By DIANE (JEWER) HANRATTY,
Special to the Georgian
As part of the Georgian's weekly series on the history of Stephenville, we are presenting some personal reminiscences of people who have lived in the town for an extended period. This is the latest of such installments.
One of the biggest things affecting my childhood growing up in Stephenville in the 1950s and 60s was living next door to a trailer park filled with Americans (running off West St., parallel to O'Brien's Drive - it's a vacant lot now).
Of course they were here because of the Harmon Air Force Base. They lived in our neighbourhood because there just wasn't enough housing on base for them.
It was a wonderful time, in so many different ways. There were military families from all over the U.S. in trailers practically surrounding our house. In fact, they were just a few feet away from our doorstep.
But we were close to them in more important ways too. My parents' families have lived in Newfoundland for many generations. But when I was young we spent a lot of time with the Americans - so much that I felt like I was an American myself.
This was especially true before I started going to school. And later, every summer I 'became' an American again until it was time to go back to school in the fall. There were so many of them around that you did what they did.
For me, the biggest celebration of the year when I was young was the Fourth of July. (Christmas was bigger in one way, but that was really celebrated only within your own family.)
You couldn't wait on a summer morning to jump up from bed and run out into the trailer park. There was always some fun to get into, someone to play with, something interesting going on.
For the Americans, they used anything at all as an excuse for a big get-together. They would make enormous salads, and eat different kinds of foods than we usually did.
Some we took to immediately like stuffed green peppers, enchiladas and every kind of ice cream. Others still aren't appealing to me: jellied salads and pickled eggs will never tempt me.
They loved my mother's homemade bread and rolls, though. Sometimes she was reluctant to open our kitchen window, because the aroma would draw so many from the trailers. Kids would come running for it - they didn't know what lassy bread was until they came here!
I remember one time a friend of mine and I went to the commissary (or base store) and used our allowances to buy a giant watermelon - an exotic treat for a Newfoundlander. But on the way home, we dropped our precious treasure and it broke apart in the dirt!
Their birthday parties were really elaborate. Sometimes they would book the big NCO club and it would be closed to its usual customers for the day. Or they would rent the bowling alley.
One thing the Americans weren't prepared for was the weather. Dressing for the cold and outdoor activities like sliding was so foreign to many of them. We'd have to lend lots of them our gear or extra winter clothing. But often their parents wouldn't allow them to skate, for fear they'd get hurt.
I remember one American woman who craved the sunshine and warmth so much that in the summer she did all her ironing outside.
Our American friends had more material things, and more 'modern' things than we did. For instance, they all had store-bought swingsets and plastic sandboxes. If we had swings, they'd be homemade.
We played cowboys and indians a lot. When I was young, I had at least two cowgirl outfits and one Davey Crockett hat.
When we were a little older, we loved to babysit for the Americans because they paid so much more than local people - an amazing 50 cents an hour. We made a fortune. They always had lots to eat too, including great Hershey chocolate bars that seemed so much better than anything we could get.
The trailers were small at first but most people built porches on. Later the trailers got a lot bigger, and had their own extensions that pulled out to widen a room.
In my memory the American parents were really strict. If the kids were in trouble and going to get a 'licking', it really meant a licking for many of them.
Their accents were something else. Sometimes we could hardly understand them at first. So often, you'd hear them ask: "How y'all doing?"
School was different for them too. We didn't have a gym in our school, but they certainly did, with a real school band too. On days of celebration (for instance for Brownies and Girl Guides), they would gather in large numbers, with huge U.S. flags. They were really into ceremony, and being inspected. We Newfoundlanders weren't like that - we were more into having fun, pure and simple!
The trailer park I lived next to was just one of many scattered around Stephenville. I'm sure many other people have just as many memories of the Americans as I do.
Some wonderful friendships developed between local people and Americans who were based here for a few years. My parents stayed in touch for the rest of their lives with some of the Americans, and we still see a few of them occasionally.
Americans may not always have the best reputation around the world, but we had many wonderful times with them and appreciated them a lot when they were here at Harmon.
I'm a proud Newfoundlander, but I for one will never forget my young days when I was an 'American' too!
From left, Joanne and Diane Jewer with an American friend, Patricia.
From left, Americans Billy and Bobby Bowers with their Newfoundland friends, the Jewer sisters.
Some young girls all dressed up for a birthday party in the late 1950s with one of their male friends.