Memories & Musings
April, 2020

The Hawkins Family

By Leona Keraiff

Our Association has been asking for financial support for the rejuvenation of Crawford Bay’s Community Hall but equally important to us is your positive response to our request for memories and photographs. 

I recently enjoyed a two hour chat with Cliff and Carol Hawkins who have been married and living in their Crawford Bay home since 1962.  Most of Cliff’s 84 years have been spent in Crawford Bay. He has, in fact, lived here longer than anyone else!

Some recollections: The Fall Fair about 60 years ago: Cliff entered a cake baking competition. Alice Pratt coaxed him and his buddies into entering. He said he “built“ a cake which “sunk in the middle so I levelled her out with icin”. His pals: Beanie Johnson, Ray Draper and a fourth fella whose name Cliff could not recall also used cake mixes and salvaged their entries with icing. The judge, Bert Jones, cut the cakes, luckily cutting Cliff’s where it was properly baked netting him first prize!  Please see the photo of Cliff and Carol with the oversized teacup and saucer that he has kept all these years ... A five dollar bill was also attached.

Carol’s only entry, perhaps 15 years later, was a loaf of bread, because Dorothy O”Brian said “your bread is better than anyone’s else’s”. Carol only had a frozen loaf to enter however it also claimed first prize.

The Hall’s construction: No power saws, of course, just cross-cut ones which were called “fiddles”,  “you knew when you’d been on the end of one all day”. Cliff’s Dad, Alfred was one of the 56 volunteers who built the Hall back in ‘38.

Mom Agnes was a concert pianist. She played at many “hoedowns” and Christmas concerts in the Hall and at the Hotel.  Occasionally, she accompanied Canadian “cowboy singer” Wilf Carter when he performed on the Nasookin. Agnes was a skilled Nurse who delivered many babies and performed lots of first aid in the Bay. 

Free movies were shown in the Hall with the projector being upstairs in the “Ladies’ Dressing Room”.

The Hall was the School’s gymnasium where Cliff played badminton, gratefully coached by George Harris and later Ed Hedley. “We were 12 to 13 years old playin’ 16 year olds and winnin’” he gleefully stated. 

I received a frown when asking if Cliff performed in any Christmas concerts!  There was one school play about the Great White North but he didn’t enjoy it much…Cliff’s childhood buddies were his brother Clary, Percy MacGregor, Beanie Johnson and Gordon Reilly.

There are some family photos that Cliff and Carol might be able to track down along the family tree. Hopefully in the very near future, some of them may be seen in our new Hall entryway …