lot of things. But, we could play games and entertain ourselves. The kind if games we used to play didn't cost very much. We played ball. All the games that the kids played. Do you remember the old bridge that used to be behind the school? I sure do. We used to cross it in the morning, at night and at noon when we went home from school. It was an old iron bridge and it used to rattle when cars went over it. In the winter when it was cold, sometimes the kids would stick their tongues on the iron bars. And they'd stay there. And wait for water? Yes. What was the most exciting thing or things that you have done? I think the most interesting things that happened to me happened after I was married (to Urban Bussey) I had two sets of twins that were a year apart. And that was news and quite interesting. I had nine children altogether. My children all went to St. Mary's School and they all graduated from there. I have thirty-nine grandchildren now. They are a nice bunch of kids I must say. When my youngest child was starting first grade, they needed teachers at St. Mary's. One of the nuns got sick in November and I volunteered. I took her place and taught from November until June. I taught without pay that year. Then the following year another mother and myself began teaching. I had a classroom of my own. I taught for fifteen years there, altogether. Ten years I taught sixth and seventh grades. And for five years the fourth and fifth grades. I have lots of good memories of the kids I taught. Most of the kids in the area, I had in school. They always treat me so nicely when I meet them now. I have to ask them many times who they are because I don't recognized them, Also, I think it was in 1960 I was chosen "Mother of the Year" for Leelanau County. I went to Detroit. All the candidates met in Detroit for the contest. I was told I was the second highest. That was interesting. My husband died after I retired in 1966. That was twelve years ago. I was too young to get social security, so I was very fortunate that I was able to teach. I taught until I was 62. Since that time I was on the Parish Council for three years. In was on the School Board for three years, an officer of the Altar Society and taught C.C.D. for five years. I taught a class of retarded adults for seven years. I take part in quilting (St. Mary's Quilters). It has been about eight years since I have been quilting. So I have been keeping busy doing a lot of things. Also, I am the chairman for our Senior Citizens Group too. I'm very happy. I live in a mobile home because I had to sell my home. (Edward Hahnenberg places the Bussey home and mobile home at the north west corner of Hwy 204 and 641). I also give piano lessons now. I have nine pupils this year. So altogether it keeps me quite busy. I'll just go on doing the things that I'm doing I guess for as many years as the Lord gives me. I thank Him for His blessings. Do you think the Leelanau area is going to change in ten or twenty years: Well, I don't know. I think that there'll be a lot of changes. Seem like Lake Leelanau doesn't grow very fast., but in ten or twenty years probably it'll be a suburb of Traverse City. It is hard to say. O.K. Well thanks a lot Mrs. Bussey. Well I really enjoyed this Bruce. It was real nice. Two copies of photos are included in 1991.78a folder of Cecelia Bussey's oral history folder. 1. Photo of Cecelia and Urban Bussey and children 2. Photo of St Mary's Quilters with Cecelia Bussey Urban Bussey 1908-1966 Cecelia Bussey 1908-2007 |
Object Name |
Audiocassette |
File Link |
Click here to listen to the oral history |
Interviewer |
Bruce Flees |
Date |
1991 |
Year Range from |
1991 |
Dates of Creation |
1991 |
Size |
2.5 x 0 |
People |
Bussey, Cecelia Flees, Bruce Flohe, William Gauthier, Mara Lee (Mrs. A. Belanger) Kirt, Mildred (Hahnenberg) Bussey, Urban |
Subjects |
History Families Education Teachers Biographies |
Search Terms |
HS Oral History Pioneer's of Tape Audio St. Mary's School Lake Leelanau Farming Farmhouse Potatoes Leelanau County Farm WPA Alberta, Canada Plamondon, Alberta, Canada |
Collection |
Leelanau Historical Collection |
Accession Number |
1991.78 |