CHAPTER 14,  A NEW FAMILY HOME AND A JOB IN MONTREAL
 
14.1, INTRODUCTION
     As I write it is Jan.3, 2000 and it's snowing, so making us look like we're still part of Canada. In entering this New Year, this new Century and the year 2000 it is time to start another part of my Prairie Boy's Odyssey. Hopefully, my memory (at age 78) though forgetful of some names or the exact "mot juste" for a particular situation, will still function well enough to to advance the record a few more chapters during the current winter's writing season! Of course I do not expect to get right up-to-date this year, but at least hope to get closer to that time when I'll be able to write in "real time" so to speak.

14.2, HOUSE HUNTING LEADS US TO BEACONSFIELD
     Back to early 1969 and I'm starting my new job in Montreal CN Headquarters and must therefore search for a nice new home for our family. In a place like Montreal there are many options so I looked by myself or together with Anne when she could come here. We looked at possibilities in Montreal West, Town of Montreal, St. Lambert, Pte.Claire and Beaconsfield. Because our house in Toronto had appreciated in value we felt we could go for a really nice home with four bedrooms. We didn't find one that suited us in St.Lambert or Pointe Claire. There was a nice one in the Town of  Montreal, where we could use the electric commuter service through the Mountain to downtown, but it was part of an estate and it looked as though the legal encumbrances would take some time to get solved so we had to pass on that one. There was a good raised ranch style brick house in Montreal West for $40,000 which we thought we could afford. Anne didn't like the stairs involved in the raised ranch style and also that it had insufficent lot size to permit her any scope in her gardening. Also for the same money it boiled down to the fact that we could get a better house on a good sized lot in Beaconsfield for the same amount of money.
     That's a summary of the preliminary hunting which was largely done by myself as Anne had to stay in Toronto with the children. However, by means of the telephone and weekend trips home by train together with photos of what I had seen I was pretty well able to keep her au fait with what was going on. It was then time to get her to come to Montreal for a long weekend with the hope that we could finalize a choice. In the first two days we looked at the properties I have mentioned above and from that we confirmed that we should concentrate on the Beaconsfield-Lakeshore area. I agreed on the basis that we should get a place within 15 mins. walk of a rail commuter station as I no longer wished to drive to work as I had been doing in Toronto. Though I showed Anne a place in Point Claire,  and some in Beaconsfield she finally chose one in Beaconsfield on Sherwood Road. It looked good and had Dutch colonial style which we liked, but I noticed that the outside cladding had been poorly installed on the front and the hot air furnace pipes in the basement were at a low level  instead of being tucked between the floor joists. She was disappointed and tired from what had been  busy days of hunting so she said I'd have to go it alone from there on. I  looked further in the same district and found another slightly larger house which looked good from the outside. She had gone back to the hotel so the next day, which was Sunday I brought her out to see it. I can still recall her enthusism when she saw it and said, "Oh those lovely trees" and when we looked through the front door window, "Oh those lovely hardwood floors and that lovely curving staircase!" It was Sunday and we did not know who the agent was, so we went across the street and asked.       Fortunately, we were met by a nice lady who said their house had been sold by the same agent. She offered to phone the agent who came out and showed us through the place which had five bedrooms and was nicely finished throughout. The master bedroom in particular was dream, it had an adjoining loft with a casement window overlooking the street and we could simply imagine ourselves enjoying Sunday morning coffee there! At $41,500 it was a little more than the Dutch style one we had rejected, but it was worth the money; moreover, it had a 30 year mortgage with a payment of $475 per month for principle, interest and taxes!  So we ageed to the deal the very next day and that's how we got to live at 220 Sherwood Road for the rest of our time in Montreal! (see photo of house). Incidentally, the nice lady who lived across the street was Anne Holt, who with her husband Barry and their children were to become among our best friends with whom we still keep in touch 30 years later!

