On turning 100, English version

 Last month our tante Julie turned 100 years old. This August my mother-in-law Evelyn will turn 98. So amazing; almost 200 years of experience between these two special women. I realize that we have all lived to see this century turn, but most of us have not lived the balance of our life in the previous one. Both tante Julie and Evelyn were born in rural Quebec in the 1920's; tante Julie in Montmagny, on the St Lawrence, in 1921, and Evelyn in 1923 in the small Eastern Townships community of North Hatley.

(Montmagny  pres du haut, North Hatley petit point rouge pres du bas)

(Montmagny at the top, North Hatley red dot to the right of Magog)

 Tante Julie was born into a French family and her grandfather, Nicholas, born almost 100 years before her in 1822, was in the 1860 census shown as being a 'voyageur'. We generally associate this with canoes and the fur trade, but at this time it may have also referred to someone who made his living on the river. Her parents, Proculus and Blanche, were married in 1916 and tante Julie was their first daughter.

Evelyn was born into a large English speaking family, one of many in Quebec whose roots were in the US, having originally crossed the Atlantic from Europe at some distant time. Life was hard, work difficult to find and money scarce, but Mom remembers a happy home and good memories. One particular story lingers in my mind. Grandma Bryant had one good dress which she had washed and hung on the line to dry. Apparently one of the cows thought this might be tasty and began to nibble on the dress. Grandma, upon spying this heinous sight, took off after the cow with Grandpa's axe in hand. As Grandma Bryant stood about '4 foot and not much', this brings a memorable picture to my imagination and clearly an indelible one to my husband's young mind.

(Grandma Bryant whom Evelyn called 'her little Mama')

What stands out in my mind about this time in history is how dangerous it was. Both tante Julie and Evelyn had siblings born during the time of the 'Spanish flu'. Life expectancy for adults was about 50 years, and in Quebec, one in four children died by the age of one.  In statistics gathered from 1925-1926, there were over four maternal deaths a day. Water was not not pure, sanitation uncertain, milk not pasteurized and diseases like diptheria, typhoid, cholera and TB were still causing epidemics and accounting for yearly deaths. In 1927 there was a typhoid fever outbreak in Montreal which had 5000 cases, 10% of those died. 

For tante Julie these were dangers lived out in her family experience. Of the six children born to her parents, only two were still living in 1945, one having died in infancy, and one aged 7. Further, Blanche, tante Julie's mother, died within two weeks of giving birth to her last child. At this time births primarily took place in the home and if there was a doctor, he was called out and there was a bill to pay for the services. If paying this bill was already a hardship, it was not uncommon for a woman to then suffer without the further services of a doctor, even if she did not seem to be recovering from the birth. Whatever the reason for Blanche's untimely and early death, it left Proculus without a wife and tante Julie and her four siblings without a mother. 

If being born was perilous, surviving childhood was equally fraught. In 1916 there was an epidemic of infantile paralysis. In 1930 the case numbers yearly were still growing, and in 1937 when there was another severe epidemic, there was only one iron lung in all of Canada. A vaccine did not become available until 1952 but polio peaked in 1953 in Canada with 9,000 cases and 500 deaths. When Evelyn and tante Julie were born, scientists will still working on the first vaccines for diphtheria, pertussis, TB and tetanus. (As an aside, it is interesting to note that in 1853, in Britain, a vaccine became available for smallpox, a virulent killer. The ruling of the government to make vaccination mandatory resulted  in riots and the formation of the Anti-Vaccination League!)

Scarlet fever was fatal in 1871 and still present in 1921.

For the parents of Evelyn and tante Julie, World War I was still in the recent past. In the near future was the Stock Market Crash of the fall of 1929

to be followed by the Great Depression. By the time tante Julie and Evelyn were 20, the world was once more at war and this time, uncles, brothers and school mates would go perhaps never to return. Rolland, tante Julie's brother, attested in March 1942. 

Rolland did not return home.

L'Action catholique 20 dec 1945

Being from an English community meant that, for Evelyn, more of the 'boys' that were school chums, as well as male family members, went overseas. While a generation of men fought, the women at home had to work the farms and factories to support their families and the war effort. Evelyn went to work at a large factory in Sherbrooke using a lathe to make parts for Bren guns and tanks.

When the war ended, Evelyn's brother returned home, but many of her friends did not. The men and women that returned from war were changed but expected to return to 'normal' life. Evelyn and tante Julie married brothers, one of whom had been to war. This is how they met; two women of similar age but who came from different backgrounds, religions and language.

