On June 23, 1921 at about 7 a.m. my mother, Stella Tivy ushered me into this great bright outer world in the south bedroom of dad's bungalow on 2nd avenue in the small railway town of Rivers, Manitoba, population 750. The fact that Rivers was a railway town and that my father, Norman worked in the C.N.R. Yard Office two blocks away was to have major effect on most of my life in ways we shall see later. The attending local doctor was G.R.D. Lyons who had come west from Ontario some years before. He was a large, gruff, burly sort of man and it was said he had played rugby for the Ottawa Roughriders when he was a younger man. A Miss Johnstone who was a nurse also had something to do with my beginnings and early care.
My mother's maiden name was Astella Maria Harrison whose parents were William Salt Harrison and Maria Cornelius Harrison. Where the name "Salt" originated I cannot tell, but I was given the middle name Harrison along with the name Robert which was after my Uncle Bob who died of the terrible influenza plague which struck Canada after World War 1.
My mother's maiden name was Astella Maria Harrison and her parents were William Salt Harrison and Maria (Cornelius) Harrison. Where the name "Salt, originated I do not know, but I am sure some of their descendents will wonder where such names as Wolf, Caley, Chilko and Kira carried by my grandchildren originated. However this is getting away ahead of the story; the point of interest here is that my middle name of Harrison came from my mother's side of the house.
My grandparents lived in the village of Holmfield (named it is said for Holmfield in England)located in south-western Manitoba where my grandfather and his brother George ran a small flour mill, grain business and machine shop. These brothers had earlier migrated from Stratford Ontario where they learned their trade at the Stratford Mill and Machine works, William as a Millwright and George as a Machinist. After building a sawmill at Wakopa and then a grain elevator at Killarney 12 miles west of Holmfield they moved to Holmfield in 1898 where they remained for the rest of their days. My mother was born in Killarney, Oct.2, 1894.
My mother was a bright ,active person all her life and took part in all the normal childhood activities of her day; in her teens she even played baseball with the boys. She attended elementary and high school in Holmfield and then took her Normal School at Manitou, Man., which qualified her for teaching. She went out at the tender age of 16 going on 17 to teach at rural schools: West Derby, Ninette, Elm Creek, Dunrea and Bassood. I still have in my possession a leather bound edition of Shakespeare's plays presented to her by her students at the end of her sojourn at West Derby. She spent one winter at Winnipeg Normal School where she received her second class certificate. In 1916 she came to Rivers, Manitoba where she taught grades 5 and 6.
There she met my father, Norman and in August 1920 they were married. After my dad retired she responded to a teacher shortage in the l950's and again taught for five years at Lothair,Harrow, Robinville, Firdale and Forrest. Aside from that of service her other motivation was to complete a total of 15 years of teaching in order to qualify for a Manitoba teacher's pension. She was concerned, and rightfully so, that dad's pension and returns from small investments would not be enough for them to live on in retirement. Nor was it a case of extravagance, for instance they at no time in their lives even owned an automobile and ror many years die not have a telephone! As these schools were all located within easy travel distance of Rivers she was able to be back home in Rivers each weekend, travelling by bus or train. Most of her working life was however devoted to her home and family; altogether she spent over 60 years in Rivers. The Norman Tivy family included my sister, Mary Abbott Tivy, born Oct.31, 1923 and my brother William Norman Tivy, born Dec. 2, 1927. However, I will tell more about them later for now I must hurry back to Holmfield to complete what I remember about my mother's relatives who played a fairly important part in my childhood.
My mother had three sisters, Mary, Ruth and Eva plus two brothers, Abraham and Laurence. In their lifetime they all continued to live in southwestern Manitoba, except Aunt Mary who married Donald Allen and then moved with him to a farm at Scotford, Alta., north of Edmonton. Later they moved to a larger farm near Star City, near Melfort, Sask.. Eva, like my mother went out teaching as a young girl and while teaching at Dry River near Mariapolis, Man. met and married Mark Nelson, one of four sons of a pioneer farmer in that district. Ruth alone did not marry but stayed on in Holmfield and did the bookkeeping and secretarial work for the milling and grain business as well as looking after her mother Maria in her declining years.
Aunt Mary in SaskatchewanMy aunt Mary was a fine, big, hearty type of woman as I remember her on a visit to Star City in 1936. She was a most capable lady, but even though the farm was a large one rented from the Northern Construction Co., one of Sir Donald Mann's companies (he was an uncle of Donald Allen) they lived a hard life on the unforgiving Saskatchewan prairie of those years.
No doubt, through many disappointments common to prairie farmers in those economically terrible times Uncle Donald had developed what was then referred to as a drinking problem. During the month when I was visiting them he went to town and stayed for a week. When my Aunt Mary sent the hired man to bring him back Donald persuaded him to stay for a further two days. My grandmother Maria who was also visiting said they only came back when the money ran out. When they did get back Donald was in a bad mood and picked a fight with their 12 year old adopted son, Mac, forcing him to seek temporary sanctuary at a neighboring farm. Such were the anguishing fallouts of rural poverty and broken dreams that Mary and Donald returned to Holmfield in their later years and are buried there. Family talk has it that my Uncle Laurence had to buy the suit in which Donald was buried.
There is more that is sad that I can relate about the privations experienced by many of Donald and Mary's generation for a period of ten years and more and some of this will come out later. Fortunately, for me a great deal of that time was happy due in part to my having a loving and caring set of parents (and other relatives) and also to the fact that my father was never out of work as so many were. Even during my stay at Star City we did get to town on a Saturday night once a month and that could mean an ice cream treat for a nickel. More frequent trips were not really needed as most food was raised in the farming community and other things could be purchased from the travelling vendors such as Raleigh's. We even had our hair cut by an itinerant barber who did every one in the house at 10 cents per adult and five cents per child. Now I'm paying the "reduced rate" for seniors of $8.00 and I don't have nearly as much hair as I did then!
Eva's FamilyLike my mother, Aunt Eva was a bright able woman who lived most of her life with my Uncle Mark and raised as family on their farm near Dry River near Mariapolis. Their life was better than that of Donald and Mary. For one thing they had a smaller, but otherwise better farm which lent itself more to mixed farming as distinct from straight grain cultivation. It was a half section in size, had some trees and hills to give shelter from the searing prairie winds and it also had a large pond surrounded by willows which never completely dried up so that the cattle were always able to drink their fill and the ducks could find a place to feed and swim. It was deep enough that we children occasionally went swimming there although it was very muddy on the bottom. So they survived and the farm remains in the family to this day, being operated by a granddaughter and her husband.
Eva and Mark had three children in all, Iva, Enid and Merton. All married and lived productive lives in that part of southern Manitoba.
Ruth's Holmfield DestinyAunt Ruth was a great person for us kids. She had a wry sense of humor and was always good at buying us ice cream and other treats. Such treats were rare enough in depression days so as to be greatly treasured by us young'uns.
As things went in those days, Ruth's destiny became that of the maiden aunt. She started doing the bookkeeping in the family business and carried that on to retirement age. After this she continued to live at home to look after my grandmother Maria until she died. At some point, Aunt Eva, whose husband Mark had died of a stroke about l958 came back to live with Ruth, leaving her son Merton and his wife Dulcey to run the family farm. When Ruth died, Eva returned to the Pilot Mound area and lived the rest of her life in the home for the elderly there which was called Prairie View Manor.