14.3  NEW JOB, ASSISTANT CHIEF OF TRANSPORTATION, (PLANNING)
     With the general re-shuffle on the Great Lakes Region as outlined earlier the finger then pointed to me. Through the suggestion of Charlie Armstrong who had moved from Area Manager in London to Chief of Transportation in Montreal I was asked if I would become his assistant for transportation planning. This was logical enough because of my transportation engineering and operating experience over the past sixteen years. The job offered plenty of scope for planning new locomotive acquisitions, main line upgrading projects (such as re-building and signalling the Prince Rupert line to handle more grain) and new yard projects such as improvements in the Edmonton area where there was growing congestion. Some input and control was also required in connection with the regions' annual capital budgets to check such things as return on investment (using the discounted cash flow method).
     Thus the job was very interesting and included occupation of a nice office on the 15th floor of the relatively new headquarters building (siege social, en francais) at 935 La Gauchetiere West in downtown Montreal. I was able to commute to work on Canadian Pacific by walking to Baie d'Urfe station in winter and riding my bike to Beaconsfield station in summer. This was the ideal way to go as the 40 minute train ride gave me time to read the morning paper and also read reoorts and correspondence relating to work. It also provided more exercise than the car driving routine I had followed in Toronto and resulted in getting my weight down from 185 lbs to l65!

CHAPTER 15, LOSS OF ANNE, PERSONAL GRIEF, FAMILY & JOB EVENTS

15.1, LOSS OF ANNE AND PERSONAL GRIEF
     While work related matters were going along fine the black hand of cancer was to produce a tragedy for us all. Anne was the most healthy person that one could imagine and up until about 1966 had had very little illness. After all she didn't smoke and didn't drink and prpared and ate such healthful meals that we used to call her "the Rabbit". About the only thing there had been was the removal of a lympona from one of her legs when we lived in Moncton and this was said to be benign. While we were in Toronto she had developed a cancer in her breast and it was removed through mastectomy  in 1967.
     From then on we were living under the shadow of  that awful word "remission" the word "cured" never being used concerning cancer. Just as we were hoping in 1970 that she would soon be clear for five years she started complaining of  a sore hip and leg and the doctor did not connect it to cancer and recommended therapy and exercises. I can still see her pursuing the exercises at home and it was painful for her to do them. Finally, she went to a specialist who took a bone sample and identified it as bone cancer. Our family doctor, Dr. Newby-Good apologized for not having detected it sooner and he later gave me the bad news that it was nearly always fatal.

