8.O’Flaherty, Lost Country, pp. 329–30.
9.O’Flaherty, Lost Country, pp. 329–30.
10.Telegraph communication between the Newfoundland government and J.H. Thomas, British Colonial Secretary, Documents Relating to the Running of the Government of Newfoundland, December 1931, HJ13 N4 A46 1932, CNS, MUN.
11.O’Flaherty, Lost Country, p. 375.
12.O’Flaherty, Lost Country, p. 375.
13.James Hiller, ed., Debates of the Newfoundland Legislature (1932–33) (St. John’s, NL: Queen’s Printer, 2010). Reported in the Daily News, February 18, 1932, Queen Elizabeth II Library, MUN. (In those years, legislature debates were not transcribed verbatim but later reconstructed from transcripts, journals and press reporting.)
14.Telegraph communication between the Newfoundland government and J.H. Thomas, Running of the Government of Newfoundland.
15.O’Flaherty, Lost Country, p. 363.
16.Debates of the Newfoundland Assembly, April 19, 1932, J125 N32 1932, CNS Stacks, MUN.
17.O’Flaherty, Lost Country, p. 383.
18.Sean Cadigan, Death on Two Fronts: National Tragedies and the Fate of Democracy in Newfoundland, 1914–34 (Toronto: Allen Lane, 2013), p. 291.
19.Sir Percy Thompson addressed his letter to “My Dear Harding.” A contemporary of his was Sir Edward Harding, permanent secretary of the Dominions Office in London. CNS, MUN.
20.O’Flaherty, Lost Country, p. 369, quoting Eugene Cholcott (Evening Telegram, May 30 and June 2, 1931), who, with others in St. John’s, blamed voter illiteracy for many of the country’s woes.
21.Cadigan, Death on Two Fronts, p. 293. Sir William Coaker had visited Italy in 1932 and, as Cadigan writes, “witnessed the apparent Fascist miracle of new public works, industry and social order.”
22.Peter Neary, Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World 1929–1949 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988), p. 27.
23.Neary, White Tie and Decorations, p. 32.
24.Neary, White Tie and Decorations, p. 31.
FOUR: THE COOPERATION
* * *
1.Adele Poynter, Dancing in a Jar (St. John’s, NL: Breakwater Books, 2016). While this is a somewhat fictionalized account of her father’s early years in St. Lawrence, the book is based on correspondence between Donald Poynter and family members back in the United States. Certain details can be considered factual and have been explored in conversations with the late Ms. Poynter’s brother, Dr. Thomas Poynter of Boston, and her uncle, Gus Etchegary of St. Phillips, NL.
2.Dr. Thomas Poynter, interviews with author, January 7, January 24 and April 18, 2017.
3.Rennie Slaney, More Incredible Than Fiction: The True Story of the Indomitable Men and Women of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, from the Time of Settlement to 1965 (Montreal: Confederation of National Trade Unions/Confederation des syndicats nationaux, 1975), p. 9.
4.Thomas Poynter, interview.
5.Howard Farrell, unpublished manuscript (cited as “H. Farrell, Fluorspar Deposits” in the Fluorspar Deposits and Operations of the St. Lawrence Corporation Ltd., archives of the Aluminum Company of Canada Ltd., Montreal).
6.Donald Poynter, interviewed by members of a trade dispute panel, January 1942. From notes taken by the panel commissioner, Thomas Lefeuvre, and preserved in the archives of the Museum and Historical Society of St. Lawrence.
7.Slaney, More Incredible Than Fiction.
8.Slaney, More Incredible Than Fiction.
9.Slaney, More Incredible Than Fiction, pp. 15–16.
10.Peter Quirke, interviews with author, October 22, 2016, and February 17 and May 15, 2017.
11.Martin, Once Upon a Mine.
12.Slaney, More Incredible Than Fiction.
13.Slaney, More Incredible Than Fiction.
14.Poynter, Dancing in a Jar. She writes in her epilogue, “Although I have no confirmation of this, it appears that Urla had tubercular meningitis . . . [A]t the time, the United States did not have a policy of inoculating young people against the disease, so Urla would have come to Newfoundland with no protection.”
15.Neary, White Tie and Decorations. Both Sir John and Lady Hope Simpson gave detailed descriptions of their 1935 tour of the Burin Peninsula, including their brief stay in St. Lawrence and their visit to the Black Duck mine.
16.Neary, White Tie and Decorations.
17.Sir John Hope Simpson, “Memorandum for Consideration of Commission of Government,” GN38, S2-1-11, file 1, Public Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John’s (hereafter The Rooms).
