Articles: 2003-Armstrong article

Kingston Whig Standard
Saturday 19th April, 2003
A Wolfe Islander contemplates his 101st spring: "It'll be planting time soon"
Button Bay is a sheltered little cove of the St. Lawrence River that gently cuts into the south shore of Wolfe Island. At the narrow western end of the bay is a short, narrow wooden bridge spanning the gap. It's perfect for fishing from. Just up the hill on the left side stands a sturdy, two-story L-shaped farmhouse, the kitchen windows by the stove offering a clear view of anything or anyone coming up the road.
On a clear spring moring, the Cape Vincent Stage Coach thundered across the bridge, the twin teams of horses picking up speed as they approached the hill. Inside the house seated at the kitchen table, young Herbet Armstrong glanced up once, and then paid no heed as the team thundered past his dad's farm on the seventh concession road separateing the farmhouse from the barns. The Armstrong farm was on the main road that ran north to south across Wolfe Island.
As the dust settled outside, Herb continued to read the Directions for Tanning Skins with Hair On at his mother's kitchen table. It read: "...soak the skin in warm water for one day....remove all the fat....dissolve by boiling the alum and salt in water....let soak for four days...."and so on. This was important, for young Herb had 20 fox skins hanging off the barn that he had trapped earlier in the week. The process had to be started soon, for his farm chores were waiting outside as well.
Some 85 years later, I sat in this same kitchen with Herbert Armstrong and neighbour John O'Shea. Probably at the same kitchen table, too. It was all Herb's now, and had been for some time. In fact, Herbert Armstrong lived his whole life on this same farm he was born on. The main room of the house, like all farmhouses, was the kitchen. The comfortable, well-worn interior had probably changed little over the years, adding to its charm. The solid floor was three-quarter-inch polished maple. Herb could probably tell you how many paces from the house to the river. Or the old wooden bridge that he crossed on his way to school (and probably stopped to fish at once in a while instead). He could probably tell you how long it took to milk 18 cows by hand. When to start ploughing and planting in the spring. And how not to get lost in a blizzard. He certainly remembered the beginnings of the country road that ran through his farm.
"It was the first road on the island. They chopped it outta the bushes. It was all mud. We used to get stones from the beach that washed up on shore. All done by hand. There was a hotel just up the road from here where the ol'stagecoach would stay because the roads were so bad. Quite often, they held bees where everyone pitched in and helped pull more stumps out."
He stops for a minute and looks out the window. "It's gonna snow," he says. "It's got that feel." Can farmers really predict the weather? Later, it snows.
The barns across the road were now silent and empty Inside the house, we were scanning old scrapbooks and photo albums Herb had kept of events and happenings from his corner of the island. "Those fox pelts eventually brought about four dollars each," he began, "because there were so many."

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Herb Armstrong with long-ago fox hunting party..
A car comes up the hill and Herb stops and looks out for a second, then pays it no heed. "I wouldn't give up this area for nothin." he continued. "Fishing, hunting, trapping and farming. Just outside that door."
I had to agree, where else could you walk down to the river edge and land, by chance, a three-foot, 40 pound muskie/ Where else could you hunt and trap wild game to your heart's content/ Where else could you meet, fall in love, raise a family and be content with your life/ Most of us could spend a lifetime searching for just such a utopia. Wolfe Island farmer Herbert Armstrong simply lived it.

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Armstrong shows off a trophy muskie
Shortly after they were married in 1893, Herb's parents, John and Julia Armstrong, left their small farm in Maberly, Ontario. and emigrated south to the "big island" they heard of on the river that was perfect for farming. "There was nuthin up there but rock," Herb pointed out. "The soil over here on this part of the island was very rich. Perfect for growing strawberries. Best darn strawberries, too. The market always preferred Wolfe Island strawberries."
Herb stops and points to a picture an older couple in front of a house. "My dad didn't build the house, he bought it from a fella, a widower, who drank a little... who tried his hand at farming...didn't work out...he once hitched four horses to a plough. imagine, Why they went in every direction."
It was here at this farm where Herb Armstrong was born in 1903. The same year the Folger brothers contract for the ferry was up for tender and the end of the SS Pierrepont. Wolfe Island took control of its own ferry and built the SS Tom Fawcett. The same year Orville and Wilbur Wright first flew at Kitty Hawk, NC.

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Armstrong at 100
On April 5, 2003, Herb Armstrong turned 100. Sadly, Mary Downing whom he married in 1943, wasn't there to celebrate with him. After 56 years of life together at the farm. Mary passed away in 1999. Shortly after, Herb left his farm to reside at Kingston's Trillium Ridge Retirement Centre. Birthday wishes from nearly everyone on Wolfe Island and cards and well wishes from the Queen, Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Ontario Premier Ernie Eves line the wall of his room. So do a lifetime of photographs of family and farm.
Sitting by the window of his room, Herb glances out the window and remarks. "Gonna snow. I can feel it." Typical farmer's remark. Later, it does.
It seems different now, sitting with Herb here at Trillium Lodge, away from his farm kitchen on Wolfe Island. But he hasn't changed. Every once in a while he steals a glance out the window, as if expecting the stagecoach to come speeding past.
He remembers the first car coming to Wolfe Island. I sat in it, too. It was a Ford. Dad drew freight for the stage company from Cape Vincent.

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Herb and Mary Armstrong pose with their first car...
He and Mary would have one of their own a few years later. When the springs went in his rocker years later, Herb replaced them with the springs he still had from his ol' Model A. "That's what you did on a farm. you used what you had."
Electricity didn't come to his farm until Feb. 10, 1944. "Didn't really need it," he recalls, "but we took it anyway."
What about the years of the Great Depression/ didn't really notice it. Too busy. But we helped one another."
"I grew up with that sense of community," says his daughter Anna Bell.
"I also remember the coutless fox pelts. If Dad could see it, he could shoot it."
Herb pauses and glances outside. There's a little circular patch just below that is used for a flower garden.
"We could put a few tomato plants in there, Anna," he says.
"Think they'd grow/"
"Sure they would, Sun hits at the right time. It'll be planting time soon."
Once a farmer, always a farmer.
**Brian Johnson is captain of the ferry Wolfe Islander III and a former member of the The Whig Standard Community Editorial Board.
Submitted by Sharon Compeau

The Islands: Articles: 2003-Armstrong