15.2, ANNE'S  DECLINE
    From then on it was an agonizing case of watching her go through all of the then known radical treatments.  The local cancer committee decided that chemotherapy was not the way to go.  She took cortisone, and she wept to me briefly because it caused her body to swell up. Still more terrible things lay down the road, the doctors decided to operate and remove her ovaries which sometimes will arrest cancer. I visited her in the acute recovery room in Point Claire hospital; she was feeling badly with much pain and murmered to me, "will I ever get through this terrible day"!
     Toward the latter part of 1970 she was still managing to get around and Madame LeBlanc helped with the housework. Late in November we decided to arrange a home exhibition of  her paintings. As mentioned before, art was a key thing in her life and it meant a great deal to her. We mounted various works of her choice on stands in the living room and dining room and invited most of our neighbors.  Anne dressed up in her best and sat on a chair in the centre of the group and explained what the subject was in each work and what was the method by or medium in which it was produced, whether oil, watercolor, silk screen, or monoprint. All in all it was a most wonderful day which she truly enjoyed. As her condition worsened and she was confined most of the time to a hospital cot I had installed near the patio windows in the family room she continued to
paint. Sadly, the day came when she realized she could no longer carry on and she asked us to pack up her easel and brushes and put them away- forever!
     While it was obvious by this rejection of painting that she was aware of  her decline and prepared  to acknowledge it, there was an earlier incident which must remain etched in my mind and in the minds of the three children. Her father, George Walker and his companion Nan used to go to Arizona or California every winter. George kindly offered to take Anne with him for a rest and to try a different climate. Anne said, "No, my place is here with my husband and children." It was another
typical statement from a courageous wife and mother who had given so much in her active days to developing and running a home for us all!
     As the disease increased its hold on her,  darker moments closed in. The cancer has mestartisised to the point where it was infecting her brain and tumors were causing the neuron wires to get crossed. For example, on one occasion we were feeding her with a spoon and she kept insisting her cheek was where her mouth was. On another occasion she was insistent that there was a glass curtain between her and the room so she could not get up. I had to react to this fantasy and said I would get some scissors to cut the curtain. When I pretended to cut it she agreed it had been cut open so that she could then get out.
     Toward the end, a most fantastic thing took place which to this day intrigues me as an indication of entry to another world. On this occasion I went into the family room to visit with Anne and she appeared to be sleeping deeply, although I do not think she was really breathing very much. She did not respond to my voice or to lighter touches and I became alarmed. This went on for several  minutes and finally she responded to firmer shaking. When her eyes opened she looked at me and said, "Sweetheart, you have just saved me; it was night and I was in a dark boat with a boatman who was ferrrying me across the river to the other world, but when you wakened me I was able to return here!" It was the most other-worldly experience of my whole life (I am writing this in January, 2000).
      In wrapping up her life as she knew the end was approaching we had discussions on the children. Robin was still taking electrical engineering at the University of Toronto and was doing well in his studies and Maria was taking a course in Environmental Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa. She came home most weekends and Robin less frequently. Jim alone was still at home, 14 years of age and attending Beaconsfield High School. Anne felt content that she had done all she could reasonably have done in raising Robin and Maria who were now moving out into the world on their own, but she knew that Jim 's raising was not yet complete. She said to me, "I can no longer do much for Jim, he's yours". Not long afterwards in the month of April 1971 her condition worsened to the extent she had to return to the hospital even though we had a full-time nurse in the house. Myself and Jim and the other children when home continued to visit her there each evening thinking the road leading there was our own "via dolorosa" so to speak. The doctor looking after her said she could not live as her condition continued to decline. Then, it got so I could not communicate with her except by scratching her head, which she knew was me because she had always enjoyed me scratching her head. I can still remember that it was room 375 in Point Claire hospital where she was.
      On May 7, I got a call at the office from the doctor saying her breathing was very light and declining. By the time I had got to the hospital she was gone! Here was a once beautiful woman, dead at age 48. In the 22 years were had been married she had borne and raised the three children, run the household and looked after us all, yet she never lived to reap the benefits nor continue to pursue her beloved art!  I held her hand and started to recite the Lord's Prayer until interrupted by the nurse who seemed insentitive to what I was saying. I went home to tell her dad, George Walker and Nan who had come in from Winnipeg earlier when I had told them she could not last long.
 
15.3, BURIAL IN POINTE CLAIRE
     Arrangements were made to bury Anne in our area because it then seemed I would be living there for a long time and I did not know any other location to which I might move. As we were at this time family members of Beaconsfield United Church we arranged for the funeral service to be conducted at the local funeral home by the Rev. Eric McIlwain of that church.
       The service was held May l0 and was very well attended. The neighbors all turned out in force and a goodly number of my railway associates and their wives. Because she loved flowers we asked that any tributes should be in that form. As a result there was a tremendous response (see photo).
She was not cremated and her body was held in an open coffin at the funeral parlor. The service went well but there was a terrible glitch in the burial arrangement---it had to be announced at the end of the service that burial could not take place until the following day; the reason being that the excavator used for digging the graves had broken down. I was upset by this but there was nothing I could do. So, on the following morning, May 11, our little family rode in the dark limousine in silence to attend the committal service in Pointe Claire cemetery. The Rev. McIlwain again officiated. with only our family, including George and Nan in attendance. I  took a flower from the many which were stacked around and threw it onto the coffin in the ground with the hopefull words of Christian teaching, "till we meet again"!
     And there she still lies, on a beautiful long slope toward the lakeshore with many trees that she loved so much waving in the breezes. Yes, there is a suitable red granite headstone inscribed with her name and dates with space for my own. On the bottom I had a tribute to her life which she might herself have requested, namely "She was an Artist"!

