Gerald (Jerry) Sarson
Interviewed by Cathy Eaton, July 2017
Gerald (Jerry) Sarson recounted how in the early years of the conference, Cyrus Eaton provided accommodations for attendees and their spouses but not their children. His parents (Gerald and Doris Sarson) boarded their teenage son during the conference. Gerald was 15 or 16 in the mid fifties. The conference was about a week long. The conference attendee was from the Harvard University.
Gerald originally planned to be a lobster fisherman, but the season was too short. He didn’t want to work in the salt mine because he remembered the tragedy at Spring Hill when the coal mine collapsed. Instead, he joined the RCMP and trained in Ottawa. He was sent to New Brunswick and met his bride, Jean, a registered nurse. After he volunteered for northern service and traveled north to work in Tucktoyuk at the mouth of the McKensie River, which empties into the Artic Ocean, Jean got posted near Gerald. They settled in Inuvik, which he remembers as being so beautiful in the summer.
Gerald remembered the boys and girls swimming by the Little Wharf directly behind the old Coop Store on Water Street. The teenager staying with his family fell off the wharf and bobbed up. He was doing a dog paddle. The watchers commented that he could swim even though he had claimed he didn’t know how to swim. By the end of the conference he was able to swim across the harbor with all the kids. The father was shocked how his son had learned to swim. Not only that but by the end he jumped off the big wharf at low tide. That was his big thrill.
Jerry remembered the C & O train accommodations as being old, made of wood and beautifully finished.
Jerry remembered that Leo Jamieson brought a man to Herb Smith’s garage in a Lincoln car. The power window didn’t work. The garage in Boston couldn’t fix it. The garage in Moncton couldn’t fix it. Leo said this mechanic in Pugwash “could fix damn near anything.” Gerald, the mechanic, went home and got a bobby pin from his wife which he used to fix the window. The man came back the next year and explained that he didn’t get bobby pin replaced because the window kept working. He came back to thank Gerald.
Jerry lives in Truro now and retired in 1991.
Gerald originally planned to be a lobster fisherman, but the season was too short. He didn’t want to work in the salt mine because he remembered the tragedy at Spring Hill when the coal mine collapsed. Instead, he joined the RCMP and trained in Ottawa. He was sent to New Brunswick and met his bride, Jean, a registered nurse. After he volunteered for northern service and traveled north to work in Tucktoyuk at the mouth of the McKensie River, which empties into the Artic Ocean, Jean got posted near Gerald. They settled in Inuvik, which he remembers as being so beautiful in the summer.
Gerald remembered the boys and girls swimming by the Little Wharf directly behind the old Coop Store on Water Street. The teenager staying with his family fell off the wharf and bobbed up. He was doing a dog paddle. The watchers commented that he could swim even though he had claimed he didn’t know how to swim. By the end of the conference he was able to swim across the harbor with all the kids. The father was shocked how his son had learned to swim. Not only that but by the end he jumped off the big wharf at low tide. That was his big thrill.
Jerry remembered the C & O train accommodations as being old, made of wood and beautifully finished.
Jerry remembered that Leo Jamieson brought a man to Herb Smith’s garage in a Lincoln car. The power window didn’t work. The garage in Boston couldn’t fix it. The garage in Moncton couldn’t fix it. Leo said this mechanic in Pugwash “could fix damn near anything.” Gerald, the mechanic, went home and got a bobby pin from his wife which he used to fix the window. The man came back the next year and explained that he didn’t get bobby pin replaced because the window kept working. He came back to thank Gerald.
Jerry lives in Truro now and retired in 1991.