Abraham, Laurence and the MillThe two boys, Abraham and Laurence both married late and lived at home until they were in their 30's. Thus they were always there when I was on vacation and I had wonderful times with them and the hired man, Alec Sillers. They let me have the run of the mill, which with its three floors of throbbing machinery driven by a huge old-fashioned steam engine was a continuous source of fascination to me. I could shovel coal into the boilers, run the mechanical packers which filled the flour bags and relax when I wished by going to the Long River for a swim with the local boys. When I was about 12, I was saving up my nickels to buy a dollar watch, but Uncle Laurence forestalled this project by giving me a beautiful silver pocket watch which he didn't use any more. It was marketed by Eaton's according to the logo on its dial, but it was a good swiss movement and kept excellent time, so much so that I was now allowed to use it to know when to blow the noon whistle at the mill, which alerted the whole town that it was dinner time. About the time that I was 13 or 14 I had a deal that I would get a nickel a bag for packing the large bran bags, made of jute. Because they did not at that time have a mechanical bran packer, it was necessary to punch the bran by hand to compress it. Anyway, by the end of the holiday, Laurence presented me with ten dollars, much more than I had actually earned. It was a munificent sum for a teen ager in those days and enabled me to buy myself some proper protective pads etc. for playing hockey. It was no wonder I practically revered my Uncle Laurence!
Saturday Night LiveOn Saturday nights we would get a trip to Killarny either in the Harrison's Chevrolet "Baby Grand" touring car from the mid 20's or in Hilda Huddlestone's l928 closed in Chevrolet. (Hilda was the daughter of a railway section foreman and was Laurence's fiancee). She was a school teacher in the local school and played the organ in the Anglican church. She was also an excellent cook. I always had a couple of meals there when I was visiting Holmfield. The sad part for Laurence and Hilda is that although they eventually married (after l7 years of courtship) it was too late for them to have children. There is no doubt we nephews and nieces benefitted from this to some extent as they both loved children and lavished much attention and treats on us whenever they saw us. I believe their marriage was delayed first by Hilda's responsibility for her aging mother, who was bedridden with some form of cancer for some years before she died, and secondly the depression made them unwilling to have Hilda give up her steady paying teaching position when Laurence's own income from the Mill may have been marginal in those years when many of their farm customers were going broke.
To get back to the trips to Killarney, one of the remarkable things was to see the throngs of rural people who went there from surrounding districts as we did. The men would do whatever business they had to transact and have a couple of beers in the local beer parlor while the women shopped and we youg ones walked endlessly up and down the crowded sidewalks. It may sound dull to-day, but it was exciting then in that during two or three rounds you could meet most of those you knew in the district. In hindsight I can now tell that for the older teen-agers it was a form of what the Spanish call the "passeo". Boys and Girls could meet and greet each other and chat. Meeting a favorite young person could result in a couple drifting off to the local movie house, returning to the location of their parents'car when it was time to go home. Home meant going to church on Sunday and maybe for a walk or drive in the country before taking up another six-day week of work and looking forward to another Saturday night trip to Killarney!
Work at the elevator and mill was always interesting and exciting to a growing boy. It was different from home life at Rivers and also it was generally experienced at summmer holiday time with its accompanying relief from school. No matter how good a student you might be, or how much certain aspects of school life were interesting, there was something of the addicted clock-watcher in all of us, particularly as we glanced toward the slowly ticking "Regulator" on the wall in the lenghthening days of spring sunshine. Once the bell went the place would be empty in about two minutes. At the mill we got to know the farmers who groused (legitimately in those years) about the poor crop conditions when they brought in their wagon loads of grain. Nevertheless, they seemed always ready to come up with a joke or some wise old saw to give us a chuckle. It still amazes me to recollect how they were always interested in we kids and would always talk to us kindly. Abe, Laurence or Ruth would always introduce me to them as "Stella's boy" so we became part of their knowledge grid through the fact that they remembered our mother when she lived and went to school in Holmfield.
This is only one example of how children were made to feel they were important people in the rural scheme of things as they existed in those days. Life was made up of work and fun - the latter being mostly self-generated. There was no television with its taking over of people's time and attention concerning the lives of sit-com and sports stars. No, life consisted of relations with flesh and blood people and their real-life situations and experiences. Even radio was not much of an entertainment medium. Battery powered De Forest Crosleys in my grandmother's and my Uncle Mark's houses were only turned on to hear the daily grain market prices, generally while we were eating lunch.
Oddly, the little mill was always busy during the depression, but there was a very important reason. This was that the farmer's had very little cash (wheat was only 30 cents a bushel); the farmer could get flour for his bread on a non-cash basis by getting his grain "gristed" at the mill. My uncles would take so many bushels of wheat from the farmer and give him the proper amount of flour, grits, shorts and bran that his wheat would mke when milled. The mill retained a percentage of the grain to sell on the Winnipeg Grain Market and pay for the milling expense. Even during the thirties there were only a half dozen of these grist mills in existence in Manitoba so farmers came from as far away as 50 miles to get a "grist" and enough Turtle Mountain Maid flour to last their family for the winter.
At the worst of the depression crops were extrremely bad in Southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, so with 30c grain and only 8 to 10 bushels to the acre farmers had to scrape hard to keep them and their families alive. I clearly remember Laurence showing me the final grain delivery ticket for the season for a Mennonite farmer named Henry Unger - it totalled just $360.00 for the whole year's crop. No wonder Barry Broadfoot called his book about that era "Ten Lost Years".
Of the two uncles, Abe was the elder and generally the more serious of the two. Yet he too had a sense of humour. I recall arriving in the elevator one day when he was standing on an old barrel hammering nails into the wall above. When I asked how he was doing he quickly replied, "can still stand on a keg".
Abe eventually took up politics, perhaps hoping to improve the lot of the grain farmers. He had the asset through his years working in the milling and grain business of knowing most of the farmers throughout the countryside. In his travels he would stop and talk to various people about crops and politics, initially in support of Johnny Laughlin who was the Conservative candidate for Turtle Mountain. I recall accompanying Abe on some of these drives. He seemed glad to take me along, although he found it necessary to counsel the over-eager 12 year old "not to chip in on the conversation".
Johnny was successful in getting elected and when he decided to retire Abe was selected. Abe served several terms and eventualy achieved Cabinet rank as Minister Without Portfolio under Premier Duff Roblin. He also served as Speaker of the House for one term. He was a man who understood the problems and needs of his rural constituents whom he did his best to represent. It was a tough life in some ways driving from Holmfield to Winnipeg and back to attend the sessions and we were all proud of his special achievements.
Uncle Laurence, who was the youngest of my grandparents six children was always great fun to be with. From a young age I can always remember him poking me in the ribs and saying "Bojunk". I have never figured out the derivation or meaning of that expression, but it remains with me as a bright memory of the fun in the man. I used to be allowed to sit beside him at the table and considered this to be a special honor. One habit he had was to make a depression with his spoon in the middle of his breakfast bowl of grits and fill it with butter which melted so he could get some with each spoonful of cereal. I tried it out and found it to be quite good, even though I used milk at home. The salty farm made butter of those days made it taste especially good on the rather bland tasting grits. A heaping tablespoonful of brown sugar also helped make the concoction delicious.
