I’ve been told by my family that since I reached my senior years, it has become difficult to shop for me at Christmas. “Hey, no problem,” I generally reply. “Just give me a history book.”

Like many seniors, I revel in reading and collecting local history books; especially community history books of which there have been more than a few in recent years. With that hint out of the way, I’m going to make it easy for seniors whose spouses, children and grandkids are wondering what to give you for Christmas. Tell them to visit the Kings County Museum and get you a couple of history books for Christmas.

I’ll make it even easier for anyone to shop for you. Here’s a mini-review of a few of the books available. Pass it along to anyone who says it’s difficult to find a suitable gift for you.

Kings County Vignettes. A vignette is a brief account and that’s exactly what this soft covered series is, a 10 book collection of concise historical sketches covering various aspects of Kings County history. Price per book: $7.

Township books, Kings County, Nova Scotia : Aylesford, Cornwallis, Horton, compiled by Lorna Evans. Basically a record of marriages, births, and deaths in the townships between 1784 and 1862. A good research tool for anyone looking up their ancestors. $25.

A Genealogical History of Long Island by Douglas Eagles. While a history of farms dating back to the Planters, this book also describes the trials and tribulations of settling here and dividing up the dykelands following the Acadian expulsion. Recommend as an overview of early Planter life in Kings County. $15.

Camp Aldershot by Brent Fox. One of my favorite books and a great read if you’re interested in the military. Fox gives the history of Camp Aldershot from 1904 until roughly the present. Well researched, well written and a pleasure to read. A great stocking stuffer at $4.

Also for military buffs, We Remember the Veterans of New Ross. While primarily a record of the men and women of New Ross who served in the military from the time of the Riel rebellion, the Boer War and up to World War II, this book also covers the history of New Ross as a military settlement. $39.

Boats, Books, and Apples. A portrait of E. D. Haliburton, the life and writing of one of Kings County’s most distinguished politicians and farmers. New release. $30.

All the Old Apples and More. I hope readers will forgive my immodesty in mentioning this collection in soft cover of 100 of my history columns from The Advertiser. Published by the Museum and proceeds are used to fund Museum activities. $20.

I’ve only covered a few of the 40 or more history books available at the Museum. Also available on disk are records of births and deaths in Kings County and other Valley areas. Check at the Museum for a complete list of other books and records that are available.

In a couple of years, Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton’s Kings County history will have been in print for a century. Since 1910, when Eaton’s history appeared, numerous history books have been written about Kings County communities; none have approached the scope of Eaton’s work. His is the most detailed record ever compiled of early days in the county, well deserving of a phrase I often use, the bible of Kings County historians.

We owe a debt to A. W. H. for sitting down, taking pen in hand, and writing this history. Compiling it alone was a tremendous task. Imagine the great mounds of historical records A. W. H. sifted through, read and rewrote before deciding what was relevant and what to set aside. I know I’m using a cliché, but the amount of effort required to collect and write the history is best described as mind boggling.

In the preface to his work, Eaton said the physical act of writing took three years. He started collecting material for his work 20 years before the writing and editing took place. Perhaps he never intended to write the history in the first place; but as his collection of manuscripts grew, it probably dawned on him that a comprehensive history of Kings County was not only possible and in his words, imperative.

While Eaton wrote the Kings County history in Boston, he was born here and spent his early, formative years in the county. He studied for the ministry in Boston. Later, in 1904, some six years before the history was published, he earned a masters degree at Dalhousie University.

Eaton was born in 1849, possibly in Kentville since his father was a prominent citizen of the town. The Kings County history was published when Eaton was in his 61^st year and was compiled and written while he was in the ministry. He died in 1937 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Kentville. His prominent tombstone, reading he was a Doctor of Civil Law and a Priest of the Diocese of New York, overlooks the highway at the east end of the town.

Postscript: I’m repeating myself but in an age when records were stored as handwritten documents in widely scattered locations, Eaton must have collected, copied, sorted and edited an enormous number of historical papers before he could even think about writing his history. For some of his history, he referred to the research of several historians, most of whom he credited in his work, a few that he did not. However, this takes nothing away from a great historical work that today many of us take for granted.