18.Sir John Hope Simpson, undated memo to Natural Resources files, The Rooms, probably in February 1936, nearing the second anniversary of his arrival in Newfoundland.
19.Cornelius Kelleher, personal correspondence with Tom Pike, St. Lawrence, August 20, 1939.
FIVE: REVOLT
* * *
1.Claude K. Howse, “Our Story: One Man’s Story of His Family History, and His Part in It” (self-published autobiography, 1993), CNS, MUN.
2.Sir Robert Ewbank became commissioner of natural resources for Newfoundland in 1936 on the departure of Sir John Hope Simpson. Like Sir John, Ewbank had spent an illustrious career in the British colonial service, much of it in India.
3.Rick Rennie, The Dirt: Industrial Disease and Conflict at St. Lawrence, Newfoundland (Black Point, NS: Fernwood Publishing, 2008), p. 24.
4.Rennie, The Dirt, p. 24.
5.Claude K. Howse, Report on Investigation of Conditions at St. Lawrence (memorandum dated June 8, 1937), GN38, S-1-11, file 1, The Rooms.
6.Howse, Conditions at St. Lawrence.
7.L.J. Saint, letter to the director of credit in the Royal Stores, St. John’s, June 9, 1937, forwarded to Sir Robert Ewbank, commissioner of natural resources, GN38, S1-11, file 1 (NR 47), The Rooms.
8.Department Natural Resources, draft letter to Walter Seibert, GN38, S-1-11, file 1, The Rooms.
9.Poynter, trade dispute panel interview.
10.Slaney, More Incredible, p. 38.
11.Poynter, trade dispute panel interview.
12.Kelleher, letter to Tom Pike.
13.Submission by Newfluor to the Royal Commission Respecting Radiation, Compensation & Safety at the Fluorspar Mines, St. Lawrence, Nfld. (July 1967), box III, 131, 15–18, The Rooms.
14.Richard Rennie, “‘And There’s Nothing Goes Wrong’: Industry, Labour, and Health and Safety at the Fluorspar Mines, St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, 1933–1978” (PhD thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2002), p. 88, quoting from a May 1940 report by the Burin district magistrate on relations between the St. Lawrence Corporation and the St. Lawrence Miners and Labourers Protective Union.
15.Poynter, Dancing in a Jar.
16.Rennie, “Nothing Goes Wrong,” p. 90.
17.Martin, Fluorspar Mines, pp. 16–17. Dr. Martin writes: “His [Liddell’s] unflattering observations on almost every aspect of Newfoundland society had to be toned down or deleted before the report could be released.”
18.Aloysius Turpin, interview, 1967, accession #84-224, tapes C7239, 7240, 7241, MUN Folklore and Language Archive, St. John’s.
19.Quirke, interview.
20.Fred Walsh, in testimony before the trade dispute board, January 1942, describing the effect of the dust. From hand-written notes recorded by Commissioner Thomas Lefeuvre. Document on file at the St. Lawrence Miner’s Memorial Museum and Archive.
21.Aloysius Turpin, interview.
22.Aloysius Turpin, interview.
23.Aloysius Turpin, interview.
24.H.V. Morton, Atlantic Meeting (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1943).
25.Melvin Baker and Peter Neary, “Governor Sir Humphrey Walwyn’s Account of His Meetings with Churchill and Roosevelt, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, August, 1941,” Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 31, no. 1 (Fall 2016): 165–80.
26.Neary, North Atlantic World, p. 233.
27.Baker and Neary, “Walwyn’s Account.”
28.Howse, “Our Story.”
29.James E. Candow, “An American Report on Newfoundland’s Health Services in 1940,” Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 5, no. 2 (1989): 226. The document reproduces, in an abridged version, the Report of a Survey on Civil Health Services as They Relate to the Health of Armed Forces in Newfoundland . . . Dec. 3, 1940.
30.“Settlement of Trade Dispute Board Appointed for the Settlement of a Dispute Between the St. Lawrence Corporation of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence Workers’ Protective Union” (1942). Unpublished document held at CNS MUN.
31.Poynter, trade dispute panel interview.
SIX: THE RESCUE
* * *
1.Etchegary, interview.
2.Cassie Brown, Standing into Danger: The True Story of a Wartime Disaster (St. John’s: Flanker Press, 1999). A detailed and authoritative account of the shipping disaster of February 1942 and the legal aftermath.
3.Dr. Warren S. Smith, “The Truxtun & Pollux Disaster” (unpublished account of the rescue effort, February 1942). Made available to the author by individuals in St. Lawrence.
4.Lisa Loder, various interviews and electronic communications with author, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Lisa Loder is Rennie Slaney’s granddaughter. Her father was Herb Slaney, who helped facilitate Dr. John Pepper’s 1952 unofficial autopsy on Isaac Slaney.