Another feature of visits to Holmfield was romping with Sport, the big collie dog who used to follow Laurence nearly everywhere. Laurence had taught him all the usual dog tricks, such as shaking paws with us kids and rolling over. He had also taught him a special one which I liked helping him perform best of all. This consisted of placing a cookie on top of Sport's nose and saying 1 - 2 - 3, snap, whereupon the dog would flip the cookie in the air and snatch it with his mouth on the way down.
In time I grew quite attached to my uncle Laurence so that I used to follow him around much like Sport. There were many chores to help with at the mill with flour and feed to be trucked to adjacent towns and gasoline to the farm threshing outfits at harvest time. All of these trips were a great joy to me as we did not own a car at home in Rivers. I loved the drives through the slightly rolling countryside of southern Manitoba even though it was parched and dry in those years. As an example there was a large but dried up slough called "Stinkin' Lake" about 3 miles from Holmfield. I could not believe my mother's saying that she used to swim in it as a girl and that the water came up as high as her neck! Yet the climate changed again and though I have never swam in it I have driven by it many times since the war and seen it full with plenty of ducks on its surface.
Lesser trips in the town were also something for me to look forward to - such as walking over the hill to Malone's General Store where Bert and Teddy Malone would play jokes on me and the older men would sit around the stove and cracker barrel at the rear of the store to discuss crops and politics. Malone's was officially closed on Sundays with the blinds drawn but the front door was open so that those who wanted to get out of the house could get in and thus the cracker barrel/hot stove league operated seven days per week. This was some of the flavor of rural life in those far off days of 60 years ago!
The other store in the town was Collis's which stood on the slight hill just above the CPR station and almost daily trips were made there with Laurence to pick up the daily paper. I went not out of any desire to read the news but more with the knowledge and anticipation that Laurence was nearly always ready to offer an ice cream cone or even a maple walnut sundae. Old Billy Collis, who ran the ice cream emporium at the back of the store would seat us in a booth and serve up the most sumptuous of sundaes in the old style conical metal ice cream dishes equipped with a special disposable paper lining. A good Maple Walnut sundae remains my favorite to this day! Now the store is closed and Malone's burned down, so now there is no general store at all in what is left of Holmfield. Two of the three Collis boys with whom I played have died long before their time and the Malone boys long dead also. certainly few, if any of the old hot stove league could still be alive. Holmfield Today:
I have a cousin, Bill Harrison, eldest son of my uncle Abe and still living in Holmfield but he mainly works on a provincial government job reviewing farm loans with the banks where the farmer may be having repayment problems. In addition he till runs the Mill - but it only operates about six weeks out of the year. It's more of a hobby for him than a money maker and as it approaches 100 years of age it is one of about two such grist mills still operating in Manitoba. As such it often gets a writeup in the travel section of the newspapers so that tourists go there to see a small part of the province's early heritage. Aside from the mill there are hardly any businesses left in Holmfield. Gone are the Blacksmith Shop, Hardware, Livery stable, High School, Churches, Post Office, Curling Club and Railway Stations (CN and CP), in short everything that was once considered necessary for any town or village. Holmfield then had a population of more than 300, now it has less than 30. The CN rail branch from Greenway to Wakopa has been torn up but Holmfield is relatively fortunate to still have service about twice per week on the CP. Service of course no longer means the joy of hearing the whistle and bell of the little old 4-4-0 passenger locos which woke me up in the front room of my grandmother's house so that I could haste out of bed to the window to watch it go by! No, nor will I ever again make the trip into town on CN's mixed train, where I would see the grain elevators and mill come into view as my summer holiday excitement rose after spending all day to get there via a circuitous route through Winnipeg involving three different trains. If the mixed train was likely to be delayed by switching the interchange at the CPR diamond crossing which had to be done before it could reach the station, Laurence would get me off the train at the water stop near the river in order to get me to grandma's in time for supper. Prairie Progress, a Lament for the Past:
The story above sadly shows the results of what we have looked upon as progress through the coming of the paved highway and the universal ownership of motor vehicles. Holmfield's fate is sadly no different than that of hundreds of prairie towns and villages which were once the centre of the district's social as well as commercial life. Many now go to the cities of Brandon or even Winnipeg for shopping on weekends, but in those larger centres, how many friends or acquaintances will they see in the crowds? Very few. A complete social fabric and friendly way of life has disappeared to be replaced by the impersonal vacuum of city shopping malls and television. The sad fact is that "prosperity" has put a greater blight on hundreds of prairie towns and villages than the great depression ever did, and I am greatly concerned that the end is not yet in sight.
My father, Norman Tivy, was born in Bushey Park, a suburb of Galway, Ireland, (Eire) overlooking beautiful Galway Bay, famous in song and story. I never knew whether or not my dad ever had a middle name, if so he never used it nor revealed it to us. His father was Robert Bury Tivy and his mother was Jennifer Abbott Shaw. His father became manager of the Galway branch of the Provincial Bank of Ireland, a position he held for many years. When dad was quite young the family moved from Bushey Park to Eyre Square in downtown Galway where they occupied the quarters provided for the Manager above the Bank. Thus most of dad's recollections of his young days are of this place.
It is still not clear to me just where the Tivys came from. Though their traceable history is all in Southern Ireland they were protestants. My grandparents came from Cork and they were married in the old collegiate church located in the suburb of Youghal. An old castle, Glenesk Castle outside Cork was at one time owned by one of our forbears who was a well-known surgeon. (see photo). The castle at this time is not owned within the family and has been converted into several apartments. A family tree, (see chart) compiled by my sister-in-law, June Tivy, carries us back to a Louis Tivy of 1756. One possibility is that we may have come from Wales, where a Tivy river (spelled Teify on the map) exists. Interestingly, Isaac Walton, in his classical book "the Compleat Angler" refers to a Tivy River in Ireland, where he says "the salmon jump ten feet". A now deceased contemporary of mine in the Canadian National, Herb Bailey, told me he had fished in the river, but I have never been able to locate it on a map of Ireland. My grandparents are buried in what is called the New Cemetery in Galway and my wife Frances and I visited the graves about 1985, (see photo). I will have more news of interest about this visit to tell you later. The few non-family people we have met bearing the name Tivy have all traced back to Ireland although some like the man after whom Tivy Mountain in California was named have not been traceable by us, though my brother Bill has tried.
A Family of Ten:
My father was one of a family of ten, five boys - Phillip, Elliot, Bob, Clifford and Norman. Cliff and my dad were twins, but certainly not identical as their much different lives would prove, although both of them ended up in Canada and died in the same year, 1972. My uncle Bob (after whom I was named) also came to Canada and I shall have more to tell about him and Elliot later.
The Five Girls:
Of the five girls, Violet, Kitty, Maureen, Evelyn and /?/ I know much less. Only one of them came to Canada, in /?/ and her story is most interesting to relate. She came to Canada to marry an Anglican clergyman by the name of Castley? or Whalley? who was ministering at that time in St. John's church in Vancouver. It seems the two had somehow struck up a correspondence and eventually photos were exchanged. My Aunt, who was not the best looking of the girls decided to send a picture of her younger sister. That proved to be enough to bring forth a promise of marriage and so she set sail for Canada. How she managed to explain the difference in likeness with the photo I do not know; suffice it to say the marriage lasted until death. It shows the risks and spirit of adventure which were part of our forbears in coming to a young country called Canada where brides were scarce! They at some point returned to England and I have no more trace of them. Would I had some account of their own dealing with times they lived in Canada.