(Baptist Church, North Hatley   St Thomas, Montmagny)

Life's events however, conspired to separate them for over 50 years but there is much irony in the fact that they both had difficult marriages and ended up raising their families on their own. 

It seems to me that 20th century was a time of extraordinary change. The year that tante Julie was born, William Lyon MacKenzie King became Prime Minister; there have been 18 elections since then.

We went from Wright's gliders to supersonic jets; looking at the moon to walking on it, and then scientists living in space. Model T's of the 20's, owned by the few, became cars in virtually every family driveway and some those powered by battery instead of fuel. Computers! Starting out the size of entire rooms morphed into the nanotechnology of the microscopic. (Personally I still don't get the abacus and seniors who embrace the ofttimes terrifying and ever-evolving world of the computer are to be lauded. Thank goodness my three year grandson can explain things for me.)

The heavy rule-laden Victorian age became the rebellion of the 20's when women dared to cut their hair and show the silhouette of their bodies. Prohibition was repealed in most of Canada in the 20's followed by an increased use and abuse of prohibited substances. the dangers of smoking was documented in the 1950's.

          La Presse 1927                 Apr 1955 Sherbrooke  Daily Record

  The 20's still were fraught with the dangers of serious disease but vaccines were discovered and made mandatory virtually eradicating childhood disease. It became possible to transplant organs successfully and artificial limbs were developed. DNA and sequencing technologies were discovered.

 There were so many important, life-changing, even miraculous discoveries in such a relatively short period of time, and all while tante Julie and Evelyn were surviving childhood, marrying, raising their own children, and enduring the challenges of life. Things that gradually became incorporated into the way we live almost without notice. 

(26 May 1942 Sherbrooke Daily Record)

And now to live into the next century where everything moves faster, gets smaller and more efficient, and moves in the realm of theoretical science and the engineering of the impossible.

It seems grossly unfair that having survived the Spanish Flu of 1918 and many subsequent years, the Asian Flu of 1957 and the Hong Kong Flu of 1968, that tante Julie should be in quarantine for Covid 19 on her 100th birthday because her accommodation changed. On the other hand, tante Julie has survived 100 years of life's adversities. She and Evelyn have endured the loss of family members; parents, siblings and children. They have lived through periods of universal and personal hardship and learned to live with less. They have experienced illness and learned to live with the restraints of aging bodies. 

If was such a moving experience to see them re-united after so many years. The barrier of language is still there but the bond of shared experience was greater. The bringing together of their families was joyous. The barrier now is a pandemic and time which separates us all. It is painful and seems endless, yet we hope for a joyous reunion.

tante Julie(left) and Evelyn (right)

As I ponder the amazing discoveries of the 20th century, it becomes apparent that while medicine and science evolved exponentially, society as a whole has not. We still have in place huge inequities, racism and prejudices of all types. We may be enlightened in many areas, but a darkness continues to prevail in others. There are pockets of hope though, when we see that two women of different race, religion and language can still find common memory and love for one another even after 50 years. 

Shaking the branches of the family tree

I spend a lot of time among the various branches of the family tree. It is an endlessly fascinating way to learn about people and to place them in history in a way that makes events and people come alive.  

I was settled on the couch with my laptop preparing to hunt through a newly found source of newspapers, for obituaries and random facts. Lynn was sitting close by reading his book. In recent days I had found out the temperature in Montreal on the 22nd Aug. 1865 as reported by an optometrist as well as what ships were in the harbour and what they carried;

The front page of the Sherbrook Daily Record for 1st Jun. 1961 reported that a federal census was being taken so expect someone at your door;

in 1935 there were interesting remedies offered for a variety aches and pains common to man;

and that in 1955 you could buy a pie for $.49 at A & P.

So many interesting things as times and styles and ideas changed, but also strikingly similar in the kinds of issues being addressed.

(La Presse 29 Nov 1927)

So I was at this moment scrolling through a 1963 edition of the Sherbrooke Daily Record for a particular obituary. Obituaries are different from death notices. They can give dates of birth and marriage, names of all family members including parents, and then tell a whole life story of work and interests and where a family might have come from. They make a name and facts into a person. 

(Mom's landlord from the big house at the corner of King and London)

At the top of the page was a photo of a group of men who were the newly appointed executive of the bowling league. I scanned through the names, just in case, and it said that the league had eight teams for duck pin. So I asked Lynn, 'Do you know what 'duck pin' is?' He said, 'Yes! I never found it played in Ontario, but it is when small pins are set up, and a smaller bowling ball used.'

