Roll Call

The roll call has begun. Rick, my husband, and I, notice that when either of us talks to one of our granddaughters, we may go through the roll call. For example, if Rick is talking to Caitlin, he might say, "Claire, Sylvie, Caitlin." We do not blurt out the list of females in the family but stumble through them because the correct name escapes us. Does this phenomenon come with age?

My grandfather O'Brien did the roll call as well. If he was talking to me, he said, "Monnie, Mary, Esther, Marie," the last name always the one to whom he was speaking. 

Granda did not always do the roll call however. It happened as he aged, in the last years before he died at the age of seventy-two. His mind was sharp but the name retrieval was not. I came to expect the litany during conversations, knowing that he would arrive at my name as he always did.

                      Nan and Granda

Nan was different though. She did not do the roll call. The names disappeared from her mind over time. Nan lived to be eighty-six and suffered from vascular dementia. She lost all memory, not just names. Her family experienced the long sad goodbye.

So, it sounds like the roll call stage has arrived for us . We may as well enjoy this stage too. We cannot change it, but we can laugh and remember with a smile those special people who have gone before us.

The Thieving Dogs

Georgie, the granddog, is visiting again for a few weeks so it is time for some dog stories. This golden retriever loves ice cream. Once a week we take her for ice cream when she's here. Georgie recognizes the street where the dairy bar is located as soon as we turn on to that road. Then she starts to whine and drool, knowing what is coming.

         Georgie having a lick

During a visit to her home one day last summer, we had ice cream, as did Georgie. While our daughter, Claire, tended to one of the girls, she placed her ice cream cone on the kitchen counter. After Claire turned her back, Georgie jumped up over the counter, reached in and chomped on the cone, devouring it in two bites. She had not done anything like that before but let's face it, the dog loves her ice cream and you cannot turn your back on her when it is around. More care is taken with ice cream placement since that time.

             Angelic Georgie

There was another dog in the family who was a food thief as well. My brother had a dog called Morgan, a Shetland sheepdog. Frank's then girlfriend, now wife, Michele had baked a chocolate cake for an anniversary, an open book shape on which she would put the names of the couple. She left the  cake on the dining room table overnight, ready to decorate in the morning.

        Mom, Claire,  Dad, Morgan

The next morning, my mother discovered that one side of the cake was missing, looking as if it had been cut from the remaining half. When my brother woke, Mom said, " That's pretty good what you did. You must have been some hungry."

Frank replied, "What are ya talkin' about, Mudder?"

"You b'y. You ate half the cake Michele had ready to decorate for the anniversary," said Mom.

"I didn't touch that cake, Mudder. I didn't even see the cake. Where is it?"

Mom showed Frank the cake and seeing the damage, Frank said, "Morgan."

Morgan was quiet that day, sheepish, or should I say dogish, from eating the cake, or sick from the chocolate, we never knew which.

               Claire and Puppy Morgan

Michele made and decorated a second cake, out of Morgan's reach this time.

The thieving dogs!

Full Bloom

Classie's peonies...

Sometimes words are unnecessary.

The Accident on the Newfoundland Railway

A friend gave my brother, Frank Pretty, an article from the Daily News of St. John's, Newfoundland, dated August 14, 1919. It provides some interesting information about an accident my grandfather had on the railway line at Placentia Junction on the previous day.

It reads as follows:

Mr. Samuel Pretty one of the drivers on the railroad is now in hospital in precarious condition, as the result of injuries received yesterday at Placentia Junction. While examining a coupling the cars came together crushing him badly about the head. A special car with Dr. Paterson on board was rushed out as soon as word of the accident was received and returned to town at 4 o'clock this morning with the injured man. He was met at the station by Rev. Fr. Flyn who accompanied him to hospital in the ambulance, as also did Dr. Paterson and Const. Whelan.

                                                       Daily News, August 14, 1919

There is much to be learned from this article and much that can be put together from what we know of my grandfather's life at this time.

First of all, there must have been a protocol to follow when a worker was injured on the job at the Newfoundland Railway. Phones were in use on the island at that time but did Placentia Junction have a phone connection to St. John's or did they send a telegram to St. John's to report the accident?

The railway sent a "special car" which "rushed out" with a doctor on board to retrieve the injured man. This car must have been equipped with medical supplies for emergencies. But the "rushing" has to be taken in context of the nickname of the railway, the Newfie Bullet, because it was so slow. It was the fastest way to get to our grandfather at that time, but if his injuries were serious, he would have been long dead by the time help arrived from St. John's one hundred kilometers away.

