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By Simona Laiu
After Heritage Mississauga's lecture in April on the
'Cooksville Brickyard Village', we received a number of photographs from
people that used to live in the 'Brickyard Village'. Some were of men
and bricks, some of girls and chickens, some of young women that had just
come to Canada and the 'Brickyard Village' was their first home. How do
we take all these images along with the oral histories we have recorded
and like the pieces of a puzzle recreate these peoples' existence?
Since it was the women who brought in almost all of the pictures,
I decided to open a "little window in time" and find out what were some
of the chores and activities that went on during a regular day at the
'Brickyard Village' for the women. Most of the workers at the brickyard
were Italian immigrants. Some immigrated with their families from Italy,
others came as bachelors and sponsored their brides from Italy to Canada.
One such bride was Noemi Pellegrini, who joined her husband in Canada
in 1951 and lived for a couple of years in one of the houses built for
the German Prisoners of War during World War II. After the war, the barracks
were converted into housing for the newcomers by Armando Cocchio, another
resident of the 'Cooksville Brickyard Village'.
Mrs. Pellegrini remembers the "black tar paper" houses as generally
comfortable but desolate looking, but also that there was a great general
atmosphere of help and co-operation between the neighbors. "Women," as
Mrs. Addina Cocchio puts it, "were never bored at the 'Brickyard Village'."
It was their sole responsibility to prepare the meals, and look after
the children and the house. The houses were either single family units,
equipped with a kitchen with wood or coal burning stove and electricity,
or a bigger house where boarders had to be taken, and women, through their
effort of cooking and cleaning for an extra person, could earn an extra
income for the family. There was no running water and women had to bring
laundry water from the pump in the centre of the village Mrs. Josephine
(Barbisan) Rinaldo remembers it being called 'the Tap'. Drinking water
was brought in from another pump in the village. Gathering at 'the Tap'
for a chat was one of the ways women relaxed those days. The women also
kept vegetable gardens and raised chickens. They washed clothes by hand
and dried them around the stove. They also had to make their children's
clothes and knit woollen socks, scarves and hats for the whole family.
Since the 'Cooksville Brickyard Village' was quite far from the actual
Cooksville Village, Mrs. Rinaldo remembers Charlie Copeland, the son of
the post master and owner of the grocery store in Cooksville, picking
up weekly orders and delivering food to the 'Brickyard Village'. Mr. Halsey,
one of the butchers from Cooksville is remembered fondly for his generosity.
He helped the Barbisan family get through the years of Depression when
Rinaldo's father could not work due to illness and could not provide for
his family. Mrs. Rinaldo recalls: "maybe it was one soup bone or stuff
from the store that did not sell, but he would always remember us and
his generosity went a
long way. I have good memories. There were good people that helped us.
It got us through, we did not have to go on relief." Since most of the
women did not speak English, they could communicate little with the outside
world. Mostly, it was relatives and friends coming to visit on the weekend.
The children, however, went to school and a few worked at the Cooksville
Brickyard during the summer vacations or as their first job. Mrs. Rinaldo
and Mrs. Assunta (Barbisan) Moro both worked in the offices of the Brickyard.
I remember how all the villagers we interviewed for our Oral History Database,
that grew up in the 'Cooksville Brickyard Village', recalled the hard
work but wonderful times their families had at the 'Brickyard Village'
until it was closed and demolished in the mid-1950s. "We were like a close
knit family" says Mrs. Cocchio. And, a close knit family they seemed to
have stayed, the proof being the way they came together to sponsor Heritage
Mississauga's five Cooksville brickyard commemorative plaques. Our search
for more information on the life and times at the Cooksville brickyard
factory and village will leave this window in time and history open and
us ready to speak to new generations on the industrial and human heritage
of Cooksville.
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