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duckpin_bowling#/media/File:20190107_Bowling_balls_andpins.png)

He said, 'I used to be a pin boy'. My eyebrows raised; a new story. 'When I was about 13 there was a bowling alley in the basement of this big house on Montreal Street and William, I think. Opposite where Grace Chapel is. Bowling wasn't mechanized, so the pins had to be reset by hand. Had to be quick!  I was in a duck pin league with Uncle Maurice (Maurice Cutler, Aunt Ruby's husband) and others from the Sherbrooke Hospital when I worked there.' Then we wondered how it was that there was a bowling alley in that building, because it was a residential area. So we Google 'walked' that area of the street to pin point the building.

(Grace Chapel, formerly the Masonic Temple of the Victoria Lodge, where Mom attended church)

(307 Montreal where Aunt Mildred lived, with the Chapel on the right)

(This section of the 1963 Voters List shows Aunt Mildred, Mrs Osborne Young, at 307. There were cousins at 266 and 268. It also shows some of the local employers; Allatt's Bakery, American Biltrite, Paton's, CNR and the Army.)

(the building in question, in an isosceles triangle to the other two)

We confirmed that the side street was William, then we read the sign 'Ecole Plein Soleil' and Google that in order to come up with the street number. The Ecole is now open and the website offered a history of the building so we learned that the building was originally the YWCA, so it suddenly made sense that there could be a bowling alley in the basement. 

This reminded me that Mom and Aunt Ruby used to stay at the YWCA and I thought that it was a large white building on the corner of Dufferin and Montreal. Lynn said that he was sure that it was on Moore St. So I checked into that and found that Walnut Place, later known as the Howard Residence was where they stayed, but the activities, like dances with the soldiers, took place on Montreal Street. 

(5 Moore St. in 1941, 165 rue Moore now)

I read to Lynn the history of the building, how it was built as the residence of William White, then became the residence of a Mr. Howard; the same Howard, Charles Benjamin, that later was Mayor of Sherbrooke and a Senator and later lived here.

(Domaine Howard, Sherbrooke)

This sparked another remembrance for Lynn. He and his twin brother Lloyd had lived with their grandparents for their first years as their parents were away working in Montreal. When they went to live full-time with their parents for the first time, they moved into an apartment on Montreal Street. He remembers that the kitchen was red and white and had a restaurant style booth, which must have had a deep impact on him because he still hankers for one. He thought the street number was 394, so we Googled it to be sure. 

He said that they lived on the third floor and the lady who owned the house was a Mrs. Walters. He said that Senator Howard was a 'gentleman caller' of this lady. When I looked up Senator Howard I found that , Simone Lemieux, widow of Dr. Albert Walters, became the third Mrs. Howard in 1959. (Astonishing that Lynn remembers these details, and so interesting to verify them.)

(https://www.patrimoine-culturel.gouv.qc.ca/rpcq/detail.do?methode=consulter&id=26927&type=pge)

The third floor aerie of 394 Montreal allowed a view to the yard of the Winter Street Jail where the last local hanging was of Albert St Pierre in 1932, for the crime of murder.

Lynn then recalled that he took cigarettes to his father, who was currently residing at this address, when he was around 14. He had to enter the building by that green door. The Winter Prison is over 150 years old and the oldest stone building in Sherbrooke. It is no longer used but its stay of execution is still uncertain because although it  has some historic significance it is would be expensive to even restore it to be safely used as a museum. Lynn finds it of interest that his father stayed in cells once occupied by the Megantic Outlaw, Donald Morrison. Another notorious visitor to these illustrious premises was Harry Kendall Thaw, wealthy socialite, who was accused of the murder of Stanford White, architect, in New York City in 1906 at Madison Square Gardens. Harry escaped an asylum and fled to Canada, where he was recaptured in st Hermengilde just across the border, and sent to the Winter Street facility to await extradition.

(from the front page of the Sherbrooke Daily Record 6th May 1932)

(Harry K Thaw was BIG news for quite a time and even had Louis St Laurent on his extensive legal team. He was treated more as a celebrity than a criminal.)

Today's search was for an obituary, instead what I discovered was more of my husband's personal history and more about the town where he grew up. 