I was unable to determine how many copies of the original edition were released, but it’s definitely a collector’s item. Copies of the original edition are now being offered on the “web,” (at AbeBooks, for example) from $225 to $370. Used copies of the Mika reprint, published 1972, are currently selling for $30 to $40.

In a column earlier this autumn, I quoted from the privately printed autobiography the late Alex Middleton compiled for his family. As mentioned, Middleton arrived in Canada from Scotland in 1929, when he was 13, but his autobiography covers his earlier days in his homeland, as well as the period when he was growing up in Kings County.

Mr. Middleton’s nephew George Reid, who is a printer, was responsible for getting the autobiography into book form. I was talking with George recently, expressing surprise that anyone could remember so much detail about what had occurred on the farm more than half a century ago. “Alex was a born storyteller and a born writer,” George said in effect, “and he had a photographic memory to go along with these talents.”

George added that Middleton had a keen sense of humor. Reading his book, I found he often had something to laugh about when a relatively minor crisis hit his farm during the lean, hungry years of the 1930s. It wasn’t a period of levity, however. Far from it. Middleton says he found it “hard to believe that people were so poor” at the time. And, he writes, since money was scarce, people had to be creative when it came to getting the most out of worn out equipment and personal things.

On boots, for example: “No one thought of buying (them) if you could make the old ones do for a while longer. You could buy a half soling kit at the store for fifty cents. Also, many talented people soled (their boots) with strips of old tires. Since there was no such thing as tubeless tires, there were many discarded tubes around. These were converted into screen door springs (and) braces for holding pants up.”

If money for clothing was scarce in the lean 30s, people came up with a simple solution to replenish wardrobes, Middleton said. “All flour and sugar bags were saved to make clothing; in fact, there were places in Upper Canada where you could send and buy large quantities of this material. Underwear, shirts and children’s clothing were the most common uses.”

Automobiles were rare in Middleton’s neighborhood during this period since few people could afford them. There were a few farm trucks, however, and says Middleton, this meant there was an opportunity for an occasional night out. “Most of the people wanting to go into town on Saturday night (open night) paid a few cents and rode in the back of a big truck. This would be the only outing many would have.”

I find it amusing that at one time away back, trains stopped for meals and the “liquoring up” of passengers at various stations along the line. Apparently there were scheduled stops in the early days of the railroad solely for the purpose of serving alcoholic beverages to male passengers, meals being added as an afterthought.

William W. Clarke mentions the beverage and lunch stops in his railway book, Clarke’s History of the Earliest Railways; I surmise from what Clarke wrote that some of those victualing stops were over and above the regular stops at established stations, but that may be wrong. It appears, however, that train passengers were encouraged to get off the train and partake of a drink in restaurants located in various stations along the line.

Of course, the railway operated some of the restaurants and it was another way to profit from what literally were captive customers. When the train stopped at Windsor Junction, for example, the restaurant located there – the Junction House – had signs posted inviting passengers to have a glass of ale and a leg of chicken.

More than ale was served with the food. “In the pioneer days of the Windsor and Annapolis Railway,” Clarke writes, “ale, porter and other intoxicants were sold at the railway stations.” Passengers could also enjoy a wee “dock ‘n” doris” (doch-an-doris – Gaelic for drink at the door) at four places along the line, Clarke said. Traditionally, the wee doch-an-doris in Scotland was whiskey, which apparently was one of the “other intoxicants” Clarke mentions.

In Kentville, railway travelers once were served by the Kentville Railway Restaurant and we can assume that intoxicants were available here as well. This restaurant, Clarke writes, was famous for its fish meals. The restaurant was operated for a time by a “motherly Mrs. Patterson who won the hearts of the boys, supplying daily, quantities of appetizing fish patties.”

I’m not sure when the Kentville Railway Restaurant was in operation (or when it closed) but likely it was between 1890 and as late as the 1920s. (Mr. Clarke died in 1929). After Mrs. Patterson, and until the C.P.R. came into the picture around 1911, the lunchroom was operated by one Capt. LeCain, Edward Moore and Jim Rooney.

Farther down the line, one of the station lunchrooms posted an amusing and poetic sign advising potential customers that “Lunches tempting (are) served by the Misses Vye/And featured oft by luscious custard pie.”