Saturday, January 31, 2009
EARLY MEMORIES OF OUR MOTHER
EARLY MEMORIES OF OUR MOTHER
Mom liked to tell the story of what my grandmother said when she learned that her daughter was pregnant with her first child, “Well at least the two of you can grow up together.” So it was that our mother bore me just after turning nineteen during the thick of World War II. My memories of her as a young woman extend back to just a couple of years later, so it seems appropriate to share some of them with my siblings and those friends and relatives who have assembled here this day.
My grandmother herself told me how active and even tomboyish Mom was as a young girl. Apparently she delighted in frolicking with the farm animals, and in climbing mature trees right to the top, occasioning moments of anxiety for those on the ground. She also delighted in softball and skating and sledding and would walk all the way to Aylesford or Kingston of an evening with her cousins and friends to participate in such activities. She fondly remembered the hobos from out west who came to the farm to work for food during the depression, young men who were almost identical with those who would later billet at her home during World War II while training on the nearby parade grounds in North Kingston. My father as a truck-driver also boarded at her parent’s large old home during the War, which is how they came to meet. Occasionally these ex-hobos and soldiers would visit her and my father in later life after they had returned home to the West and established themselves as successful businessmen or farmers.
She’s very beautiful and girlish in my earliest memories of her – a biased memory of course, but one confirmed recently by my cousin who reminisced about her being the most beautiful woman he could remember as a child. I shared with her an intense interest in the radio soaps of that era, and she would get the biggest kick out of listening to me regale a bus load of people with the latest events on “The Right to Happiness” or “Pepper Young’s Family.”She was warm and lighthearted with a romantic streak that ran deep. I remember her telling me that everyone has someone waiting for them in life and that happiness consists of finding that person. Certainly she believed that our father filled that bill in her life.
My earliest memories of the two of them together in the post World War II years are extremely idyllic. Going to Kentville with them religiously every Saturday night in the years before TV to stroll the streets and socialize with friends and relatives; being bathed by her in a galvanized washtub once a week; having both of them put me astride a rocking horse and their delight in how ferociously I rode it; helping her pick vegetables from the garden; both her and my paternal grandfather teaching me to read and do arithmetic before I started school; going with them often for wonderful visits to her parents’ home in Kingston; a sense of both parents extending out to four loving and attentive grandparents and a myriad of uncles, aunts and cousins; my father’s big truck took the three of us and soon the four of us and then the five of us when Malcolm and Brenda came along on all our excursions such as Sunday trips to Morden or Margaritesville, perhaps with Aunt Edith and her family to enjoy the beach (I was always cold) and eating ice cream.
She was a great cook of traditional country fare. I see her now making wonderful brown bread and baked beans for Saturday supper while her kids clamoured for her to fry us up some fritters; Malcolm and I helping her make the most delicious doughnuts and stealing the holes of the raw nutmeg-flavoured dough. Our first chore was filling the woodbox by the stove with wood and kindling stored in the basement, Malcolm barely big enough to make it up the stairs, and I remember my sense of sibling jealousy that I only got a small coin, a dime, for doing it, whereas Malcolm got a big coin, a nickel. I remember her indulgence of my childish peccadilloes such as deciding to hit my grandmother’s chickens on the head with a hammer to see “one eye go up and one eye go down”. Not that she wasn’t capable of delivering a good spanking when she thought circumstances warranted it, such as when I wiped vegemite over her new party dress after she doused us while recovering from the whooping cough.
I remember going with my parents to pick up our first puppy just after Malcolm was born, so I named it Skippy after the mischievous hero of the movie we had gone to see the night before. I remember Malcolm and the puppy curled up together in a playpen in the kitchen while Mom made supper a few feet away – and I remember how right all seemed with the world.
Later in life after Sandra, Wanda and Kevin came along, and all her girlish dreams had faded, she still made a difference in many lives. It was her who made sure that I got a scholarship to complete my education and she welcomed my wife Linda into the family with open arms, finding many ways to ease our return to Nova Scotia after many years away. She eased the final days of many elderly people, caring for them patiently including her own stroke-ridden mother for a time, so it seems fitting that her life should end being cared for lovingly by Malcolm and his wife Sally. Indeed the care which Sally lavished on our mother in her final months is all anyone could wish for during their final days on Earth. Thank you, Malcolm, and especially thank you, Sally.
