When Nancy was in high school, she worked at a resort called Blue Spruce Inn during the summers, after Grades 10, 11, and 12. She got the job through a friend of her parents. At the Inn, she worked in the kitchen, serving, doing a lot of dishes, and doing the laundry. She says it was her favourite job aside from being a stay-at-home mom!
This is because of the people that made it enjoyable for her. “You need to learn to work with people,” she says. She and the other girls had breakfast and dinner with the couple that owned the Inn. The couple that owned the Inn had three kids, one boy and two girls.
“They were good to me; they treated us like daughters,” Nancy says. She worked with six other girls, and they lived in the main house. They all shared a room. Their workday started around 8:00 a.m. They finished their workday around 9:00 p.m. with a late afternoon break.
The break was around two hours. “The workdays were long but they were fun, we really learned how to enjoy each other,” says Nancy. Every now and then, after work, they would go to see Ray Conniff music being played at Hidden Valley, Muskoka. They also often went to the beach, which was just across the road.
The boys from the cottages next door would bring their boats and take Nancy water skiing with her friends Janet, Barb, and Norma. One day, while Nancy was water skiing, the boat started up, and the rope was tangled around her finger, resulting in a broken ring finger. It wasn’t too bad of a break, however it made work a bit difficult. Nancy is still in contact with one of the girls she worked with, Janet.
She has stayed in touch with Janet because she went to college with her, and after they graduated they stayed close. Overall, she loved the work, the experience, and all of the people she worked with. It was a great summer job.