 

View from the window...on the importance of being 3

 As I look out the window this morning it is snowing quietly, big fat flakes falling softly onto the deep blanket of snow which has changed the contours of the yard. There are snowbanks the size of which are now unusual in our winter experience here. It is so beautiful. Mesmerizing, calming; not isolating, but insulating.

You would never guess that this is yet another day, in a long series of strange and unforeseen days, that now stretch into yet another year of the same. A year  when a new vocabulary evolved; where 'bubble' is not followed by 'bath' and 'orange' and 'grey', at least in Ontario, are colours of a new significance.

Emotional balance is a daily struggle. Some days it feels like a tightrope, where you are just a breath away from a plummet. Some days it's more like you are driving along a road minding your own business, when you are clipped by a semi and end up grill down in the ditch.  Or there are those days when it is more like a teeter-totter ride, when your mood just won't level out at all. 

Our little corner of the world went from grey to orange last week which meant that a few more doors are open again. For me, it meant the gift of a little visit with my grandson who is three.

It is over thirty years since our sons were three, and time does soften the trauma of 'terrible twos' who do not suddenly turn into compliant threes. Being a grandma is such a completely different experience, and it occurred to me that there was much to be learned from three year olds.

The joy that I felt when I saw him was mirrored in his face; so precious. I expressed my love on my face, which he saw and reciprocated; such a simple, yet profound thing. It reminded me that something as simple as a genuine smile can be a gift of acknowledgement; 'I see you, and you are important'. Often that small moment of human exchange can make a significant in the the trajectory of someone's day and is so easy to give.

We spent some time getting reacquainted. He needs the reassurance that Grandma is the same and he still has a place in Grandma's house. I watch him and marvel (read 'mourn') at how he has grown since I saw him last. Today he approaches things by identifying shapes; triangle, circle, rectangle; fascinating. Then he goes to where the toys are at Grandma's house. I realize that this is will be a life-long habit. Maybe it is because the present is in the process of change, and the future might be a place we don't recognize, so we revisit the past; shared stories and experiences, beloved places that might be different but are recognizable. These reassure us of our place in the present, and as the past is set, it is comforting. 

We don our winter garb, all the pieces that triple the size of the wearer and make little people look like they have no bending parts. He is beyond excited to going for a walk. I put on his mittens endless times before I remember that boys and mittens are fundamentally incompatible, and this is for him just the funniest game. We meander around the block because three years don't walk as we know it. This is because every thing is fascinating and needs to be discovered;  snowflakes on your eyelashes, patterns on the road and on the tree bark, footprints in the snow. I watch him and hope that he never loses this wonder. I think about how important it is to walk slowly and notice all the small things. I hope that he will take every opportunity to learn and experience and that an awe of nature will help keep his life in balance.

Eating is still very much a tactile activity at three. Each shape and texture is explored. Crunchy things make satisfying noises. Apples are smiles. He is hungry so it is a quiet affair and he is engrossed. I watch and hope that he will always have enough to eat and always appreciate it. I hope that as he grows he will become aware that others go hungry and that this awareness will help to shape the man he becomes.

Grandma gets out a box of crayons and some paper. It becomes apparent that  the box is much more fascinating, and how the crayons fit in, and slide out of said box, needs much repetition to discover fully. And there is a thing made of triangles to hold the crayons. Amazing. Apparently today Grandma is to be the scribe and John the director, so he tells me what he would like drawn and what colour to use. He watches so intently and seriously. And then he goes back to the box. As I watch he I hope that he never loses this curiosity about how things work. I hope that should he not be artistic he will appreciate the artistry of others.

Then we snuggle and have 'cell phone time'. For my generation new technology is intimidating and needs to be approached cautiously. This three year old is bold, intrepid, unafraid. He wants our picture taken, then he wants to review the gallery of pictures and videos. The little fingers swipe at the speed of light to find his favorites; he has his and I have mine and we watch them all. I hold him close and watch him giggle at himself. I hope that these little moments of happy memory embed themselves deeply in him. I hope that he will always feel secure in himself and who he is.

At last Daddy said 'it's time to go'. That small beloved face fell, then burrowed itself in my shoulder. I hugged him so tightly. This was not an act of defiance, but a moment of seeking reassurance. An 'I am sad' moment, and who better to share that with than the person who feels the same way. A hug, a whisper of love, a reassurance that his feeling is shared and understood. then we do what we have to so that comings and goings are understood as part of life and not to be feared. So very important, not just now, in this time, but always.

I hope that I can carry with me some of the best things about being three. I hope that John will carry with him the certainty that Grandma will always, always love him.