15.5, NEIGHBORLY SUPPORT
     In this time of people supposedly living as strangers in the urban-suburban environment created by the 20th century living style I was overwhelmed by the tremendous support of our neighbors. They not only supported us in our grief but they arranged to provide  luncheon after the memorial service whihc was helds in our back yard. This was something that had always been traditional in our small town family and I was so happy that were able to gather with  friends to honor Anne's memory in this way. Not was this the end of it, for months afterward we were the recipients of cakes and other food delivered to the door by the Tunnells. the Glinskis, the Holts,  the Olivers, the Bachelors and Mary ? up the hill. I never cease to marvel at how all those good people continued to help me through what surely the darkest time of my life. My feelings were expressed by a song which was popular at the time; I can no longer remember much of it, but the line that sticks in my mind was to the effect, "there's something gone wrong with my dream". George  Walker and his friend Nan stayed with us for a time and I remember Nan comforting me one day and taking me out for a drink at Altitude 737 in Place Ville Marie. After two strong manhattans she got me to relax and talk and that helped me quite a bit.
     Another person who helped me a good deal at the time was my boss, Charlie Armstrong.  He and his wife Nene would invite Jim and I to visit them on weekends at their cottage on Lake ? in the Laurentians. They had a power boat so we were able to learn to water ski, (me at age 50). There was also a tennis court at their neighbors so we were able to get some good games going there. I shall always remain appreciative of Charlie's solicitude in helping us in this way to work though our grief .

15.6, SPIRITUAL HELP IN RECOVERY
     A positive help in losing Anne was a spiritual change in my life where I now began to realize that no matter how self-sufficient I had prided myself on being, there comes a time in one's life where one needs outside support.I had something to fall back on in that I had been exposed to Christian teaching from earliest childhood on. For perhaps one of the few times in my life I was strongly struck by the Christian message of support though all adversity and this was most powerfully expressed through the 23rd Psalm which had been read at Anne's funeral service. That is the one which begins "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want". It brought tears to my eyes when I heard it then and still does so to-day, particularly when it is sung in church. I have indeed since recommended its message of help and comfort to any of my friends who have been afflicted by a family loss.

15.7, STATUS OF THE CHILDREN
     Robin, as mentioned earlier, was attending University in Toronto when his mother died. To get in touch with him urgently I had to go through a pal of his whose father was a top executive in Canadian Westinghouse. He was a man I had last met at the end of the war when he was released from his duties as a Radar Maintenance Officer with the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. His release was secured at the time so he could obtain passage to Canada with us on HMCS "Algonquin". Even though I was the ship's Electrical Officer there was agreat deal about our four radar sets that I didn't know but he was able to tune up our sets to make them more efficient during our trip back.
     Robin, in addition to his studies was still interested in motor cycles, and during his stay at home during the summer he did some tinkering in his spare time while working part time at CN's stores dept. He also later took off with some pals motor cycling to the west, where he visited Grandad Walker at Laclu and my mum and dad at Rivers.
     Maria, who was at Concordia in Ottawa was home for the funeral and also for part of the summer. She was 18 at the time and I did not want her to feel she had to stay at home and look after me, so when my sister Mary invited her to come to Langley and stay with she and Jim Clark while working at picking berries I agreed to her going. Not long afterwards I got  a phone call from her saying whe had obtained a job as assistant cook at a dude ranch near 100 Mile House in the Caribou  District and would I send her Mum's best cook book!
     So I was left with only Jim, who was 14, still at home. He was the one most affected by the loss of his mother and not as good at school as he might otherwise have been. While I did have a part time house-keeper the house was not always watched over with the result that it became at times a haven for some parties with his young companions from Beaconsfield High School. Some of these were of an age where they were into drinking beer. I managed to control this to a degree by pouring their supples down the sink whenever I  caught them at it. Years later, when we moved out of the Beaconsfield house I found traces of pot that had been stashed in the basement; such were the common temptations of youth in Jim's day! Complaints of his missing classes at school, (particularly French) were of concern to me. On one occasion I took time off from work to attend "Ecole de Neige" up in the Laurentians where teachers and parents could go with them to learn about the poperties of snow and ice and participate in sports in the afternoon. It was a good scheme for a midwinter break.
     On the positive side that winter Jim started to earn money in his spare time by clearing neighbors driveways from snow during the storms endemic to Montreal winters. He used my little 4 hp snowblower at first, but I later got him a 7 hp John Deere. He did well with this and eventually ran it as a small business, contracting with some of the neighbors for regular service, hiring one of his pals as a paid helper and paying all the cost of  operating the snow blower. He netted enough during the
two winters he did this to buy himself a new bike and a new pair of skis.