Of the ten children only one lived out his life in Ireland, and that was Phillip who followed his father's footsteps in the bank and ended up as Manager in Wexford, where he is buried. Aside from the three brothers who spent most of their lives in Canada I believe the rest all ended up in England. Of them I have some indirect knowledge of Violet, whose married name was Stanbridge. This arose mainly from the fact that her son Brian was in the R.A.F. and came to the British Commonwealth Air Training School at Rivers for some of his training in 1943-44. I had no face to face contact with him as I was by then in the Navy at Halifax. I did get one opportunity to talk to him by telephone from there on an occasion where he was visiting mum and dad's in Rivers. He met Mary and her husband Jim and my brother Bill at that time, so when they visited England much later they did get in touch with Violet. Bill got a tape recorded message from Violet addressed to dad, and I too have had a chance to hear her voice. It was very touching to hear her recall various things across the years relating to their lives as children in Galway. One in particular that remains in my mind is her saying, "do you remember, do you remember the wooly sheep?". This referred to the fact that my dear old dad had a beautiful head of curly hair as a child which was the basis for this nickname. Brian had quite a distinguished career, stayed in the R.A.F. after the war and achieved the rank of Group Captain. He also served a stint as Prince Phillip's personal pilot and was eventually knighted.
As to the reasons for leaving Ireland the circumstances undoubtedly vary, but I suspect the revolutionary spirit brewing in Ireland against British rule and its Anglican establishment of which my forbears were a part, together with the growing lack of opportunity for them had much to do with it. The message became very personal when a mob broke up the presses and sacked the offices of the Cork Constitution, an establishment paper then published by my great uncle Henry Tivy. History tells us that the revolution became real with the Easter uprising in Dublin in 1916 leading to complete independence for Southern Ireland in 1921-22. Thus do the movements of history and the times affect us all.
As far as taking leave of Ireland is concerned perhaps that of Cliff was most colorful. Though small in stature he was strong and willful as a youth and always said by my dad to be a "daredevil". At about age 14 he was to be disciplined for some offense at school. Discipline in those days consisted of bending over to be caned by the master. At some point in the process Cliff rebelled, took the cane from the master and broke it over his knee, all of this in front of the class. This led to his expulsion and the problem of what to do with the unruly boy fell to my grandfather who negotiated with a North German Lloyd sea captain in the then active port of Galway for Cliff to be indentured as a Boy Seaman. This would have been about 1897 and he told me in later life that he never sailed in anything but windjammers until World War I at which time he got into the British Navy. No doubt he had many experiences in the sailing ships but the one I remember his relating was the time the ship sprang a leak in a bad storm and nearly sank. Only continuous manning of the hand operated pumps, 4 hours on and 4 hours off saved her. Cliff served in the British Navy as an Able Seaman, won a medal for some campaign off Africa and at some point transferred to the Australian Navy in World War I. We have in the family a letter written to my father from the deck of an Australian cruiser with everything "battened down for action" as they hunted for the infamous German sea raider, the Emden.
One example of his devil-may-care love of pranks was this story related to me by Cliff himself long afterwards. It seems the British ship he was on at the time was in harbor, probably in Hong Kong or Singapore, which in those days were major naval bases. The ship he was on must have been a fleet leader as it had special admiral's quarters with a small outer deck where no ordinary Jack Tars were ever permitted. To get on with the story, the ship being in harbor and it being Sunday the Admiral had his wife and one or two daughters aboard. Taking advantage of the ship's facilities the ladies had washed some of their under things and hung them out to dry on the private outer deck. These were spotted by Cliff and a fellow seaman and a devilish plan was hatched. Cliff, ever agile as a cat, making sure he was unobserved shinnied up over the railing onto the admiral's deck and swiftly gathered in a good selection of the undies which he and his mate then contrived to run up on the message line strung from the ship's main yard arm where they could be seen by sundry other ships in harbor and the main shore signal tower. It was not long before the ship began receiving frantic signals as to the meaning of this unusual message. Tongue in cheek enquiries such as "do you have a contingent of WRENS on your ship?, is this a new code issue? where will we find it in the Signalman's Manual? etc., etc.". The embarassment and red faces were apparent to all amidst many a guffaw as the offending signal was finally hauled down. There was undoubtedly an investigation required but according to Cliff the perpetrators never were caught and he and his mate must nearly have wet themselves laughing about it when they were alone.
At the end of the war we find Cliff, still the adventurer, working on a sheep farm in Australia, whence he emigrated to Canada about 1920. He spent a few months in Rivers where he worked in the CNR roundhouse. Later he went to Ontario wwhere his sea-going qualifications earned him a job running a boat on the Trent canal with the responsibility of repainting all the buoys on that waterway. At Fenelon Falls he met and married a beautiful girl called Meta Moffatt. They ended up living in Peterborough where Cliff was employed as Buiding Superintendent for Barrie's Furs Ltd.. There they brought up three fine children, Robert G., Jane and Bury. While I saw Jane and Bury in Peterborough in 1942 and Robert G. in Montreal in 1953 or 1954 I have had no recent contact with these cousins. I know that Robert G. joined the Canadian Army during World War II and had a distinguished career. He was at one time the youngest sergeant in the Canadian Army and was later commissioned. I do not know what rank he achieved before the end of the war, but in peacetime he was Lieut. Colonel and C.O. of the Brockville Rifles. He achieved some national notice in the press in the 1960's when Sir Anthony Eden visited Canada and was entertained by Bob in Brockville. The reason for this was that Eden was Honorary Colonel of a sister regiment in England. In civilian life Bob worked for a time with Automatic Electric based in Brockville and at some point moved to Black and Decker where he became President of Black and Decker Canada Ltd.. He is now (1995) retired and living in Naples, Florida.
Jane married and as far as I know still lives in Peterborough. Bury took Electrical Engineering at university and worked up to be a Vice-President of Canadian Westinghouse.
Uncle Cliff, ever the old war horse, joined up again in World War II and served in the Home Guard. I had a good visit with him in 1963 when he visited dad in Rivers as I did at the time of Rivers' 50th Anniversary. He was still as much of a scamp as ever, greeting dad with the present of a bottle of rye when we met him at the station. When dad got around to pouring himself a drink the rye had turned to water, as Cliff had drunk the rye on the train enroute from Peterborough to the west. During the anniversary celebrations he shocked some of the natives by dressing in an old top hat and in ladies dresses. (See photo). On another occasion he escaped from our custody (we were concerned about his failing sight) by saying he was going to visit Lally (Cousins) Higginson. It was evening and getting dark when I set out to look for him. When Lally told me she had not seen hide nor hair of him I thought, knowing something of the character, where would he most likely go? Sure enough I found him esconced in the Beer Parlor at the Alexandra Hotel regaling a table full of locals and Airwomen from No. 1 C.N.S. with all sorts of lurid adventure tales such as only he could tell. In general I enjoyed his visit in Rivers, but dad was a bit upset because he thought Cliff might in some way corrupt my ideals! The last time I saw him was when we lived in Toronto in the mid 60's when Maria and I took the CPR Dayliner to Peterborough and visited him in a home there. (See Photo).He was getting on in years then and died and was buried with military honors from the Peterborough Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion in 1973.
