Trauma and Transitions

In 1907 this site was chosen for a mill because of the natural waterfall from Link Lake into the ocean. All that was needed for an ample supply of fresh clean water and hydro electric power was the construction of the dam. With all the rain, the water supply was so great that after usage for power and mill operation, the abundant water still overflowed the dam.

I was losing my family soon. My sister, niece, and brother-in-law were soon leaving. The hall/house would be abandoned as there was no use for it and empty buildings were becoming common in town. We almost lost it entirely one night. There was a steam whistle on the roof of the steam plant at the mill that whistled several times of day, mainly for shift changes and at noon. There was also a three blast signal if there was a fire in the mill and four blast whistle if there was fire in town. When we heard the blast from the whistle, we dismissed it as another false alarm or maybe fire practice for the volunteer brigade. We went to the living room window which had a commanding view of most of the town and noticed an orange glow coming from just below us. The school, one of the largest buildings in town, other than the mill itself, was right in front of our house, just down from us and to the left. We stared in disbelief as the fire grew and it was soon apparent that the old wooden structure was no match for the fire fighters. As the fire rapidly grew, we suddenly realised that we were grave danger if we did not get out of our house quite quickly. We were uphill from the fire, on a steep slope, and the wooden road and stairway that joined the streets was a perfect 'fuse' for the fire to creep upward. There was only one way out of our place and that was down the road right behind the school. Failing that, we would have to crawl up a very steep and rugged slope into the bush above 10th street. Doing that with a babe in arms was not likely. We quickly gathered a handful of valuable and some milk for the the baby and rushed out of the house. As I climbed the stairs from my room to the upper level and exit door, I touched the walls and they were already getting hot, on the inside!
We escaped without incident and stayed with friends just down the street until the wee hours of the morning and things had cooled off. In the light of day, we saw that some of the windows were cracked from the heat and the paint was blistered on the corner closest to the school. I cannot remember if it was raining that night, it probably was, but something saved the building. The question is, for what? The best thing was that our possessions, for what they were, remained intact. There was talk, the next few days, that a set of twin boys, not wanting their exam marks to get out, torched the school. I would say their strategy worked, at least temporarily, because the school was completely destroyed.