15.8, WORK, AND THE STARTUP OF "TRACS"
     All during Anne's travail and decline I was of course continuig my job downtown. The most interesting thing was the realization that one of the new technological developments, computer systems could offer great improvement to railways in all departments. It was already being used for the payroll task, but the realization was growing that it could do much more. The Southern Pacific Railway in the U.S. together with IBM had developed and implemented an on-line, real-time transaction oriented system.This was able, through punch card input/output terminals and large type 360 main frame computers to keep up to the minute track of all freight cars, locomotives and waybills no matter what their location or status! We had become aware of it through railway publications and though IBM; moreover, our own computer department  was already studying design of a system for CN.
    Charlie Armstrong took it up with vigour and Ernie Gilliatt and I soon found that much if our time was taken up looking into its potential for CN. Before deciding to go ahead on our own it was decided to take a detailed look at the Southern Pacific system which was called TOPS (for Total Operations Processing System) and a team of about half a dozen from Transportation and  Cybernetic (i.e. computer) services was sent to San Francisco to look into it. We spent a week there visiting their computer centre, yard offices, yards and stations to see TOPS at work. We were favorbly impressed and, because SP and IBM were offering the computer software progams to toother North American railways for free our report concluded that we could do the job cheaper and also two years quicker using TOPS than if we pursued the course of designing our own. Our own computer people who had pride in their work were a bit disappointed but as the conclusions carried conviction they went along with the decision which was to go ahead with a special project to implement the system on CN. Eric Stephenson who was Vice President of Cybernetic Services and Jack Spicer who was Vice President of Operations took it to top management for approval. Eric held out to have it report through his department and Jack agreed as long as the project manager was an operations officer. It was decided to call our system TRACS  (Traffic Reporting and Control Systems) and the project was set up  starting Feb. l, 1971. I do not know who all were considered for the job, but I when I was asked by Eric Stephenson if I would be willing to head it up as Project Manager I said "yes". If I can blow my own horn a bit I feel I was as good a choice as they could make, there were not too many officers around who had university training in engineering, served as transportation engineers on the railway and had operating line experience from the level of  Division Assistant Superintendent to General  Superintendent of Transportation with knowledge of  the Atlantic Region and the Great Lakes Region, time at System Headquarters and even some knowledge of  track work and locomotive mechanical from my experiences in Rivers, Man. and Canadian Locomotive in Kingston, Ont!
     First step was to assemble a staff and we got the best we had in CN. In particular, from the computer department we got Jim Williams, Al Pozniak, Murray Bain and many others. The same was true from operations, people such as Pete Leggatt, Charlie Krukowski, and many more. Next was our need for space and we got a nice place on Rue Rene Levesque, in the 2nd floor of a building which was still part of the CN complex so we could walk to the main CN building through the station concourse. For desks and other furniture we used what we could get from CN stores. It was not enough and we initially supplemented it with heavy cardboard temporary desks until proper new ones could be obtained. It is worth noting that we just paid $7.50 per sq. ft. per year for the rental which would be cheap by to-day's standards for downtown accomodation. 
     In the  next chapter I will deal with other family matters including a new major step in my personal family life! After covering that I will return to the work subject of TRACS and its implementation.