5.Kevin Pike, interviews with author, October 23, 2016; and February 19, May 15 and December 4, 2017.
6.Smith, “Truxtun & Pollux Disaster.”
7.Etchegary, interview.
8.Cassie Brown, letter to Theo Etchegary.
9.Brown, Standing into Danger, pp. 195–97.
10.Brown, letter to Etchegary.
11.Sharon Adams, “Cold Comfort,” Legion Magazine, February 1, 2017, https://legionmagazine.com/features/coldcomfort. This multimedia feature includes archival photographs and audio recordings of some of the survivors, including Lanier Phillips.
12.Adams, “Cold Comfort.”
13.Smith, “Truxtun & Pollux Disaster.”
14.Judy Turpin, interview with author, May 16, 2017. Turpin is the granddaughter of Robert and Theresa Tobin.
15.Pike, interview.
16.Lanier Phillips obituary, Globe and Mail, March 17, 2012.
17.Smith, “Truxtun & Pollux Disaster.”
18.Brown, Standing into Danger.
19.Brown, Standing into Danger.
20.Brown, Standing into Danger.
21.President Franklin Roosevelt, telegram, February 24, 1942, MG 956, The Rooms.
22.Brown, Standing into Danger, p. 336.
23.Loder, interview.
24.James Otis Seamans died on October 13, 2001, aged eighty-three, after a long career in electronics and financial planning.
25.Loder, interview.
26.Rennie, “Nothing Goes Wrong,” p. 124.
27.Report by Investigating Ranger to Chief Ranger, St. John’s, on the Haskell Fatality at Iron Springs Mine (August 1942), GN38, 5.5-4-1, file 6, The Rooms.
28.“Augustus Haskell, Fatal Accident, St. Lawrence,” GN 4/1D, G98 to G113/1, The Rooms.
29.Edward F. J. Lake, Capturing an Era: History of the Newfoundland Cottage Hospital System (St. John’s: Argentia Pilgrim Publishing, 2010), pp. 348–54.
30.Civil Aeronautics Board, Accident Investigation Report: Eastern Air Lines, Inc. and P-38 Air Collision—Near Washington National Airport, Washington, DC, November 1, 1949 (released September 26, 1950), Internet Archive, https://archive.org/stream/CAB-AAR1949-11-01-Eastern-537/Cab-aar1949-11-01-eastern-537_djvu.txt.
31.Lake, Capturing an Era.
32.Lake, Capturing an Era.
SEVEN: MR. ISAAC’S (EXTRAORDINARY) WAKE
* * *
1.Therese Slaney, interview.
2.Royal Commission Respecting Radiation, GN6, 1, case files, The Rooms.
3.Rennie, The Dirt, p. 30. This same quote appears in his thesis, “Nothing Goes Wrong,” p. 72 (albeit under the pseudonym Mike O’Leary).
4.Rennie, “Nothing Goes Wrong,” p. 195. In his thesis, Rennie uses pseudonyms for both Herb and Adrian Slaney, as well as for Richard Clarke, who was his uncle—a practice employed by many scholars in their academic writing.
5.Slaney, More Incredible, p. 46.
6.Royal Commission Respecting Radiation, GN6, 1, casefiles, The Rooms.
7.Richard Rennie, correspondence with author, May 16–17, 2017.
8.Royal Commission Respecting Radiation (final report, 1967), pp. 163–64.
9.Martin, Fluorspar Mines, pp. 27–29.
10.Rennie, The Dirt, pp. 59–60.
11.Therese Slaney, interview.
12.Harold Horwood, Joey: The Life and Times of Joey Smallwood (Toronto: Stoddart Publishing, 1989).
13.Gerhard P. Bassler, Alfred Valdmanis and the Politics of Survival (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), p. 313. Bassler reports that William Stephenson, the famous wartime spy, resigned after only seven months as chair of the Newfoundland development agency, NALCO, “when he realized Smallwood, on the advice of Valdmanis, kept making loans behind his back to the American entrepreneur Walter E. Seibert and others.”
14.Walter E. Seibert, letter to J.R. Smallwood, November 7, 1949, Smallwood File, Archives and Special Collections, CNS, MUN.
15.Rennie, The Dirt, p. 60. Fred Gover would become Newfoundland’s deputy minister of mines and a member of the royal commission established in 1967 to investigate the causes and impact of radiation in the St. Lawrence fluorspar mines.
16.Rennie, The Dirt, p. 61.
