A Visit to Point Verde, NFLD

After visiting Argentia, on the Western Shore of the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, we continued down Hwy 100, just a little south of Placentia to the town of Point Verde.  My mother's cousin Edna lived in Point Verde, as did her mother Margaret and father William Greene.  Great Aunt Margaret Tobin Greene was my grandmother Ellen Tobin Flynn's younger sister.

My grandmother, Aunt Margaret and their family grew up just south of Point Verde in Ship Cove, Newfoundland.

It was a beautiful, cool crisp spring day in Newfoundland when I caught up with my cousin at her home in Point Verde.  Edna and her husband Eugene were just coming back from a sailing/fishing trip to Merasheen Island.  They invited us in for some hot tea and fruitcake. (Traditional Newfoundland Hospitality)

Edna and I
Point Verde Newfoundland - May 2013

View from Edna's House in Point Verde
looking out toward Placentia Bay

Patrick Tobin's House
Ship Cove, NFLD

Lt to Rt My grandmother Ellen, her brother Patrick Tobin,
his second wife Fanny and Great Aunt Margaret
Ship Cove - 1966's?

I found the above photos in my mother's collection. I remember the photo on the left specifically, I remember going to visit Uncle Patrick and his wife Fanny in Ship Cove that day, I was just a young girl about 5 or 6 years old. It is nice to have a photo of my grandmother's family. I showed Edna the photo of the house (on the right) that I believed to be my Great Grandparent's House,  John and Mary Follett Tobin, Edna informed me that that was not their house, but their son Patrick's. She goes on to say, that my Great Grandparents house had been moved and then burned down, they then lived in Patrick's House. 

I asked Edna if her mother ever talked about what it was like growing up in Ship Cove, she replied, "My mother never talked much about the old days, except for how hard they always had to work for everything.  She did not talk about the past nor about bad things that had happened in her life. It was just how she was, it was how most of the older folks were!" Edna also told me,  Aunt Margaret did not like when anyone would come around asking questions about genealogy, she would often ask, "What do you need to know that for?"

Wedding Day - abt 1945
William Greene and Margaret Tobin

Painting of Aunt Margaret and Uncle Willy's House
 hanging in Edna's House
Point Verde, Newfoundland

Site of Aunt Margaret and Uncle Willie's House
Point Verde, Newfoundland 2013

Margaret Lucy Tobin Greene was born March 15th, 1915 in Ship Cove, NFLD, she was the youngest of eight children to John William Tobin and Mary Bridget Follett, she married William Greene in 1945, they raised 4 children in Point Verde, NFLD,  William died in 1978, he developed Leukemia and died of a Heart Attack. After William's death, she lived with her daughter Edna and her family for 22 years,  helping to care for her grandchildren. Edna states her mother was a bit of a "Homebody" she took one big trip in her life to visit her sisters in New York, when she returned she said "I had a great time, but will never do that again." Aunt Margaret died December 24th, 2000 of Bladder Cancer at the age of 85 years.

My mother often spoke lovingly of Aunt Margaret and was very fond of her. I remember visiting her as a young girl and playing out in her garden.  After my conversation with Edna, I wonder what Aunt Margaret would think of me, asking so many questions about the past? I guess the response I would give her, is that, family history matters, our ancestor's lives and the work they did was important. It  paved the way for our future. And, I would really like to know about them!

Next stop, Ship Cove, Newfoundland.

                                            

                                                                                                         Elaine