The Rememberers - Minnie Brooks - Station Agent

The Rememberers - Minnie Brooks - Station Agent

An article was published in an unknown newspaper on an unknown date recounting some memories of Minnie Brooks. The newspaper clipping came from the George Warden family scrap book. Ms Brooks had been a station agent for many years at the stations in Avonport and Grand Pre, starting in 1910. The article also included an unrelated photograph of a Windsor and Annapolis locomotive with a number of employees identified. The scan of the article appears below, while the article's text is shown here for search purposes:

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The Rememberers:

by Heather Davidson

Second W. & A. R. Locomotive
Upper Row — Thomas Walsh, Harry Appleton, James Appleton, Hans Mosher, Alec Wilson, Sandy Nickel, John Holley, Herb Parish, Dan Copeland, James Driscoll, Wm. Blundell, James Griffin, Chas. Dorman.
Lower Row — John Hughes, Ephraim Hiltz, Michael Driscoll, boy, Chas. Benang, Edw Williams (boss painter), John Perry (boss blacksmith), boy, James Leitch (master mechanic), boy, Chas. Parish, William Malcolm, Peter McQuarrie, Marshall Schofield, Wm. Crandell, Joseph Galant, John Rodger, H. Manning, David Harris, Tom Calder, Andrew Leitch, Joseph Goal, John Robinson.

As a modern young woman, I believed, until quite recently,that my generation had discovered the concept of the liberation of women. We may have discovered the concept and we may have publicized it, but women such as Minnie Brooks have been living it for years. The following is from a conversation with Ms. Brooks.

“When I was growing up in Avonport, the station agent was Peter Green, and then his daughter, Margaret, became agent in his place.

“When Margaret went to the states in 1910 on a vacation, I supplied for her.

“The next year, Margaret moved to the states to live and the post was up for bids. I was given the post because I had supplied both at Avonport and at Falmouth. I was probably one of the first women station agents and during the First World War there were many more in that same occupation.

“I had to be at the station at 6 a.m, to meet the passenger train to Halifax. After the departure of that train, I could then go home for breakfast and then return to work.

“A station agent at that time, had no definite hours but had to be able to work 24 hours a day, if it was necessary.

“When I first went to work, I had to wear a man's railroad watch, which had to be inspected each year, on a chain.

“In those days, all the mail came by train. Each train would generally be made up of an engine, a mail car, baggage car, express parcel car, first class passenger car, parlour car, and caboose.

“Avonport was a busy station. I sold tickets for passengers. All the tile and brick for the two brickyards here in town had to be billed when shipped. Carloads of wood came in for the yards and they all had to be noted. Express parcels were sent and received.

“Only once I had to work all night. The express from Yarmouth was late and I called through to Kentville to ask if I could go home because I knew that the train wouldn't be in until morning.

“Kentville station asked me if I had any passengers and I told them that I had one, Dr. V. C Borden, principal of Mount Saint Allison University.

“I was told that I must stay, so Dr. Borden slept on a cot which had belonged to Peter Green and I sat up all night in the office chair.

“At 5 p.m., Dr. Borden got up and asked me to walk up and down the platform and enjoy the beautiful sunset with him.

“At that time, I was paid $16 a month and I finally told the railroad that I couldn't stay for those wages. I had been offered a much better job at the bank. The railroad then raised my pay to $40 a month and that was big pay in those days.

“The reason I never married| was that I was married to my job.

“In 1932, the brickyards were closed at Avonport and so was the station. I was given a choice of four stations, and I chose Grand Pre.

“I was working at Grand Pre when we had the first Apple Blossom Parade and I worked every one until 1951, when I retired.

“Grand Pre wasn’t quite as busy at Avonport. There were five apple warehouses there and| they shipped carloads of apples all fall and into the winter. Christmas trees were also shipped to the United States.

“In the days when I first worked there, milk was shipped to Halifax. There would be between 60 and 80 cans of milk to be shipped and each can had to be ticketed.

“I remember one time when a box of chickens was delivered by the train to the station. In order to find out if any were dead, I had to let them out to run on the floor of the waiting-room. I had quite a time catching them in order to return them to their boxes.

“It was beautiful working in that station. Each morning, I would have fresh flowers from the gardens in the park.

“How did the men I worked with treat me?

“They were all real gentlemen and would do anything for me. Perhaps they sometimes did work that I should have done!

“I worked with men all the time, except during the summers when Gladys Porter worked at Grand Pre.

“Born Gladys Richardson in Cape Breton, she attended Acadia, where she met and later married Wyman Porter. She lived in Kentville and in the summer, she took the train daily to Grand Pre where she worked first in the tea-room and then in the gift shop.

“She was a very clever person and a great organizer. Later, of course she became mayor of Kentville and a member of the Legislature. She may have been the first woman mayor and the first woman Member in Nova Scotia.

“She was the nicest friend I ever had and I was terribly sorry when she died.

“We all worked long hours on the railroad and it wasn’t until the last years before my retirement that I actually worked only a 40 hour, five day week.

“I'm living so long now that I've out-lived nearly all my old friends”

Miss Brooks, who is now bothered by weak legs and cataracts, has recently moved to Dykeland Lodge in Windsor and will celebrate her 91st birthday on November 9.

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