Book 3: Allan’s Memories
My mother, newly widowed Jean Sinclair was left with enough resources to open her own rooming house business at 110 Centre Street in Montreal. She shared the main floor with her children, Mary, Jean and Alex, and rented out the remaining six rooms on the second and third floors. Her kitchen and dining room were always busy – meals being prepared, served and cleared away became her everyday routine. With the help a “daily,” Mother cared for the needs of her family and roomers. Though widowed but now finally with the companionship of daughter Mary, she was content with her hard-won independence.
My father, Arthur Christian Peterson, was born in 1880, of Danish-American parents. He left his St-Paul Minnesota home as soon as he was old enough to enroll in the American army. Trained as an infantry soldier, he joined up just as the Spanish-American war was ending. Shipped to the Philippine Islands, he took part in quelling the Moros rebellions. He told us of his only distinction in those years, working as the cook’s helper. He received the nick-name ‘Coal-Oil Pete’ by his bread-hungry comrades, for stowing kerosene beside the flour supply. My Dad would chuckle over that story, but would grow quiet and withdrawn if pressed to describe more serious exploits. (I learned the implications many years later when my own children would ask me to describe my war-time experiences.)
In 1915 my father took his discharge from the American army and moved to Montreal, where he became a member of the Canadian army of King George V. His battalion left Canada for England to receive further training later the same year. Private Peterson was slightly wounded in France, receiving wounds to his right eye and leg. Rehabilitated, he returned to duty, only to receive minor shrapnel wounds to his forehead and chest. He was soon discharged again, only to be absorbed, along with his much- depleted battalion, into the 87th.
Now Lance Corporal Peterson, he witnessed the horrors and heroics of Vimy Ridge, Cambrai, Passchendale, and finally the defeat of the great German offensive of early 1918 and at last, the advance of the allied armies. It was during these last few battles that my father was shot through the chest. He clearly remembers a battalion medic covering him with a blanket, and saying “You’re done for Pete.” He was left to die on the field, like so many other wretchedly injured soldiers.
My father was not prepared to die. Holding his hands to his chest wound and with blood spurting through his fingers, he stumbled his way to the regimental aid post, where he was treated. Labelled ‘dangerously ill’ he passed through the Canadian army’s medical system. In February of 1919 he returned to Canada by hospital ship. Back in Montreal he received a discharge category, beginning with a month’s sick leave. Coincidence brought him to 110 Centre Street, where he recuperated in one of my mother’s rented rooms.
Mother saw something in this 38 year old soldier, who had been told he could not expect to die from old age, given the damage to his lungs. I never learned their full story, other than to know they were married by the end of 1919. Another child was born, but died too soon. I came into the world in 1921, and named Allan Angus Sloss Peterson.
By then my father had taken training to become a photo-engraver, then a much sought-after trade. Lured by the prospects of better wages, he convinced my mother to sell her house and move to New York with him. They bought a house in St Albans, a recently-developed suburb of the great city.
My parents prospered during the 1920’s, as did many people. I was too young to take in many memories of those times, but I clearly remember the day my father received a letter from the Canadian government department in charge of war veteran pensions. It suggested the government was not keen to send disability pension cheques to ex-servicemen who chose to live abroad. The decision was made to move back to Canada.
My siblings were grown and wished to remain in America. Mary had married and moved to Maine. Jean and Alex successfully proposed buying the house my parents had purchased, and so my parents and I returned to Montreal.
Mother insisted on buying another rooming house, and so we settled into 244 Ontario Street, where we spent the rest of my childhood.
love this. thanks Mary.
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