It also says of Samuel Pretty, that "cars came together crushing him badly about the head." It is portrayed as a serious accident involving a head injury. How could Sam have survived it?

          Samuel Pretty

The priest and the constable met my grandfather, Pop, at the station. Pop Pretty had been married in the Roman Catholic Church but he was baptized in the Church of England. His parents died when he was young and he moved to St. John's to work in his mid teens. He may not have been practising his religion so joined his wife, Ida Stewart, in the Catholic Church when they married. The priest came because the injury might have been serious and to give Pop the last rites, called Extreme Unction at that time, if necessary. Knowing my grandfather and his lack of religious conviction in his later life, I wonder what he thought of this development, or if he was in fact conscious? Did his family ask the priest to attend to him? They lived in the shadow of St. Patrick's Church. Did Pop think that he was dying or was all of this routine procedure for a work injury on the railway?

The presence of the Constable gives the impression that an injury on the job required an investigation by the Newfoundland Constabulary. Foul play would have to be ruled out as the reason for the injury.

At this time in his life, my grandfather was married to Ida Stewart, and they lived on the west end of Water Street with her parents, Tom and Mary Walsh Stewart, across from the train station. Had his family been notified about the accident? If they didn't have a phone at that time, they may have been notified because of their proximity to the station.

By August 1919, Sam and Ida had two children, Muriel, born May 1918 and Albert, born June, 1919. Was Ida able to leave her two babies with her mother to meet Sam at the train station or at the hospital at four in the morning? Maybe her father, Tom, met him and went to the hospital to be with Sam.

           Tom Stewart

What was Ida thinking at this time? She must have had anxious hours waiting to find out how serious this accident was and to what extent her husband was injured. She could be left a widow with two babies. There was no welfare cheque as a social safety net at that time such as we have today. What would she do? The Stewart woman worked before they married, but Ida had two babies now. Would her parents help her?

      Ida Stewart Pretty

How long was my grandfather off the job? Did he have an income from the railway during that time? How did they manage?

When he went back to work, was Pop nervous doing the same task again? Did he have a new appreciation for life? 

.

If my grandfather had died from this injury, the remaining five children would never have been born, Tom, Marg, Angela, Sam and Robert. There are three generations of Pretty descendants alive today because Pop Pretty survived that injury.

Placentia Junction is where my brother, Frank, and his wife, Michele, own a cabin which was owned by Michele's parents. 

             Cabin at the Junction

Many railroad personnel owned cabins in the Junction area years ago. One such  worker was Jack Taylor, Michele's father. Another was my father's older brother, Tom. Long before there was a road into Placentia Junction, people travelled to their cabins at the Junction by train. It would be interesting to know where the accident occurred there.

    Area of previous railroad

            by driveway

Finally, it is interesting to see the use of punctuation in the Daily News in 1919; few commas were used in the story. The term Rev. Fr. to refer to the priest is not in common usage today either. Was the priest's name Flynn and not Flyn? Also the phrase "precarious condition" has been replaced today with standard terms such as critical, serious, or stable, depending on information released by the hospital. It is too bad such was not the case almost one hundred years ago because we would have a better idea of how bad Pop's injury was. From what his family saw of his life, he made a full recovery.

Thank you to Tom McGrath for the copy of the article.

Note: neither Albert nor Robert Pretty survived childhood.

You Won't Know It When You See It

When it comes to clichés, I take the cookie. If these walls could sing, they would confirm it. I should avoid them like the flu but I just don't learn it.

Maybe I do think outside the carton because I mix them up. But every cloud has a silver side because I try not to use them in my writing as a result. Only time will indicate if I have been successful. 

Yesterday, my husband, Rick and I spoke about the reward money offered by the potato industry of Prince Edward Island. Someone or some group of people put metal in potatoes which made it to the market place. Of course the farmers are scared out of their senses because they do not want to lose their markets due to this tampering. The reward is now $500,000.00 and the hope is that good information comes to those who wait.  

My comment was, "If I knew who it was I would sing like a parrot."

"You wouldn't say much then because parrots aren't known for singing," said Rick.

 At the beginning of the day, another one bites the asphalt!

Classie Time

They are fleeting moments in time every summer, these few days when the peonies are in bloom. 