The first of the Tivy boys to come to Canada and in effect plant the family in our country was my Uncle Bob. Through him my father was attracted to come here and eventually Uncle Cliff. I am not sure just how or when Elliot came but I do know that he too had at one time an association with Rivers. Bob came out in the first 2 or three years of this century and went directly to work on a farm in southern Manitoba. I believe the the name of the farmer was Young and the farm was located near Ninga or Roland. There is also a photo which I have included here showing Bob on a binder harvesting on "Murray Doyle's farm at Beulah, Man in 1906".
At any rate, I believe he worked at Young's when he enticed my dad, Norman to come to Canada as Bob was so enthused about this huge new country as were many thousands during that era on the prairies. At any rate dad did come and he often spoke to us about his days on Young's farm and also on Tripp's farm which was near Boissevain. He also worked at some time for a farmer named Hawkins. When I was eleven he took me on a week's holiday to visit both the Hawkins and the Tripps. See the photo of Bob Tripp with the family horse and buggy which we used while I was there. I have in my possession a small leather bound diary with its own little pencil which must have been a gift to dad on his leaving Ireland. It contains a reference to sailing for Canada on the S.S. Tunisian leaving Galway at 6:15 a.m. Sept. 5 , 1905. He debarked at Quebec City and travelled by C.P.R. to join Bob in the west. They were town boys from the old country who knew nothing about farming but they had to learn how to handle horses and how to care for them and how to do the thousand and one chores that called for long hours of work under harsh climatic conditions. I don't know how they survived that rugged country with its bitterly cold winters after having been raised in beautiful green Ireland. They were however young, and they still had fun along with misadventures. One that was not so funny was the fact that dad lost his teeth through being kicked by a horse; he had to get the dentist in Boissevain to fix him up with false teeth which he wore for the rest of his life. When they both worked on the original Young farm a bit of a romantic interest grew up in the form of the farmer's lovely daughter called Maggie. My cousin Jack (son of Bob) tells me that it was only chance that his dad didn't marry Maggie. My dad also talked of Maggie from time to time. It was she who for all time eliminated the milk from my dad's tea. It seems Maggie was milking a cow one evening and in the course of youthful skylarking dad twisted poor old bossy's tail, whereupon she did what any self-respecting cow would do and kicked over the milk pail. Maggie was of course greatly upset and denied dad any milk for his tea the next day. Dad, being a bit stubborn as are many Irishmen said to heck with your old milk and he never took milk in his tea from that day onward.
Uncle Bob, apparently ever the leader was the first one to come to Rivers. Perhaps as the family was relatively well educated in Galway Grammar School they were able to move from jobs as farm laborers to jobs where they could make use of their education. Bob made the move at about the time that the new Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was being built (1907) and he shows up in my knowledge base as on the GTP survey party then working east of Rivers. The photo shown related to this time has him involved in cutting survey stakes in the vicinity of Rivers and The photo shown here shows him cutting survey stakes and it is dated 1908, the year in which the railway reached Rivers, at that time there was no town. Graham Barker, Editor of the Rivers Gazette in his "The Story of Rivers" (written in 1963 to commemorate Rivers incorporation as a town in 1913) credits R.B. Tivy as "the surveyor of these acres". The reason for this of course is that Rivers itself was the creation of the GTP as its first divisional point west of Winnipeg. Bob settled in Rivers with the GTP, first becoming the clerk to the Locomotive Foreman. In 1914, my dad, who had taken to working for the Canadian Pacific's engineering department as a chainman was laid off by CP at the start of the war. He came to visit Bob and never left.I still have the unused return portion of his CP pass!
Dad must have left off farming about the same time as Bob and gotten his job with CP. During his time with them he worked as chainman and rodman on such projects as inventorying the track of the old Manitoba Northwestern from Portage La Prairie to Minnedosa, it having been taken over by CP, and work which took him to the Lakehead where he used to go sailing on the Lake of the Woods on Sunday with a young CPR civil engineer called "Willy" Mather. In the 1950's I once attended a meeting in Montreal attended by William Mather who was then President of CPR. As a relatively junior engineer at the time I lacked the temerity to question Mr. Mather about his early sailing exploits and my dad's pre-war place in them. Dad told me the most important job he held during his time with CP was to act as Superintendent of a pipeline built between Austin and Sidney, Man, (See photo). The purpose of this line was to enable water to be pumped up the hill to supply a water tank at the top so that CP steam engines could be replenished after climbing the heavy grade between the two towns. After dad came to Rivers he first picked up a job driving a gravel wagon for the contractor who was then laying sidewalks in the still burgeoning new town. No doubt his farm experience helped him land this job! From that temporary foothold in the town he moved to a permanent job with the GTP railway as a Yard Clerk, perhaps his beautiful copyplate handwriting, among other clerical skills would have played a part in his getting this position. By l916 the war in Europe was getting desperate, and so in common with hundreds of thousands of others, he joined the Canadian Army. Let us leave him there for the present in order to update what we have to relate concerning Uncle Bob.
A proper relation of this part of the story takes us back to survey party days east of Rivers. While the town of Rivers was indeed brought into existence by the railway, the farmland in that part of Manitoba had been settled as early as the 1880's and therefore the railway right-of-way crossed through various farms. One of these was the John C. Cousins farm, which they had named "Arva Farm" and it so happened that Bob's survey group set up their field headquarters there in tents, before later on moving to the Rivers townsite. As well as one son Eric, there were two beautiful daughters, Eunice the elder and Kathleen the younger. Kathleen (or Lally as we later knew her) was still a child, and in fact is the one shown in Bob's arms in the photo. Eunice was of course a young lady and a courtship developed which ended in marriage to Bob after he had decided to remain with the GTP in Rivers. My Aunt Eunice was a lovely talented lady who was always interested in community affairs, as for example always able to come forth with an interesting poetry recitation when public concerts were the principal means of entertainment. I can remember as a child hearing her give a comical recitation concerning "The Old Grammyphone". She loved in particular to mimic the various accents of Irish immigrants of the day, including those of my dad and my Uncle Bob. They had three children, all born in Rivers and all living to-day (1995). As all were in Rivers while I grew up, and in fact in many ways I idolized these older cousins, I would like to record a brief life story for them all.
He was born in 1914? in Rivers and when I became old enough to remember him he was already a teen-ager. At this age he developed a great interest aand ability in mechanical and electrical matters which he avidly pursued. Thus when I was about 12 and got my first bicycle, Jack was able to show me how to lubricate it and how to tear the coaster brake apart if it needed adjustment or new bearings. From old bikes he was able to make second hand bikes for sale and one such that I well remember was owned by Jack Hanlon, one of my playmates, who lived next door to Jack's grandma Cousins. We all liked that bike because it was easier to pedal than mine and it took some time for us to figure out that it had a larger diameter rear sprocket. It also had Gibson pedals which my cousin Jack extolled as a great virtue, due to the fact that they had rubber inserts in a solid cast aluminum frame so they were not only light in weight but the rubber inserts would not turn under the pressure of your feet, which was sometimes the case with the ordinary pedals.