Affectionately remembered
Cameron
Mom liked to tell the story of what my grandmother said when she learned that her daughter was pregnant with her first child, “Well at least the two of you can grow up together.” So it was that our mother bore me just after turning nineteen during the thick of World War II. My memories of her as a young woman extend back to just a couple of years later, so it seems appropriate to share some of them with my siblings and those friends and relatives who have assembled here this day.
My grandmother herself told me how active and even tomboyish Mom was as a young girl. Apparently she delighted in frolicking with the farm animals, and in climbing mature trees right to the top, occasioning moments of anxiety for those on the ground. She also delighted in softball and skating and sledding and would walk all the way to Aylesford or Kingston of an evening with her cousins and friends to participate in such activities. She fondly remembered the hobos from out west who came to the farm to work for food during the depression, young men who were almost identical with those who would later billet at her home during World War II while training on the nearby parade grounds in North Kingston. My father as a truck-driver also boarded at her parent’s large old home during the War, which is how they came to meet. Occasionally these ex-hobos and soldiers would visit her and my father in later life after they had returned home to the West and established themselves as successful businessmen or farmers.
She’s very beautiful and girlish in my earliest memories of her – a biased memory of course, but one confirmed recently by my cousin who reminisced about her being the most beautiful woman he could remember as a child. I shared with her an intense interest in the radio soaps of that era, and she would get the biggest kick out of listening to me regale a bus load of people with the latest events on “The Right to Happiness” or “Pepper Young’s Family.”She was warm and lighthearted with a romantic streak that ran deep. I remember her telling me that everyone has someone waiting for them in life and that happiness consists of finding that person. Certainly she believed that our father filled that bill in her life.
My earliest memories of the two of them together in the post World War II years are extremely idyllic. Going to Kentville with them religiously every Saturday night in the years before TV to stroll the streets and socialize with friends and relatives; being bathed by her in a galvanized washtub once a week; having both of them put me astride a rocking horse and their delight in how ferociously I rode it; helping her pick vegetables from the garden; both her and my paternal grandfather teaching me to read and do arithmetic before I started school; going with them often for wonderful visits to her parents’ home in Kingston; a sense of both parents extending out to four loving and attentive grandparents and a myriad of uncles, aunts and cousins; my father’s big truck took the three of us and soon the four of us and then the five of us when Malcolm and Brenda came along on all our excursions such as Sunday trips to Morden or Margaritesville, perhaps with Aunt Edith and her family to enjoy the beach (I was always cold) and eating ice cream.
She was a great cook of traditional country fare. I see her now making wonderful brown bread and baked beans for Saturday supper while her kids clamoured for her to fry us up some fritters; Malcolm and I helping her make the most delicious doughnuts and stealing the holes of the raw nutmeg-flavoured dough. Our first chore was filling the woodbox by the stove with wood and kindling stored in the basement, Malcolm barely big enough to make it up the stairs, and I remember my sense of sibling jealousy that I only got a small coin, a dime, for doing it, whereas Malcolm got a big coin, a nickel. I remember her indulgence of my childish peccadilloes such as deciding to hit my grandmother’s chickens on the head with a hammer to see “one eye go up and one eye go down”. Not that she wasn’t capable of delivering a good spanking when she thought circumstances warranted it, such as when I wiped vegemite over her new party dress after she doused us while recovering from the whooping cough.
I remember going with my parents to pick up our first puppy just after Malcolm was born, so I named it Skippy after the mischievous hero of the movie we had gone to see the night before. I remember Malcolm and the puppy curled up together in a playpen in the kitchen while Mom made supper a few feet away – and I remember how right all seemed with the world.
Later in life after Sandra, Wanda and Kevin came along, and all her girlish dreams had faded, she still made a difference in many lives. It was her who made sure that I got a scholarship to complete my education and she welcomed my wife Linda into the family with open arms, finding many ways to ease our return to Nova Scotia after many years away. She eased the final days of many elderly people, caring for them patiently including her own stroke-ridden mother for a time, so it seems fitting that her life should end being cared for lovingly by Malcolm and his wife Sally. Indeed the care which Sally lavished on our mother in her final months is all anyone could wish for during their final days on Earth. Thank you, Malcolm, and especially thank you, Sally.
Affectionately remembered
Cameron
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