The memories of living at the Northern Bight train station have not faded for 99-year-old Leonie Hollett.
Reprinted from Downhome Magazine, September 2022
by Lester Green
Leonie Mabel (Stoyles) Hollett
In my retirement years, I have been extremely fortunate to have opportunities to yarn with seniors about life growing up Southwest Arm area. When I recently visited with Leonie (Stoyles) Hollett, who will turn 100 years old on October 5, we yarned about her childhood at the Northern Bight Train Station. The following is what she told me as we sat together at Oram’s Bethesda Manor in Gander, NL.
My name is Leonie Mabel (Stoyles) Hollett, and I was born on October 5, 1922, at Hillview. I was the second oldest child of Jim and Blanche (Vey) Stoyles. There were six of us in the family. The oldest was my brother, Lester. Then there was me and my sister Marguerite. Alfred, Lilly and Ray were the three youngest. My brother, Lester, was born in Hillview on February 10, 1921, but spent a short time as a baby in old shack at Northern Bight that served as the station. The old shed was tiny and cold during the winter.
My dad had just gotten a job as a station agent, and my mom, a skilled telegrapher, helped Dad run the station. After I was born, the Newfoundland Railway built a new station house. It contained a ticket office, a freight shed and living quarters for our family. Yes, this was my home, Northern Bight Station, where Dad and Mom raised six children. You know two of my brothers, Alfred and Ray, worked with the railway.
The Newfoundland Railway built two other houses at the station where Samuel Warren’s and Newman Branton’s families lived. Samuel and his station crew took care of the railway to the east. Newman’s crew maintained the western section. Later, Samuel’s son, Nathaniel, built a house because he was employed as a crew member who repaired the rails. Now that was the size of the small village of Northern Bight Station.
Leonie’s nieces at Northern Bight station in 1950.
Dad was on call 24 hours of the day, and when orders were received that an eastbound train would be arriving, he would communicate that to the westbound train. He did not want the two trains meeting and having an accident. Sometimes the train would come during the day and sometimes at night. People from the Southwest Arm region would arrive by boat, take a horse and cart to the station from Queen’s Cove, Northwest Brook or Hillview, and buy their tickets from Dad to their destination.
Mom was skilled in operating the telegraph key, which was used to send Morse Code. That was the main work that my Mom did at the station, which kept her busy. Mom could not keep up with the housework, so we had a housekeeper, or what people used to call a servant. Her name was Jessie Price and she lived with us. She was from Loreburn, a small fishing community below St. Jones Within, but that community is now gone. Nobody lives there anymore.
Northern Bight Station.
Dad and Mom were also responsible for all other types of business done by the railway, including Newfoundland Railway Express money orders. Ross Vivian preserved one of these money orders sent by his dad, John Vivian, who worked at the station as a Fireman.
The front of the new house at the railway station had all windows downstairs and upstairs facing the railway tracks. Dad had an office with a waiting room just off his office. There was an attached freight shed for the arrival and departure of local freight. The train would often be late, and the delayed passengers would sit in the waiting room. Sometimes they fell off to sleep next to the warm potbelly stove that burned coal. That stove was always going, especially in the winter. A door led from the office into the kitchen and the living room, where we prepared our meals and sometimes food for waiting passengers. Mom and Dad would shut that door when people were buying tickets or in the waiting room. The house was two storeys, and a staircase led to the bedrooms.
While growing up at the station, all children attended school at North West Brook or Hillview. Lester and I got our early schooling at Hillview. The road was only a horse-and-cart path that was very rough. When we went to Hillview, we had to stay with our grandparents. It was so hard spending time away from home. My fondest memories were returning home for the holidays and the excitement that would bring to everyone.
Leonie’s father in 1928, with his 1924 Model T Ford.
Later we started attending school at North West Brook, and the government gave money to improve the road between the station and North West Brook. Dad bought a Model T Ford in Clarenville. The gravel roads were still bumpy, but for us kids standing on the runners and hanging on to various parts of the car, it was exciting to be travelling between the station North West Brook. I always remember the boys starting that car engine by turning the crank in the front of the car until you heard the engine sputtering and its final roar. Lester began driving that old car on the station road when he was around 12. When we would leave the station, Lester would always stop and park it at the top of the steep hill going down into North West Brook because it was too dangerous going down that steep hill.
Maybe that’s why Mom got a teacher to come to the station, by the name of Priscilla Cooper. She stayed with us, and she got free board and lodging. She had just finished school and had gone to summer school. She was about 17 or 18 at the time. The three families agreed to pay $5 for a total salary of $15 a month. The families repaired the old sexton shack that was not being used, and it became our one-room schoolhouse. All the children could be schooled at home. Mom and Dad made sure that we all got an education. I did my last year of schooling, Grade 11, at Glovertown, where mom’s friend lived. So I finished in Glovertown, but my sister, Marguerite, completed her education in Hillview. She taught for a couple of years in North West Brook.
A view of Hillview from where the train station once stood.
I enjoyed my life at Northern Bight Station because that’s what I knew. I liked the freedom of catching small trout in the brook with my friends after school, sometimes being late getting home. I remember Mom walking out the station road looking for us, and when she found us in the brook, she told us it was time to be getting home. I enjoyed the late summer and the fall, which brought berrypicking time near the station. Sometimes we would go with Mom and use the train scooter or the pump trolley along the tracks to find berries. In the winter, we would use barrel staves to go siding down the snow piled up near the rails by the snowplough, or piled up even higher when the rotary snowplough would go by the station because the snowplough could not push the snow any higher. I enjoyed going to the United Church at North West Brook on Sundays with my family.
In my later years at the station, the Newfoundland Railway put on a train during the summer that would run on Sundays known as the “Flyer.” This train would leave St. John’s and arrive at the Northern Bight Station at 20 minutes to three in the afternoon. Our family would always have a cook dinner, and Mom would expect us to have all the dishes washed and the old cast iron stove cleaned and shiny before the arrival of the Train Flyer. We would have to be dressed and have our hair curled using the curling iron before the people would start gathering at the station from nearby communities. The Flyer would stop to let people off and be gone in less than 10 minutes. Sometimes, the train would go on through because no one was on board to get off.
The train was often late, and Mom would say to us, “You will have to get a lunch for those people.” We would prepare the table, put on a white cloth embroidered around the edges, and set the table with the best dishes and cutlery. Then we prepared sandwiches, biscuits and tea for the hungry people. Mom would only allow us to charge 25 cents for the food and service.
At 17, I graduated and went to St. John’s to become a nurse. That is where I got TB. But that is another story for another day.
My parents are gone now. There is only three of us still living: my younger sister Ruth, 94 years old; Ray the youngest at 91 years; and me. I will be 100 years old in October.
Happy Birthday, Leonie from the Southwest Arm Historical Society and me.
Growing up Railside – PDF – Downhome Article
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Transcribed by Wanda Garrett, June 2023.
These transcriptions may contain human errors. As always, confirm these as you would any other source material