Edward (Ted) Russell was born in 1904 in Coley’s Point, Newfoundland. Having received his early education there, he completed his final year of high school at Bishop Feild College in St John’s and began teaching at the age of 16. His first assignment was a one-room all-grade school at Pass Island, followed by years in Harbour Breton, Millertown, Channel, Fogo, and St. John’s. In the meantime, he also completed 2 years of teacher education at the old Memorial College. In 1934 he married Dora Oake, daughter of Jesse and Laura Oake, formerly of Change Islands. 

In 1963, Ted’s career took a significant change as he was appointed a magistrate under the Commission of Government. He served in that capacity for several years in each of Springdale, Harbour Breton, and Woody Point, Bonne Bay. During this period, four daughters were born to Ted and Dora: Rhona, Elizabeth, June, and Margaret (son Kelly was born later, in 1956). In 1943, the family moved to St John’s where Ted had accepted the position of Director of Cooperatives, a position he held until Confederation with Canada in 1949. That year he was invited by Joseph R. Smallwood to run for the Liberal Party in Bonavista South, an election Ted easily won. He served in the first Provincial Cabinet as Minister of Natural Resources. But after only two years with Smallwood, Ted Russell resigned from the Cabinet and was subsequently expelled from the liberal party as the result of a dispute over certain economic policies being initiated by the Smallwood administration. Following a brief period selling life insurance and a minor skirmish into Federal politics in 1953, when he ran unsuccessfully against Jack Pickersgill, in Bonavista-Twillingate, Ted turned to writing.

Ted had tried his hand at writing a couple of years earlier when his short story The Grub Box won first prize in a local contest. It was subsequently read on the radio by Leslie Yeo, then an actor with the popular London Theater Company, and published in the Atlantic Guardian in June 1952. The story marks the first appearance of both Uncle Mose, the central figure of Ted’s later stories, and the fictional community of Pigeon Inlet.

What brought Ted Russell to prominence as a writer was the series The Chronicles of Uncle Mose which began as a regular feature on CBC Radio, St. John’s, in late 1953 as part of the Fisherman’s Broadcast. Later the broadcasts reached a larger audience through a Sunday afternoon network program Come All Ye Round. In all Uncle Mose appeared regularly for 9 years during which time Ted wrote over 600 radio scripts, each approximately 6 minutes in length. The early scripts were designed to fit in with the particular concerns of The Fisherman’s Broadcast: current fish prices, new regulations, fishery policy, and local problems of fishermen. But as the series advanced, anecdotes were integrated with the commentary and a new group of characters found their way into the homes of thousands of Newfoundlanders.

While presenting the Chronicles, Ted Russell also turned his attention to radio plays. In the years between 1954 and 1957, Ted wrote 6 short plays for radio: Landwash, The Hangashore, Algebra Slippers, Spindrift, To God Who Gave It, and The King of the Cove. The Hangashore won an award for the CBC from The Institute for Education by Radio and Television at Ohio State University. He also wrote two one-hour radio plays, The Holdin’ Ground and Groundswell.

Ted Russell’s career as a writer, however, had ended in 1962. By then he had resumed his career as a teacher, first at Prince of Wales College in St John’s, and later as a Professor with the English Department at Memorial University. After his retirement in 1973, the University awarded him an Honorary Doctorate. But his main reason for giving up writing was as follows: “I did my writing at a time when I saw that the things I valued were just beginning to die. I wrote about them while they were still there. The reason I have given up writing about Pigeon Inlet is that it is no longer there.” Ted Russell passed away on October 16, 1977.

Introduction to “The Chronicles of Uncle Mose” book (1975) by Elizabeth Miller

The Chronicles of Uncle Mose debuted in Newfoundland on CBC Radio in November 1953. Created and narrated by Ted Russell, each story comprised a segment of approximately 6 minutes on the Fisherman’s Broadcast continuing uninterrupted until 1961. The monologues aired initially once, later twice a week. In 1958 Russell rewrote some of the episodes for a national program Come All Ye Round, a fact that explains the existence of several of the stories in two versions. Each episode began with what quickly became a familiar phrase: “And now the Chronicles of Uncle Mose”, spoken by CBC announcer Harry Brown, followed by a short excerpt from The Sealers Ball played on the organ by Bob McLeod. Ted Russell would then speak to the radio audience as Uncle Mose. He did not cultivate a special voice for this purpose but read his scripts in a slow deliberate pace with a slight Conception Bay accent that was part of his normal speech pattern. Reading in what appeared to be spontaneous conversation, although the scripts were actually carefully constructed and timed to fit the slot allotted by CBC, he succeeded in establishing a bond of familiarity and intimacy with his listeners