On the electrical side, Jack eventually set up shop in the old garage behimd their home, and mainly by collecting various bits of wire and other junk such as old batteries was able to learn a great deal about practical electricity and how to make things out of nothing as he certainly didn't have much spending money in those depression days. This skill was to stand him in good stead for the rest of his life. As a young adult he got to know Mr. Grieves who was the CNR station agent in Rivers at that time, but who was in the process of developing a movie house business on the side. The old Bijou theatre in Rivers had closed (a casualty of the depression when even 25 cents , 5 cents for children at the Saturday matinee, was a major expenditure) and there were no movie theatres in several adjoining towns such as Hamiota, Cardale, Oak River and others. Jack not only got the job of projectionist for Grieves but he actually built the first set of projection equipment for this small business. He then was responsible for running the various cowboy and other movies of that time on different nights in the week in each of the towns on their circuit. For this they had to hire a local hall and some local person to act as ticket seller. The Oddfellows Hall was used in Rivers at first as I recall, but later they shifted to the newly built Ukrainian Hall which had a proper projection booth installed. My dad acted as ticket collector here on some occasions. At some stage later I believe Jack managed a theatre in Elkhorn, Man., where he met and married May. They still (1995) live together in Calgary, but have had no children.
As a teenager and young adult Jack loved skating and playing hockey. He used to be an expert at barrel jumping, that is lining up gasolind drums on their sides and seeing how many you could leap over with a speed skating start. I think Jack got could clear up to ten or twelve. At hockey he played for a number of seasons with the Rivers Senior team where they played on Saturday nights in the freezing prairie cold in open air rinks at places such as Kenton, Hamiota, Cardale, Rapid City and Elkhorn. Jack has always enjoyed great physical health and he was a power-house in his hockey days. When World War II came along he joined the R.C.A.F. and because of his technical prowess he was assigned to the maintenance of Link training equipment. Wartime was the first time that use was made of these ground based simulators to train pilots. To-day a company called Canadian Aviation Electronics based in Montreal manufactures very sophisticated and realistic simulators to train commercial pilots for every type of aircraft, large or small. Also, Bob ?????? who is General Manager of Technical matters for CNR to-day was instrumental in developing training simulators for diesel locomotives. These were one of the main items set up as OSCAR I and OSCAR II at the special enginemen's and other operating staff"s school at Gimli, Manitoba in the 1970's. These items are perhaps a digression for the sake of explanation as I do not know that Jack had any connection with simulators once the war was over. After the war he was successful in many electrical areas, one of them being a salesman and installer for fire alarm systems, mainly in Alberta, where he has lived for many years. Also, he took up ham radio, in which he has been an enthusiastic operator for many years. When we lived in Montreal in the 1970's he used to call a neighbor of mine and get him to patch through calls to my telephone.
As to Jack's middle names, I do not know the origin of Bury, but his father and our grandfather both had it as a middle name as does Uncle Cliff's second son. Abbott was the family name of my grandmother, Jenny, and it survives as the middle name of my sister Mary. The story is that Jenny's father or grandfather Abbott was Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, so with that we can all claim to have some connection with the Irish protestant establishment!
He was the second son of Bob and Eunice, and he must have been born about 1916. At Rivers, we called him "Torchy", but I do not know the origin of that rather striking nickname. Since leaving home he has long since cast it off, and now prefers to be known simply as Cliff. Somehow I did not have as much contact with Cliff as a boy asa I had with Jack and Pat. I do recall that as a young man he did have a fine tenor voice and loved to sing popular ballads. Perhaps he inherited this from Grandfather Bob as I recall my dad's commenting on loving to hear the old gentleman singing in the old Galway church long ago; it always brought to my mind the popular song of Rivers days, "the Voice in the Old Village Choir". Cliff also played on the Rivers senior hockey team, and shows in the photo located in this history. (See p.??) Before the war Cliff worked for a time on CNR Bridge and Building gangs doing a variety of jobs ast various locations throughout western Canada operating draglines, pile-drivers and the like. I believe he worked with the gang that excavated the bye pass channel of the Little Saskatchewan River above the Rivers dam, which was done after the war.
Like Jack, Cliff entered the RCAF in a technical capacity, but he became a skilled instrument mechanic rather than a Link Trainer expert. After the war he must have returned to the CNR B&B as noted above, but without a degree in engineering it was not possible to getr too much promotion so he left to find other more promising opportunities. Somewhere along the way he metand married Anne ???? and worked for a time for a steel fabricating firm operated by her father in Vancouver. Cliff wasw always his own man and the arrangement I understand did not work out, so he and Anne left. I do not know all he did after that but he did get into the jewellery business where his sensitive RCAF innstrument experience gave him some skills and he built up a jewllery manufacturing firm in Bellevue, Washington State. His advertising slogan was "Tivy's, with the diamond in the I". (See the photo of his shop with it's outdoor electric sign). It's the only time that I have known a Tivy to get his or her name in lights! Upon retiring, he sold the business and he and Anne are living in retirement (1995) in Greenbank on Whidby Island off the coast of Washington State. Like Jack, they have had no children.
The youngest of this family must have been born about 1918, and was therefore the closest to myself in age. For this reason I had a fair amount of contact with Pat whom I almost worshipped as a superior being. One of my earliest memories I have is playing train with a set of blocks undernbeath my mother's dining room table in the little cottage on second avenue. Pat had the most terrific imaginative mind for play and he it was who gor the idea of pushing a string of blocks up the sloping leg of the dining room table to simulate the way the CNR yard engine shoved coal cars up the track incline of the original CNR coal dock. Later, after we had moved to the house on 5th avenue I can recall many hours of happy play with Pat in the large McConachie family sand box next door, where we used small cast iron dinky toy cars and trucks with license plates and boards for bridges, tunnels, garages, ete.. Again it was Pat's imagination that produced lifelike character assignments for the drivers of these toy vehicles, this one was a good driver, another one was not so good, some were injured in accidents and had to be rushed to the hospital, this one was a speeder, etc., etc..Pat also showed great creative ability with a collection of grey plasticine which he kept in a wooden box behind the kitchen stove. I remember his dragging it out onto the kitchen table when I visited him and we woule play for hours, always inspired by his imaginative creation of all sorts of lifelike figures and other objects. But time passed, we both grew up, completed school and we were separated for most of the rest of our lives to follow quite different paths in life.
Like Jack and Cliff, Pat was old enough to get caught up in depression problems as a young man with no work. At the depression's lowest ebb all three boys worked some time in the "Relief Camps" set up by the government. These camps were what would be called "workfare" to-day and the men did work on roads and other public projects in return for room and board, work clothes and $5.00 per month "tobacco money". The men were housed for the most part in temporary cabins, quickly built with tarpaper outside covering and heated with woodburning stoves. One set of these was built in Rivers on an empty lot near the derelict "old chum building", (there were many empty lots in Rivers during the depression). Pat stayed in this camp and the men there worked mainly on grading and gravelling to improve the six-mile road running north from the town towards Rapid City. Trucks may have been used to haul some of the gravel for surfacing but the grading was all done by horse-drawn scrapers with hand shovellers doing the trimming. Jack and Cliff were assigned to camps up in Clear Lake (Wasagaming) National Park, which up to that time was largely undeveloped. They built roads and trails, and also, I believe the golf course, camp grounds and tennis courts. They also constructed some magnificent log buildings including a Superintendent's house, other staff accomodation and a large recreation building and dance hall. These buildings still stand to this day (1995) and are serving their original purpose through good maintenance and still lending a nice log cabin type of northern frontier ambience to the main centre in the park. During the long winters the boys enjoyed playing hockey in open air rinks they built themselves, with competition games between teams from the different camps in the area. The relief camps existed until the beginning of the war, when military service and other jobs became available to all and succeeded in finally breaking the back of the big depression which had lasted for a full ten years.
