Iona [funerals] would be in the church. Oh yes, I done [the Catholics]; Orwell mostly, 'way up through to The Valley ; with the horses, mind you, with the motor hearse too. You'd have to be there at seven o'clock in the morning. We worked for a lot of years for 75 dollars for a whole funeral service. That would be around the '35s or something like that. We charged that for a lot of years. It would have been less in the beginning. That would be real nice - the steel, plush interior, the whole thing. Montague Furnishing Company made [the caskets].... They were very good. There'd be a lot of black ones at the start of it. They'd be black for old people. Very pretty black, too, you know; just plain, you see, there'd be no turn-out; they'd just be plain, no couch. And they looked very nice. Then there'd be a grey and then there 'd be a white. We had little white ones for infants, and then [grey for] kids, 10 or 12 years old. [My father] bought the hearse in Charlottetown . It was the best hearse in Charlottetown at that time. They got more modern, but our hearse was always considered pretty up, you know, pretty good hearse... . When the cars started, we worked with the horses for quite a few years after that. But there was only a few cars around at that time. We were : '"^TOHiT Risdon Gillis Collection Risdon Gillis ready for a funeral, c.1950. Risdon Gillis 177