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| Terry with his father, Mel Culbert at Poplar Farm, 1944. |
This story concerns the six sons of Myron Manford Culbert and Effie Pearl Taylor at Poplar Farm on the Coursey Road near Lucan.
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| Five of the six sons of Myron Manford Culbert and Effie Pearl Taylor, circa 1927. Left to right: Mel, Ken, Cliff, Ivan, and baby Mert. Missing is their brother, Earl who wasn't born until 1929. |
Take it away, Terry!...
It was told to me many years ago that our wee father [Mel] and his five brothers [Cliff, Ken, Ivan, Mert and Earl] would raid Effie Pearl's pantry just off the kitchen and steal soda biscuits whenever they were made aware that a new barrel of molasses had been delivered to Myron and Effie's barn.
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| The barn at Poplar Farm. Photo from the collection of Hulda May (Culbert) Carscallen, courtesy of her granddaughter, Wendy (Gowland) Boole. |
Now Myron and Effie, parents of those six naughty boys, had a herd of dairy cattle and a few pigs. The molasses was used primarily for the iron within, to be mixed with the cattle feed. The six brothers knew that the rich, fantastic taste from the new barrel was to be had as soon as the lid was removed. As days passed and scoops were inserted into the barrel, cow dung would get into that glorious liquid, and by all accounts would probably taste like shite and give them all the "green apple scoots."
My father introduced me to molasses as a very young child and as I
approach the ripe young age of 80, I still absolutely love it. In our
Prince Edward County pantry this very day, Barb and I have a 675g
container of Crosby's Fancy Molasses, no preservatives, gluten-free from St. John, New Brunswick.
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