The following transcript of Dr. Maurice Kelly’s interview on Memories and Music (broadcast February 8, 1981) was created by the Sudbury Public Library as part of a Summer Canada Project in 1982. 1 SUDBURY PUBLIC LIBRARY "MEMORIES & MUSIC" INCO METALS CO. LTD. CIGM ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM INTERVIEWEE: Dr. Maurice Kelly TAPE NO: 125 POSITION ; Doctor TRANSCRIBER: Wendy Mayhew DATE: February 8, 1981 DATE OF TRANS: June 1982 INTERVIEWER: Gary Peck SUMMER CANADA PROJECT THEME: Creighton early 1900s - general store, post office, people, working for Inco, baseball. G.P. Dr. Maurice Kelly is our guest today on "Memories & Music" and Dr. Kelly I noted, noticed earlier that you had indicated that you were born September 9th, 1906 in Creighton mine. Before we examine the history of that community perhaps you could tell us a little bit about yourself. M.K . Well my father bought the store in Creighton in 1905, he and my mother came there from Toronto and I was born in 1906. I was the first of a family of 10. Most, many of whom still live in this area, and I went tb Creighton Mine Public School where I was taught by the well-known Ursala Black and later by Irene McGregor who subsequently became my aunt having married my uncle Jim and I went from, after I finished public school in Creighton, I went to Sudbury High School for two years. But it was a great deal of difficulty getting into, - during the winter, - to the high school and I had to live with friends and relatives in Sudbury. So when I went into my third year of high school I went to St. Michael's College School in Toronto where I took the last three years of high school. Subsequently I entered Medicine at the University of Toronto which was a six year course and then I interned for two years at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. From there I went, it was in the Depression times and the only job I could get was working, was contract doctors in Timmins mainly at the Hollinger Mine. The contract doctor for whom I wor ked, also had 3 or 4 other small mine contracts. I worked in Timmins for, t ill 1965 at which time I had an opportunity to come to Sudbury to carryon my speciality of anaesthesia and I worked at the three main hospitals in Sudbury until I retired 3 years ago, after 47 years of medical practice. G.P. And now you're enjoying your, your retirement in Sudbury, I assume. M.K. I'm enjoying it thoroughly. ~~Y 2 G.P. Very much so. If we could back track just a moment you mentioned that you attended elementary school in Creighton Mine. Approximately how many ' students would have been in that school at that time and was it a one room school? M.K. Oh no it was four or five room school. G.P. Four or five rooms. M.K. Yes. G.P. Frame building? M.K. Frame, the original building was frame and it was replaced by a brick building which is still subsequently been t aken down. G.P. The high school in Sudbury what, what type of courses would you have taken at that time? M.K. Well I think, well it was different we had a ••• a, we had a senior matriculation and junior matriculation and • • • First form, Second form, and Third form. They were called forms rather than, well I suppose they're still called forms, but a. The course were very much like the present one. The high school G.P. Fairly standard. M.K. Fairly standard. The high school in my time was the site of the present Sudbury High School but it was only seven rooms. There were seven classrooms and a l ab and then out at the back was the Mining School, which did a very good job. A great number of people in the mining industry got their star t in the Sudbury High School or the Sudbury Mining School. G.P. An ideal location that I would imagine many went to commun­ ities further north in the mining industry. M.K. Oh yes allover. G.P. And across the country as well I suppose. Dr. Kelly I notice you have a number of other certificates on the wall, some of which I assume are not relating to necessarily to your medical career. Could you comment on some of those? M.K. Well the, the first one, of course, is my medical degree certificate. G.P. Right. M.K. And then I got my fellowship in the Royal College of Physicans in Canada for my speciality of anaesthesia and in non-medical things, well partially medical things. I spent 30 years with KELLY 3 the St. John's Ambulance Brigade. G.P. Right. M.K. And as a result I received a, I'm a Commander of the Order of the St. John of Jerusa l em and in a, back in about the 1960's when Pope John was alive I received a, a decoration known as the, ••• I was made a knight of St. Gregory the Great for my educational, religious, and civic endeavours. G.P. Very interesting, I imagine t hat your quite proud of that. M.K. I am indeed. G.P. I would be. Your father you mentioned went to Creighton I believe was it in 1905? M.K. 1905, yes. G.P. Your dad I think had an interesting career even prior to that I understand he was associated with the Hudson Bay Company. M.K. Oh yes, he a, he a came to Sudbury in the middle of the 1890's and he was the, his job was the, at least his work was the, he was the manager of a Hudson's Bay Retail Store and a, down which was down behind where Liberty is now and where the, where the Eaton's Store was first, and the other connection with Sudbury, - my mother who was a legal secre­ tary to a, to Judge Mulligan, J. Mulligan who was a grand­ father of D'Arcy Mulligan who is a lawyer in Sudbury now. G.P. Right. Judge Mulligan being a brother of Dr. W.H. Mulligan. M.K. Yes a brother of Dr. Mulligan, yes. G.P. One of your, well, early pioneer families in the communi ty. M.K. Yes, yes at the same time my dad, of course, in addi tion to having the store at Creighton was the post master at Creighton. G.P. Right. M.K. In which he was assisted by my mother and another post office connection was that my uncle Jerry and his, his wife Mary Kelly were the post master and post mistress in Sudbury at the same time. G.P. That's quite interesting. M.K. Yeah. KELLY G.P. Your, your parents' names being? M.K. James, James and my mother was Alice. G.P. Alice. M.K. Yes. G.P. All right, I'm sure a number of people interested in postal history will want to, want to hear a little further about that. But first we'll turn back to our musical host. (Music) G.P. Dr. Maurice Kelly is with us today talking about the commu­ nity of Creighton Mine, the comm~nity in which he was born. Dr. Kelly, your dad, you had indicated earlier, established his store in 1905 which would have to make his business one of the early businesses considering the fact that I think Creighton began around 1901. Could you tell us what it was like to, to grow up in, in that kind of environment where your, where your parents had a store and also operated the post office in the community. What was it like for a youngster1 M.K. Well it was a General store and I really mean general, we carried everything and • • • in the stores at the time was very, very little packaged goods. Most things came in bulk and had to be packed, weighed out as they were ordered over the counter. As far as getting supplies in were concerned my father had to go to Sudbury once or twice a week either with horse and, and buggy at first or latterly with a truck, to bring supplies back to the store dealing with oh - National Grocers and D.L. McKinnon's and Canada Packers' and Swifts' and so on. The a, now for example, though our potatoes all came in at one time in the Fall. They mostly came from, from the Valley and they, they would be sent in a boxcar from, from the Valley out to Creighton and we would have to transfer them from, from the boxcar to our cellar. And the, well milk was delivered by, by local farmers to, we didn't carry milk as they, bottle of milk and so on. It was the, the local dairyman. John Ritari was the well-known, one of the well-known milkmen. G.P. Right. M. K. And they, they came to the house each day with fairly bulk milk and the, the interesting, one of the interesting things about supplies was that the Algoma Eastern ran from Sudbury to Little Current everyday and a good deal of stuff came in on there. As far, a good deal of produce conce ~ned, a lot of it came from Manitoulin. We would get vegetables to the store at 5 o'clock in the afternoon that were picked in Manitoulin the first thing in the morning.