OYSTER RIVER FLOOD
by Anonymous

Mary Hickey was from down around Bartibogue and she married a Dan Aiton from Albert County. They owned a small holding on Oyster River and had started a family there. At the time of this event, which took place around the turn of the ceutury, Dan was working for a mining company at the oil shales project in Albert County. Mary was at home alone taking care of the small homestead and their four young children. Sometime during the spring freshet the ice blocked the Oyster River and tbe water backed up and flooded their farm. Mary figured they were going to be flooded out and that the cow would probably drown. The cow was housed in a small shed near the house. So, being an ingenious young woman, Mary took tbe cow into the house with her and the children. When the water continued to rise and flood her house, Mary moved her children and the cow upstairs to the second floor. She was trapped on the second floor of her house with the children and the cow for three days. To keep her family from going hungry, while they waited for the water to drop, she gave them milk from the cow. To keep the cow from going hungry she fed it the straw from the ticks they usedfor mattresses on the beds. Pretty smart lady, wasn't she? Sometime after the flood they moved to Red Bank. Dan owned and operated a sawmill on the river here about a half mile above the Warwick Road.