To return to Pat, he too entered the RCAF as had his older brothers and like Jack went into Link Trainer work. After the war, I believe he worked on railway B&B work, which he too left because of lack of opportunity. Then having moved west he got into the life insurance business where he did quite well as I can imagine he would based on his amiable personality, a puckish wit (which I attribute to his Irish antecedents) and a gregarious love of associating with people. He married a western girl, and he and Mary have two children, Rob and Patrick, jr.. Both these boys have done well and we have enjoyed meeting them since Fran and I have lived "on the coast". Pat and Mary eventually retired, and about 1985 moved to Nanaimo.
Having covered Uncle Bob's and Aunt Eunice's three sons above it is now appropriate to tell the rest of the story. As already related, both were very active in public affairs in Rivers, and along with many others were stricken with the terrible Asian 'Flu in 1919. Uncle Bob had also been progressing in the Railway due no doubt to his energy and ability and was travelling widely in the west to install some sort of new accounting system, presumably associated with his work in the administrative side of the mechanical department. Obviously he had contracted the 'flu and I can only quote the brief report of his death from Graham Barker's "Story of Rivers". "Death claimed Robert B. Tivy as this community's 20th springtime arrived. The surveyor of these acres passed at Regina while his wife and family lay ill with influenza in Rivers." He is buried in the cemetery at Rivers and I have visited his grave many times over the years. Uncle Cliff burst into tears when we took him there in l962, no doubt thinking of their childhood together and the sadness of Bob's being cut off in his prime. Cliff then told me that when he had come to Rivers in 1920, to be met by Eunice and the family,little Pat told him, "my daddy's up in heaven you know".
From then on you can imagine the struggle Eunice must have had to raise the three boys with very little cash. Though she no doubt got some help from her parents, Mr.& Mrs. J.C. Cousins and others, she was forced during the depression to take in boarders. One of these was Fred Oakley, a CNR locomotive engineer. Eventually, Eunice and Fred were married and for a time contonued to live in Rivers. A son, Fred junior was born to them, his half brothers called him "Buddy". I saw Buddy a few times when he was still a toddler; I remember one occasion when Pat, and I believe Cliff were teasing him at the table. Buddy was not about to put up with this and threw his cup of milk in their faces saying "I fro on to".
Thus did life go on, but the downward spiral of the great depression also ground on, and when the Rivers yard engine was cut back from daily to three day per week service Fred was only getting part time work. He however had enough seniority on western lines to hold a regular "chain gang" freight service spot running coal trains out of Edson, Alberta on the Luscar and Mountain Park branches. For the sake of a decent living the family moved there and at some time later Fred and Eunice moved to Edmonton. I am not sure whether Jack ever went to Edson, but Cliff and Pat did. They attended high school in Edson but they had not lost their love of friends and activities in Rivers and so continued to return for the full summer vacation each year, staying with grandma Cousins, who really loved them dearly. Things did not go altogether smoothely for Fred and Eunice as they were in many ways quite different personalities; while never divorced, they were to some degree separate later in life. Fred pre-deceased Eunice and she continued to come to Rivers from time to time as long as her dad and mum were alive and later she could stay with her neice, (Lal's daughter) Donna Higginson and her husband. It was on one such occasion that she was taken ill; it was believed to be a type of 'flu, but not considered too serious. While she was in bed at Donna's I went to visit her as I was at that time home visiting my own mother. I talked to her at her bedside and while she was not too lively, she did seem relatively cheerful. As I left, she said "au revoir", and while I was shocked to learn she had died shortly after I returned to Montreal, I have thought ever since that her last greeting was based on some premonition that she would not live long. She was buried in Rivers, and lies there still in the family plot alongside her first husband Bob, the sweet vivacious girl born at Arva Farm had lived through the coming of the railroad and the first thirty years of the town of Rivers and returned there to die. A footnote to this part of the story is that I was named Robert after my Uncle Bob, I being born in 1921, a little over two years after he had died. The name was further commemorated by Uncle Cliff's first son Robert who was born in 1922. With all this history it is not surprising that the "Rivers Six" have so much to talk about on those few occasions when we still can get together. I do not know as much about cousin Fred "Buddy" Oakley, as he moved to Edson with his parents at an early age and finished his schooling there. He has worked most of his life in the hotel management and public relations field and has done quite well at it. He was at one time an officer of the Western hotel chain who also controlled the Bonaventure Hotel in Montreal at the time whereof I speak. It was in about February of 1972 when I and two of my children still at home after their mother, Anne had died that I got an unexpected invitation from Buddy to come down for lunch and a visit with him at the hotel. We enjoyed it thoroughly, including a swim in the heated pool, which was outdoors/indoors, it being possible to swim from one climate to the other through an opening in the wall of the hotel.
Having dealt up to now mainly with family history and background it is perhaps a good time to fill in a few of my own childhood memories, at least for the period when I began school at age 6. As mum and dad's cottage on 2nd ave. faced in the direction of the railway yards it is perhaps not surprising that I should have noticed the yard engine pushing coal cars up the trestle leading to the coal tipple. This was soon replaced with a modern coal dock, (see photo), but not before the yard engine ran over the end and crashed to the ground killing one of the crew. It was said to be due to a stuck throttle. I also can remember when they tore down a grain elevator as I thought I saw birds flying out, but mother said it was only the old shingles being ripped off the roof!
Of course some memories are due to hurts, such as the time the family took me on a sled ride to the river and on the way back my dad released me to slide down the slight hill leading from the river road to the railway cinderpit. The sled crashed into an old redundant post stuck in the ground, I got a bump on my forehead with much crying, and dad got a scolding from mum for releasing me down the hill on my own. On another winter walk I was fascinated by the shiny mainline rails in front of the station and stuck my tung on one, where it promptly froze. I don't remember how but somehow I was extricated from this predicament without injury, having learned an early lesson about the high conductivty of steel rail. An early summer memory was the first time I was stung by a bee, while gathering dandelions in our backyard. I ran into the house crying that the bee had stuck a sliver into me, showing mother that it was still visibly protruding. She extracted it and another lesson was learned.
In general, I was said to have a sunny disposition in those years, and certainly they were happy, enjoying as I did the loving dottage of both parents and not wanting for necessities of life nor opportunities for play. There was a swing two doors over owned by the Bells and their daughter Zella was about my age and always shared her swing with me. She is one of my very early playmates who still lives (1995) in Rivers, as the widow of Bob Twigge. Another playmate was Robbie Riddick who was "the little boy who lived down the lane". Robbie was the one who was greatly enthusiastic about Tom Mix and his horse, while I was even then more interested in trains. Robbie and I, together perhaps with other children along his route learned from our parents that Mr. John Stevenson, who drove the scavenger's "honey wagon" to pick up the toilet cans had some connection with Santa Claus and was observant of the good behavior of little boys. So it was that John was open to questions about the operation of the old gent with the whiskers and we might give opinions as to what it was we might want for Christmas. Quite often what we told him came true and it was only more knowledgeable relection in older years which told us that John must have surreptitiously passed these requests to Santa Claus through our parents. But, back for a moment to the sunny child, I recall one serious lapse as when I had some disagreement when playing with next door neighbor, Albert Bailey, in his sand box. As he was older than I, in order to win the argument I grabbed an old license plate and whomped him over the head with it. This cut his scalp and made it bleed so I got reprimands from both his and my parents.
