The Bold Bull Fighter

 There's no fear when you are having fun

Will Thomas

*This story has an addition to it due to finding a thread back to where this took place after it was posted Just yesterday. See bottom

There's no fear when you're having fun. Will Thomas
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/no_fear.html

There's no fear when you're having fun. Will Thomas
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/no_fear.html

 Cathern Harrison       Written 2011 revised 2016  

Names have been changed to protect the innocent ;o)

The three eldest children were playing out in the backyard, while the baby slept snug in her crib upstairs. Henry was at work in the barn across the road and Amelia was enjoying a cup of tea with a friend in the living room. They talked about their children, the latest gossip and their husband's jobs. Both men were farm hands on different farms in the area. Amelia was telling her friend Marg about a young cantankerous bull Mr. Beard the farm owner, had bought to 'service' his dairy herd.

The only person that was not afraid of that young bull was Henry, who had told Amelia some nasty stories about the beast. He hoped his family would stay clear of the young feisty creature that was often pastured in front of their home. The women got up to peek out the window to see if the bull was out to pasture that afternoon. "Oh, No!" Amelia shouted, "I've got to go and find help!" and rushed out, with her friend trailing after her.

Amelia needed help because although the bull was lying down chewing his cud, sitting on his tummy playing with her dolly,  doll paraphernalia spread out around her on her comfortable warm seat, was the youngest of Amelia's three children thought to be in the backyard.

So much for Henry's scary stories ;o)

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TRUTH: (or getting rid of the embellishment ;o) And More about life in  Dewittville.

 Photos are a mixture of back then and 2003 .

That girlie, girl was me, Cathern.

I was about three or four years old at the time but have no memory of it. Only what I have been told and despite the concern for my safety someone grabbed a camera to take a couple of shots of the scary situation – the black and white pictures have long since been lost.

The incident took place in the late 40's in Dewittville near Ormstown Quebec, on the dairy farm where Dad worked at the time. The baby was a toddler, and our older siblings were likely at school. There was no back yard that I recall… The bull was not as cantankerous as I made him sound but its true everyone but my father was afraid of him… Cattle back then had horns so could be very dangerous if provoked.

Dad had something about him that animals were attracted to and that bull became putty in his hands. When Dad went into the barn he'd bellow for Dad to come to him… like a love sick animal.

The pasture at the front of our house had an electric fence, how I got by it is another puzzle? It was on that farm in the barn where I was perplexed about how the cows found their way to the right stalls when they were brought in from the pasture. Dad explained to me in a very simply way. "You know where you live don't you?"

The windows looking out on the front yard and pasture.     Pasture behind the young girls and the outbuildings, barn to the right. My sister (the toddler) and making mud pies.

In the fall of 2003  (just before I turned 60),  my husband and I went for me,  on a sentimental trip back to Dewittville.  Noticed that water pump my sister and I are sitting in front of was still there WOW!  (seen in one of the photos above as well)

The shed behind my brother and a friend is the place I remember bushels of tomatoes  that were to be  

canned by my parents (for other people) It was a way of making some money to help with the expenses of raising a family of six when money was tight following World War II My mother hated it though.
To the right of that same photo a distance away there was some sort of shed/barn where my father raised rabbits on the top floor. To a young child they seemed to be everywhere :D. The purpose was for food for our table.  Dad soon learned he had better kill, skin and cut up the rabbit before bringing to my mother or she would have nothing to do with it. It looked too human for her. We often had rabbit though the years but now it seems to have gone out of favor, likely due to animal rights, housing developments and lack of being allowed to keep rabbits as livestock.


There was and still is a stone wall/fence across the road and  the photo of two on my sisters and  my eldest sister's friend at in front of

The out building behind my sister and I  was still there too but the barn is gone. It had to be burned down and the cattle destroyed when bovine tuberculosis was found to be present in the herd.

My father found a new job for the safety of his family as far away from milking cows as he hated doing that. 

 And our family began a new life  that we are still attached to today or the town, schools and all that goes with it. That town is Ste Anne de Bellevue, Quebec and since the late ‘40’s has been in my life so have many stories to share about that 65 years :D

  

Dewittville on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/Dewittville-Quebec-207207479296114/

Canadian Food Inspection Agency:  Bovine Tuberculosis - Fact Sheet

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/animals/terrestrial-animals/diseases/reportable/tuberculosis/fact-sheet/eng/1330208938232/1330209051950

Ste Anne de Bellevue, Quebec

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue,_Quebec

* After I posted this story went back to the Dewittville Facebook page and asked if some of the photos posted were possibly the dairy farm main house. Was going to ask a friend who lived out that way if the owners of the home, Gleness, were her friends - before I could get to her she posted a like so I pretty well know that I had the right place. This morning there was a message from the once owner, (sold in the fall), that yes the house we lived in is across from Gleness.  And that is how I found a thread that goes back at least 68 years :D
Was also told that the father of the man, Marcil Soumier, who lives in the red brick  house now  worked for the dairy farm owner Mr Rowett, ( pretty sure he also worked with my father that many years ago).  Hoping now I can find out more about the first house and area I remember.  And with that is mind think I have a Merging Roots (another of my blogs about just that ), story to write :D