An initial objective of The Chronicles was to provide a means of communicating relevant information to fishermen living in isolated communities along hundreds of miles of coastline. Uncle Mose would keep fishermen up to date on the latest news of Interest, current fish prices, new government regulations, local problems, and general matters of policy. But the series soon became much more. Drawing on his nearly 50 years of experience as a teacher and a magistrate living and working in outport Newfoundland, Ted Russell brought to his stories a wealth of insight into the nature of rural life. Before long many of the characters took on a life of their own and became household names

One can find in these stories the many attributes that mark Ted Russell as one of Newfoundland’s great writers: a mastery of the art of storytelling, a profound understanding of human nature, and a deep respect for the dignity of the traditional way of life. The most enduring appeal of these tales lies in Russell’s sense of humour. Perhaps most popular are the tall tales, an integral part of Newfoundland’s oral tradition. Most of these stories Ted Russell himself had heard during the 40 years he spent in the outports. Though he was fully aware of the hardships of outport life, after all he served as a magistrate during the dark days of the 1930s, his essential vision of life was comic. Usually whimsical, though at times satirical, Ted Russell successfully captures the incongruities of life in an isolated community confronting the effects of change.

Introduction to “Tales from Pigeon Inlet” book (1977) by Al Pittman

“Why, in Pigeon Inlet we’ve got things stronger even than dyin’.” So says Uncle Ben Walcott in Ted Russell’s play The Holdin’ Ground. Ted created Pigeon Inlet to be a microcosm of the Newfoundland he knew and loved so well, a kind of Newfoundland whose passing he lamented all his writing career. But as long as he was alive he need not have thought it was all gone. And, of course, he didn’t. When The Holdin’ Ground was published in 1972, Ted dedicated the play “To the Uncle Bens and Aunt Lizzies who still live in our Newfoundland outports”. Uncle Ben and Aunt Lizzy were two of Ted’s characters who embodied the characteristics of the kind of people he valued best and loved most. Ted Russell was too modest a man to ever have thought it, but, to my knowledge, no Newfoundlander (real or fictitious) ever exhibited the qualities he so admired more than he did himself. No need here to list these qualities. Those who knew him will remember him as the finest kind of man. And that, perhaps, is enough. But Ted’s influence has manifested itself in many ways, and many people will thank God that Ted was their teacher, their judge, or their friend. I will give thanks that he was a writer because, in his written works, his voice will continue to matter to generations of Newfoundlanders who might not have known him in his own time. If they listen he’ll make them laugh, he’ll remind them to make room for gentleness and dignity and love in their lives, and he’ll make them proud to be Newfoundlanders. And all that after his death, because, as he said himself “we’ve got things stronger even than dyin’.” Ted Russell’s life was one of those things.

Bring Uncle Mose Back Home

During 1953 and 1954, Ted Russell’s stories were broadcast live-to-air by CBC Radio in St John’s. Beginning in 1955, however, the stories were recorded on lacquer-coated aluminum discs which were then shipped to CBC Halifax for re-airing on the Fisherman’s Broadcast in Nova Scotia. Regrettably, many of these discs were then destroyed until Mike Gillis, then host of the show in Halifax, began salvaging as many as possible, thinking they might have some future value. In 1982, Peter Narvaez, a Professor of Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland, learned that Patricia Keeping, a film sound archivist in Nova Scotia, had acquired a number of Uncle Mose discs from CBC Halifax. The “Bring Uncle Mose Back Home Project” was launched and 69 recorded stories were shipped back to the MUN Folklore Archive, with ¼”  tape copies made for CBC St John’s and the Russell family. Some of those recordings were released on the 3 CD Set “Tales from Pigeon Inlet” in 2002, but the majority of them have never been available to the public until the creation of this website (2025).