However, I was not ostracized completely as I was able to keep up my friendship with Albert's dad, Roy. This was important because Roy, in addition to being the railroad watch inspector, was the only in our area who owned a car. It was a standard Chevrolet 490, an open touring car which was then the main competition for the Ford Model T. The difference was at this time that the Chev had a proper gearshift, which was much better than the Ford's three pedal approach. Cars then were still all painted black, and there were few if any options or accessories. I can still remember Mr. Bailey showing me with pride the simple hand operated windshield wiper he had just installed. He was always good at explaining to me the workings of the automobile and thus began my first knowledge of things mechanical.
Though I had yet to attend day school, we got started earlier to Anglican Sunday School where we learned our bible lessons and to sing hymns. I recall first learning Christmas carols for our class to sing at the Sunday School Christmas Tree concert. When mother asked what I had learned I told her about the "bob-tiled nag" which she insisted was a "bob-tailed-nag". The reason for this difference became clear to her when I explained that Mrs. Alf Richardson was our teacher. She was an immigrant from England and had what we believed to be a strong cockney accent!
Another thing I vaguely remember was going to the new war memorial when it was dedicated by the then Governor-General, ??????. The memorial stood there more or less solitary with no trees, just the recently ploughed bare ground. While my dad lifted me to his shoulders so he could see, I was to young to understand, let alone remember what it was all about. However, there was much about that terrible struggle in France which all Canadians remembered and, as did my dad, talked about it. The figures are stark, as I recall many years later visiting Ottawa as a grown-up and looking at the memorial under the peace tower. Along with the book of names of the dead were the awful facts - of the 700,000 Canadians who served (from the then relatively small population of 8 millions) one in ten were killed and three in ten were wounded. My own dad had received a piece of shrapnel in his left arm and the man next to him had been killed in the same blast, I believe at Vimy Ridge. He did talk to me about the war, about the awful mud of the trenches, about the French 75's, about the whine of German Nebelwerfer shells passing over their heads and about the horrors of cleaning up the battlefields after. (He had been one of those remaining in France until about July, 1919 to help with this unsavoury task.)
That the war touched him (and perhaps most survivors) deeply is evidenced by something he wrote from Whitley ? Camp in Surrey, England, June 28, 1919 and only came into my hands in 1993 when I received it from cousin Patrick. The letter was addressed to Aunt Eunice and Pat had discovered it in her effects many, many years later. The piece is so touching, almost poetic in its thought that in spite of its length I will repeat it here in full:
I wrote you yesterday which I thought was my last one to you from this side, but I made this an exception and call this my peace letter to you. When I think of those of our comrades who have fallen in this great war, The world Peace which was signed to-day at 3:15 p.m. British Time means most now to the men who fought and still remain alive. It will make them think back to those days of War when the thought of Peace was a kind of weakness tempting them to despair because there was no sign of it: those early days of trench warfare when the greatest advance was 200 yards or 500; those years of intolerable boredom punctuated by hours of dreadfulness not good to remember, followed by other years when each big battle began with hopes of a quick finish and only led to new ridges, new slaughter and new abominations! When we think of those boys that were there at the start, now that Peace has made all that past history, the splendid optimism of the "Old Contemptibles" who came first into France, with kisses blown to them by village girls all along the roads and fruit and flowers thrust into their hands as they wearily marched forward to the unknown Front which to most it meant the Valley of Death itself. For a little while, even after a spell in the trenches and personal encounters with the strength of the enemy, we had queer hopes, almost a definite belief, that the war would soon be over and that we would be soon home to those nearest and dearest to us. To my thoughts all along I thought it would come as suddenly as it started, other times that idea disappeared swiftly in my mind. In its place came the awful conviction that it would go on for ever, and that Peace was but a mirage luring men of feeble minds. It was the doom of men to sit always in dirty trenches, to live in holes in the ground, to go on fighting and killing, until it was our turn to be wounded, or blinded, or shell shocked, or gassed or killed. Civilization to us the was but a fleeting memory, revived at times in some French villages when we would go out behind the lines for a bath and a clean-up and the decent ways of life had disappeared and "Home" was another word that made weakness and was not spoken of except a little while before 7 days's leave (once in l8 months came along) & a little while after. Well to come to my own personal experience in the great struggle, not ['till] after Mar 21.18 when all the ground they (the enemy) had fought and won slipped from under them did I realize that I was on the side of Victory. It instilled to me (sic) innermost self a sense as of one being relieved of a huge burden of mind, body and soul. I think it was on the day last year in Sept. when we rode through the Drocourt-Queant line that victory and peace came in sight at last. So on and on we entered great cities and were rewarded by the joy of their population liberated after all those years from the rule of a merciless enemy, and then on Nov. 11, when on the way to Mons, I heard the news for which all the world had been waiting; to those of us who were in the fight it seemed weary, weary years. And that morning, for the first time during the ghastly struggle, and that night there were no evil flashes in the sky, but only the sweet light of the stars above us. That to us was the real day of peace, when the river of blood which had flowed through many fields was stopped at last, and the last of us who were spared then were as it were reprieved from death. We were not excited outwardly, our thoughts were swallowed up in the memory of those of our comrades who had fallen and those who still lay at our feet cold in death, sleeping their last sleep there, which to my mind then I thought I could sleep there also comfortably beside them. Oh those thoughts did come to me many a time as I saw my dearest pals there. The soul of England will be silent for awhile at this news of Peace, or should be so, in remembrance of those who fell to gain it - that million dead boys of ours who belong to the great ghost army which will forever haunt the fields of battle, and all that other youth of nations - how many millions more - who joined those ranks in multitudes. I think of them on the Somme, and around Arras where I saw them lying - so many of them. So now Peace -but to my mind and to most of us who saw that war stripped of all illusions in its naked and terrible realities - this: Peace will be a mocking thing luring us on to another epoch of damnable strife, unless the ideals for which the first men fought, for which all of us fought, whether conscious or not of their mission, are fulfilled in the hearts of peoples and nations leaderships. The fighting men of all Nations who went through that dark struggle, those ways of hell, must be the leaders of Peace as they were the heroes of War. For the world needs peace and the remembrance of life's beauty. I expect to sail for Home Wednesday, 2.7.19 on the Empress of Britain unless some unforeseen events stand in the way,however l shall always keep you posted as to my movements and will wire you as stated in my former letter, on my immediate arrival at a Canadian port. This letter may only reach you shortly before or after the writer. So stand fast, the time will not be long. With heaps of love to self and the darlings, and so to bed I remain your most affectionate Norm. Peace Perfect Peace, Until He Come.
Aunt Eunice told me not long before she died, that the war made a heavy impact on my dad, that when he returned from France he was much changed from the fun loving young man who had first gone there. The reasons for this seem to me to have been given in the letter quoted above. Now it is time to pass to another chapter in this record, but I shall be returning to the subject of my dad in various other contexts as we move through our lives together.