Family and Friends

         Since I was the last of Mother’s children, I did not know my siblings well.  During family get-togethers, much of their time was spent reminiscing.  The “Do you remember when . . .?”type of conversations held little interest for me, although my ears perked up when my mother was occasionally persuaded to talk about her girlhood in Scotland.  She giggled when she told of a game of hide and seek when she sought to hide in the outdoor ‘loo’. Colliding with her father, she sent the poor man backwards into the muck.           She could also recall in detail her home in Northern Scotland.  This is how she described it:  “  . . .we lived in a croft just outside the small village of Wick.  It was built of stone, like most of the houses.  Wood was hard to come by.  Our croft was small and narrow, and you immediately stepped into a small dark passageway where we hung our coats on hooks.  Then you would be in the kitchen.  It would look very strange to you, for you would see two box beds built into one wall.  My brother and I slept in these.  Under the beds were kist boxes where we stored our extra clothing and little treasures.  There was no stove; my mam cooked our food over an open fire in the corner.  She would leave the window nearby open so as to get rid of the smoke, but some days the wind was very strong and the room got very smoky.  Glass was very dear, so we only had one small window.

         There was a table with four stools.  My brother and I did our lessons there, when the evening meal was over.  We took turns doing the washing up – one of us would fill the pail at the pump outside and the other would clean the dishes.  There were only four plates and four bowls, as well as tin cups for our water.  We only had milk on our oatmeal in the morning.

         The other room had a rope bed for my parents, as well as an old bureau.  Mam kept our extra clothes in it.  We didn’t need a place to keep our extra sheets, blankets and pillows, for we didn’t have any extras.  Mam also kept her spinning wheel and basket of wool in that room.

         The floor was made of flat shale rock that my Da had carried piece by piece from the quarry down the road.  It seemed we were always sweeping with the straw broom he made.  There was an outhouse out back (you will remember me telling you about that!) as well as a small byre for the animals – two sheep, a cow, and a donkey.  Chickens ran in and out among the other animals.

         There, that’s the sum of it.  There are no photographs, for no one in Wick could afford a camera.  The only time people had their picture taken was when they were emigrating away from home.  It gave those who were left something to remember them by.”

         My eldest sister Mary was a shadowy and mysterious figure to me.  She had married and moved to Maine by the time I was old enough to be fully aware of my siblings.  The only real memory I had of Mary had to do with a dog my father had owned, a chow that slept on the basement steps.  One day as Mary was going down to the basement on an errand she tripped and stepped on the chow’s tail.  Startled, he bit her.  Dad took his beloved pet down to the basement.  The next day there was no evidence the dog had ever existed, and my father’s grim manner forbade any discussion.  For many years all I knew of Mary was that she had remained in Scotland with our grandmother Sinclair, and had come to Canada at the close of the Great War. 

         It was during a summer vacation spent with my sister Jean I learned more of Mary’s, and hence, my mother’s, story.  Jean lived and worked in Washington, D.C.   While she worked I mooched around the city.  On her days off, she treated me to several excursions – Arlington, the White House, Lincoln’s Statue, and so on.  Over lunch one day I asked her about Mary.  Why had she stayed in Scotland instead of coming to Canada with Mother?  Jean was talkative, and she told me what little she knew about Mother’s first marriage to a Scottish soldier named Angus.  He had not come back from the Boer War, and left Mother expecting a baby.  After Mary was born, Mother knew she had to leave Scotland to make a better life for herself and her daughter.  She came to Canada the only way she could afford, signing on as an indentured servant for three years.  Not able to bring any dependents, she left Mary in Scotland. Not to until 1918 were the two to be reunited. 

         The penny dropped.  That was why my second name is Angus!  Jean nodded at my outburst.  Just don’t tell Mother, I was told.  She keeps that part of her life very private.

         During our last lunch together Jean took me to a fancy restaurant that promised entertainment.  Midway through dessert the lights dimmed and a large blond emerged.  An ostrich-sized feathered fan covered her yin and yang.  Otherwise it was clear she was naked.  She pirouetted seductively for a few minutes.  As she backed off the dance-floor, right past or table, the dancer winked at me.  “Don’t you dare tell Mother!”  I didn’t!  For a boy of fifteen, life held educational mysteries.

         I spent another vacation with my brother Alex, still living in the house Jean and Alex had bought from our parents.  When Alex married Marie they continued living in that house, and it was there I met Marie’s young sister Helen.  She and Marie were the daughters of German-American parents.  I thought blond, blue-eyed  Helen was ravishing, and Helen and I became pen pals over the next few years.  I planned to bike down to New York to attend the world’s fair with her in the summer of 1939.  Of course, world events would trump that plan!

         At school I met Gordon Hopper, who was to become my closest friend for many years.  We had left school at about the same time, and our friendship prospered throughout our teenage and adult years.  We both enjoyed camping, swimming, fishing and hiking.  On weekends we would cycle out of the city to an isolated stretch of river or lake, perhaps hire a rowboat and ‘rough it’.  One Saturday we cycled from Montreal to a beach near Plattsbury, New York, survived on peanut butter and bread, slept and shivered on the beach and returned home the next day, having completed one hundred and eighty miles on single-gear bikes.  We arrived home very tired but very happy.  To this day I treasure a snapshot of Gordon sleeping in the bottom of a flat-bottomed boat on some Quebec lake or other.