17.Rennie Slaney, written submission to a review committee examining the Workmen’s Compensation Board of Newfoundland, February 15, 1965, made available to author by Slaney’s family.
18.Peter Neary, “P.A. Clutterbuck on Morley Richards and the Record of the Commission of Government, 1939,” Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 27, no. 1 (2012): 1719–26. This was Clutterbuck’s response to newspaper articles by Richards, a British reporter for the London Daily Express. Richards had described living conditions in Newfoundland as a “stark tragedy” and “a disgrace to the empire.” Clutterbuck’s note to the UK government, a draft response to the articles, argued that the food items supplied by the dole “added to home-grown produce and the resources available from the sea and the countryside, provide the man in receipt of relief with an adequate basis for subsistence.”
19.D.P. Cuthbertson, Report on Nutrition in Newfoundland (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1947), p. 27. TX 360 N4 C8 1947 c.2, MUN. This is a survey of contemporary literature on poverty in Newfoundland, and the relationship between poor housing, sanitation, malnutrition and the prevalence of tuberculosis.
20.Martin, Fluorspar Mines, pp. 33–34.
21.Royal Commission Respecting Radiation (final report), p. 164. The report noted, “It has been suggested that he [Dr. Pepper] was carrying on a ‘vendetta’ against the mining companies on this matter. It is the conclusion of your commission, however, that Dr. Pepper acted only in the interest of the good health of those for whom he was professionally responsible.”
EIGHT: THE DAUGHTERS OF RADON
* * *
1.Walter E. Seibert, letter to J.R. Smallwood, December 27, 1955, CNS, MUN.
2.Seibert, to Smallwood.
3.Farrell, “Fluorspar Deposits.”
4.Pike, interview, February 19, 2017.
5.Farrell, “Fluorspar Deposits.”
6.Royal Commission Respecting Radiation (final report, 1967), p. 35.
7.A survey of lung cancer deaths among St. Lawrence miners, conducted for the royal commission in 1967, reported that there were no recorded deaths from lung cancer between 1943 and 1947 (p. 178). Between 1948 and 1953, there were three recorded lung cancer deaths. In the period 1963 to 1967, death by cancer of miners and ex-miners had jumped to thirty-two, of which twenty-four were due to lung cancer. Royal Commission Respecting Radiation (final report, 1967), p. 178.
8.Martin, Fluorspar Mines, pp. 36–37.
9.DeVilliers and Windish, “Lung Cancer in a Fluor
spar Mining Community,” British Journal of Industrial Medicine 21 (1964): 94–109.
10.Gordon K. Goundrey, confidential memo, July 1957, Smallwood File, Archives and Special Collections, CNS, MUN. The provincial economist wrote, “The present owner has done little exploration work, has proved little or no ore reserves, and appears to be using obsolete methods of mining.”
11.Aloysius Turpin, letter to C.W. Carter, MP, January 29, 1958, in the collection of the St. Lawrence Museum and Archives.
12.J.R. Smallwood, telegram to Walter Seibert, February 5, 1958, CNS, MUN.
13.Royal Commission Respecting Radiation, p. 53.
14.R.E. Van Alstine, St. Lawrence Geology, 1948, QE 199, A142, CNS Stacks, MUN.
15.Kevin Ryan, First-Year Assessment Compilation Report: St. Lawrence, Burin Peninsula, Uranium/Fluorspar Property (August 2014). “The St. Lawrence Granite,” Ryan wrote, “host to most of the mineral occurrences in the region, is a Devonian alaskitic intrusion, similar in nature to the host rocks at the Rossing uranium mine in Namibia, one of the world’s largest producers of Uranium.”
16.F.G. Barker, memorandum of meeting to discuss radiation in Director mine, December 10, 1959. Submission by Newfluor to the Royal Commission Respecting Radiation.
17.F.G. Barker, memorandum of meeting with Dr. deVilliers, November 19, 1959. Submission by Newfluor to the Royal Commission Respecting Radiation.
18.Royal Commission Respecting Radiation, pp. 39–40.
19.DeVilliers and Windish, “Lung Cancer,” p. 104.
20.Unsigned, undated memorandum, Smallwood File, Archives and Special Collections, CNS, MUN.
21.Martin, Once Upon a Mine.
22.Thomas Poynter, interview.
NINE: DYING BY INCHES
* * *
1.Elliott Leyton, Dying Hard: The Ravages of Industrial Carnage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975). Dr. Leyton spent the summer of 1974 based in Lawn; he conducted thirty interviews in various communities from St. Lawrence to Lamaline. He used pseudonyms throughout his book. One of the interviews was with Priscilla Turpin, widow of Roche Turpin, who is given the name Victoria Janes.
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