Though we think of her often, my husband's grandmother, Classie, is foremost in our minds during this time.

Classie Lawrence Mercer grew the most beautiful peony plants and she shared them with family and friends.

We had to leave our plants in Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland, when we moved to Prince Edward Island, but our first garden purchase for this house was a variety of peonies, in memory of Classie.

The garden colour this time of year is spectacular, calm or vibrant, depending on what you see.

Today is Classie Time however. Enjoy the peonies.

Eleanor, Part 3: Her Journey

The eleventh child born to Jack and Julie Bursey of St. Augustine, Québec, Eleanor was born in 1948. Three of her siblings had died prior to her birth. The first eighteen months of her life were uneventful, with life in St. Augustine going along as usual. The older children helped look after her, and she had ready playmates in the younger ones. As the youngest child in the house, Eleanor slept in a crib in her parents room on the main floor of the house.

  Jack, Julie and Eleanor

St. Augustine had a Roman Catholic priest named Father Langois. Every year he brought boxes of toys and clothes into the community. The items came from the United states, in tea boxes, which were lined with foil. Father Langois sold the items to the people in the community. So in the late fall of 1949, Eleanor's parents bought clothes and toys from the priest for Christmas.

          Father Langois

Everything was fine until the end of December. When her sister, Hampton, tried to get Eleanor out of her crib, Eleanor could not stand. The family sent for Mrs. Clench, a trained nurse, who lived in the community.

"I hope to God it is not what I think it is," said Mrs. Clench. She suspected polio.

 

Mrs. Clench sent a telegram to Montreal and the next a day, an air ambulance flight landed on the frozen river. The men cleaned off the ice and outlined the runway with burning pots of oil. By this time, nine children were affected, two eventually died. The people suspected the polio virus came to the community in the boxes of toys and clothes. The village was quarantined, the only place on the coast with polio.

The children were taken to Hôpital Pasteur in Montreal. While Eleanor's family was English speaking, in Montreal, Eleanor heard French. When she finally arrived home for an extended time five years later, Eleanor spoke French.

    Nurse with Eleanor

Those years away from her family are lost to Eleanor, who has no memory of that time. It may be a good thing. However, there were other children from her community with her at the hospital so Eleanor still had a connection to home. Imagine what it must have been like for her parents, not knowing what was going on day to day with their young child. Visiting Montreal was out of the question.

      At the hospital

Even when she did return home, Eleanor went back to Montreal for yearly check-ups. She also had a further period of thirteen months away from home, living in foster care this time, as doctors operated on her left leg, trying to improve her mobility. This surgery was unsuccessful and foster care was not a pleasant experience for Eleanor either. 

         Another surgery

Through it all, Eleanor had to wear braces of varying sizes, starting with a brace on her left leg from her foot to her hip, Over the years, doctors reduced the size of the brace. Eleanor eventually wore a high boot.

    Eleanor in High School

Young people of St. Augustine had to leave the community to attend high school. They went to Cross Point in Restigouche, Québec. By this time, Eleanor was accustomed to being away from home, so the transition for her was not as difficult as it was for some of the young people.

By 1968, Eleanor was living in Ontario and working at Eaton's Department Store. Later she worked as a filing clerk at Princess Margaret Hospital. About this time, she met Eldon Gallant, a trucker from Prince Edward Island. They married in 1970. Then in 1974, after her mother died, the Gallants moved to St. Augustine to look after Eleanor's father.

         The Gallants

One of the highlights of Eleanor's life, was the day she and Eldon adopted their son, Peter in 1985. The family lived in St. Augustine until 1997 when they moved to Prince Edward Island to look after Eldon's mother.  

           Eleanor and Pete

Sadly, Eldon died in 2009. Eleanor still resides in Prince Edward Island and enjoys a busy life with friends and family. She has two beautiful grandchildren as well, who fill her life with great joy.

It is interesting that the young child who spent so many of her formative years in hospital away from home, grew up to provide care for other people. The care she received had a huge impact on that little child as did the wonderful parents who gave birth to her. She became a loving, caring, adaptable, friendly woman.

Polio affected Eleanor's mobility, but she does not have any pain in the affected leg. She can do anything she needs or wants to do. Eleanor's brush with polio does not define who she is. Rather, it informed her life, in combination with her heritage and her community. 

It all started with Reuben's journey to the coast, all those years ago.

Thank you to Eleanor Bursey Gallant for sharing her family story this week.