Ida Spiers - c.1940IDA MAY SPIERS
By Leslie C. Spiers
Sometime before WWI, Ida left my grandfather's farm near Huntsville and moved to Orangeville where she worked in a millinery shop. From there she moved to Toronto and obtained work at Eaton's Department Store. While living in Toronto, Ida roomed with Dick and Olie (Spiers) Blackhall. Although Ida remained a spinster all her life, she did have a fiance in Toronto and would have been married if it hadn't been for the War. Her fiance, Horace Kipp, came back from overseaes in poor health as a result of mustard gas poisoning and died before they could complete their plans. Over the years, Ida had other gentlemen freinds but never became seriously involved because I do not believe she ever got over Horace.
My earliest remembrances of Aunt Ida were in the 1930's. For earlier times I quote from a letter written by Mac Lapointe.
"We were living in Kerns Twp. in the fall of 1915 when your aunt Ida and aunt Violet came to see us for a week of two. They were great fun and were enjoyed by not only my mother but by young and old; the high point being a party to which all the adult neighbours were invited. I have a couple of snapshots of your aunt Violet and mother posing as men on the road in front of Grandma Martha's house. Back in 1920 I saw your aunt Ida again while making a trip to Eaton's and later spent and evening with her at Carrie Sangster's."
My first recollection of my aunt Ida was when my parents would, on the way to Huntsville from Detroit, stop in Toronto at the Blackhall's to visit with Ida. About 1933 Ida quit Eaton's to move back to the farm in Muskoka to keep Grandmother Annie company. Ida was a talented seamstress and was always sewing something. In fact, if she got a store bought dress she would take the dress completely apart and resew every seam. She would sit by the window where you could see all the way down Hwy 11 and pump a treadle of the old Singer sewing machine with her foot while making clothing.
Unfortunately, she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis most of her life and as she became older it was difficult for her to sew or to walk without crutches. When I was a young boy in th 1930's and stayed on the farm in the summer, Ida was always a lot of fun to be with. She taught me how to darn socks, sew on buttons and sew little flowers on pillow cases. My regret is that I did not write down the names of people that she would show me in her picture album.
