We grew up in a big house like most at the time. It wasn't fancy or anything like that. There was no central heating, no furnace, no electric heat and certainly no mini-splits. The only room in the house that had any heat in winter was the kitchen. People would let the fire in the kitchen stove - which burned wood or coal - go out before they went to bed. Some even threw water in the stove to make sure. There was always the great fear that the chimney might catch fire and we would all be burned in our beds. Almost every winter there was news on the radio of such a dreadful thing happening somewhere in the province. When supper was over we all gathered around the kitchen table to do our homework. There always seemed to be lots of it. We had a cat, Sue was her name, whose favourite game was to jump on the kitchen table and lie down on your open books. When one of us would put her on the floor she would just jump back up again and lie on someone else's open books. Mom would have to put her outside. We always had a cat, as most people did, they were good at catching mice. The female cats were best for that. Most tomcats would let the mice carry them away. Mom would sit in a chair across the room from the kitchen table. My younger sisters and I would kneel down beside her with our readers open on mom's lap. She would have a butcher knife in her hand and move it along the lines under the words as we read them. This is how we learned to read. Mom would help us with spelling words and also our arithmetic, our additions and subtractions and multiply tables. I think moms were the greatest teachers of all. So finally when the homework was done, the schoolbooks packed away in our school bags, we would pull out the chairs from our kitchen table, kneel on the floor with our elbows resting on the seat of the chairs. Mom would lead us in the Rosary. My dad was usually away working somewhere but he did join us when he was home. Sometimes he would try to escape the whole thing by visiting his mother and father across the road. "I'm going over to the old woman's," he'd always say when we started our homework. Dad couldn't help us with our schoolwork because he didn't have much education. My mom grew up in a little place about forty miles from where we lived. There were no more than thirty-five people living there at any given time. They did not have a church in this tiny place, nor a cemetery to bury their dead, only a little one-room schoolhouse with each grade having its own classroom. There were no nuns to run their school or teach religion. But the people of that little place always kept their faith alive, walked many miles winter and summer to attend church on Sunday. Their faith was simple and unrelenting, black and white with no gray areas. You do your part and God will do his. Mom would lead us in the Rosary kneeling in front of the rocking chair. She never read from any book or pamphlet, she knew it all by heart. Which mysteries to say on the different days of the week and so on. She even recited the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary - all 57 incantations - from memory. Even when one of my older brothers, I had three, would misbehave, as they often did, she would stop, correct them, then continue on from where she left off. When you say the response to the 57 incantations "Pray for us" fast, it can sound much different than it's supposed to. My second oldest brother had a real problem with this. How many times did my mom have to stop and say to him, "it's 'Pray for us'." Mom is long gone now, likewise my brother who had trouble with the responses. The precious memories are all that is left. Many times, especially during the winter months, our Rosary would end with the whole family in tears. Now, this was not from any kind of religious fervor, but simply because the splits and shavings in the oven, where they had been put to dry, caught fire and the kitchen filled with acrid wood smoke which burned your eyes and made them water. Mom would throw a wet cloth into the oven to put out the smoldering wood splits, throw them into an empty metal bucket and carry them outside. She would come back inside and continue the Rosary where she left off. Back in the days of my youth everyone went to church on Sunday, some more than once. All the different religions were the same. Everyone dressed in their best clothes, shined their shoes, combed their hair, and many carried prayer books. Most of the people walked to church and after service walked home. There were very few cars. In those days most clergy remained in the same community most of their lives. They didn't rotate every five years or so like they do now. You knew your clergy and they knew you. My education was at my mother's knee. She had her grade eleven because her father believed the only way out of poverty was education. My faith, if I possess any at all, came from the same place, my mother's knee.   Submitted By: Cyril Griffin