Marion was my aunt, my father's sister. She grew up as the youngest child and the only girl in a family of four older brothers. Her parents were Billy Tom and Maggie A. [Grover] Feltmate. Marion was born with a congenital hip problem that gave her a lifelong limp and she also spent some time in the Kentville Sanitorium where she overcame tuberculosis, but she was always a tiny person and was treated as fragile by the family. She kept a series of Five-Year Diaries, beginning intermittently in 1932 and becoming more consistent in her entries through the War Years and on into the 1960s. She lived in Lower Whitehead (also known as Whitehaven) well into the 1950s. She married Ernest Pike in 1952. She died 23 Nov 1978.She only wrote a line or two a day. If I know the surname of people she mentions, I have placed that information in italics inside square brackets.

- pf

May 9: I was fifteen today

May 21: Dance in the Hall. I met Clarence Armsworthy.

June 24: Dance in the Hall. Big crowd. Evelyn's first dance.

July 5: Broke out with measles. Had awful sore eyes.

July 26: Dance in Hall. first time I spoke to Ralph Munroe.

July 28: Jamie, Carl and Vera got the measles. [her brothers Jamie and Carl Feltmate]

August 1: Max, Lindsay and Covert came this evening.[her brothers Max and Lindsay who were living and working in the United States, and Covert Uloth]

August 15: Havelock Rhynold was drowned. Age 19

August 25: Max and Lindsay went back. Covert left before. Jim took them to Monestry [sic].

November 17: Guild at our house. Josephine and Ada stayed all night. [this was Holy Trinity Anglican's Ladies' Guild. Ada was Ada Rebecca Feltmate b 1912 who later married Vernon Munroe and Josephine was likely Josephine Munroe, the same age as Marion. They both lived in Whitehead proper, a few miles up the road].

November 18: First sewing meeting at Beatrices. Vera, Connie [Grover], June [Uloth], Merle [Munroe], Agatha [Munroe}, Melba, Dora, Louise and Vera, Elsie, Mildred Williams and Annie Ehler.

November 23: First snowfall.

November 29: Show in the Hall. Meeting in School house. I was to the show. Dance after. Violin and guitar music.

November 30: Mr Armitage's last sermon.

December 2: Sewing club at Merle's [Munroe]. Dave [Duncan] got his radio. [This radio was to become a great source of information and entertainment in the village and would make Dave's home a magnet for the villagers. Dave 1886-1942 was married to Lydia Creamer]

December 21: Xmas programme at school. I sang a solo with guitar.

December 22: Uncle Sam Duncan was buried today. He would be 68 on March 10. He had beautiful flowers. Hugh and Clinton down. [Samuel Benjamin Duncan b 1865 in Barrington, Shelburne County, moved to Whitehead with his parents and siblings in 1868 and was baptized in Whitehead in Hugh Munroe's home on Dec 16, 1868. Married Emma Jane Munroe in 1895]