here on the Island. It was the Church of Scotland unattached. I think the Minister McDonald came to the Island about 1826. He was one of the famous men of his time. He died in 1867 but left quite a few churches here on the Island. Adjustments We came [to Belle River ] in 1894. That's when we had to learn to work. I was going to school in Chicago...and I loved it there. Really, the happiest days I ever knew. We used to get out in the evening, dancing on the sidewalks. And this might sound like bragging, but it's true. I won a prize in school one day from about 60 or 70 pupils... in the spelling match. It let me have a whole day to go any reasonable place in the World's Fair. And was I proud of myself that night? I hardly touched the sidewalk going home. My father left his work and he took me into the Chicago World's Fair. It was a famous thing at that time. I guess maybe one of the first big fairs that was in the United States. You leave a great big stone school with a couple of hundred pupils in it.. .to come home to a little two-room schoolhouse in Belle River . I felt lost for a while. My grandfather had a nice little farm. Their home was a bit old- fashioned, but it was a good, comfortable place... . My father, he built a mill. A sawmill first. He built a windmill and used to saw lumber with that. Then, eventually, they built a great big mill. It was one of the biggest mills on the Island but it was burned down in wartime. We always thought it was sad it did. We had 27 men working in there at one time. It was well built and well finished, well equipped. There was a rotary saw and all kinds of machinery in it. And the carpentry shop upstairs. And they made floor rigging and shooks. You know what shooks were? Like packing boxes..., but they're not put together. They're just packed for to be made thin... . The carpentry shop did a lot of work. My father built houses and my brother and brother-in-law, they built houses too. They were big houses.... They were good houses. For a while we had sort of a company. My husband founded it. B. Compton and Company. Benjamin, his name was. It lasted, I'd say, around 30 years. In some ways I loved it. In the summer we were around the shore. I was about 12 and I loved to get down at the shore. Then I worked in a lobster factory for a few summers. In our own factory.... Oh, we were workers. Libby Compton 95