To Goobies we arrived—in a snowstorm—and Father was somewhere on the ninety-nine-mile gravel highway, stuck in snow. So here we were—no doubt a forlorn-looking group. Someone at the railway station who knew of a boarding house nearby took pity on us and we were brought there to reside overnight. The next day we learned that it would be impossible for Father to meet us—the road was blocked. In those days, without the mechanical machinery of today, it would be blocked for quite some time. Father would go back to Marystown. A new plan had to be devised. Back to St. John’s we were to go, and to take a train as soon as we could (a half-day journey) to the port of Argentia, where we could catch a coastal passenger freight boat, which plied Placentia Bay communities including Marystown.
By the time this was arranged and executed, Christmas was upon us—well, just about—and we took the coastal boat, Bar Haven, at Argentia in a hell of a snowstorm on Christmas Eve morning and, like everyone else on board, the whole family was sick as dogs. I almost get sick today thinking of that experience, more than fifty years later. I don’t know if we thought we would ever make it or not. We did not know enough to be afraid—that was left to Mother as she tried to care for five vomiting youngsters in a cramped cabin in the bowels of a rolling ship. It was six or seven o’clock in the evening when we were told that the rolling would subside a bit since we were coming into Marystown Harbour. Once the Bar Haven tied to the wharf, this distraught family clambered to the deck, and with snow and wind still bellowing all around, we stumbled off the gangplank, seeing through the blur, at long last, our Father! We were to walk with him up over a hill and pasture in two or three feet of snow to our new house. We were all carrying something and struggling as we trekked, making a path as we went. Finally, we arrived and burst into the house. What a treat! It was all ablaze with a Christmas tree and decorations that Father had prepared!
We were one of the few Protestant families in Marystown and the only non-Catholic children attending the convent school operated by the Sisters of Mercy. I remember one incident at lunchtime when I was engaged in a snowball fight with one of my classmates. After a bull’s-eye throw by me I heard the recipient cry out, “You black Protestant!” One of the kids told the Sisters and there was heavy punishment dispensed to the foul-mouthed student. In five years this was the only incident of this kind that I remember.
There were many prayers and such at school and our parents said that we should just participate—the Sisters had made arrangements for us to leave the classroom during such religious events. However, obeying our parents, we stayed and it wasn’t long before we had memorized all the prayers and did the “Stations of the Cross” at the church nearby. We enjoyed it all, and hence what potentially could have been difficult years for my brothers, sister, and I turned out to be a very positive experience. And I attribute a lot of my personal good habits to the Sisters of Mercy, who were relentless but fair in dispensing “education” to us all. It was not all book work: the music and concerts displayed the Sisters’ love of culture and brought to these activities a discipline and joy that has never left me. There were no school buses or central heating or cafeterias—each student took turns bringing “splits” to start the fire in the pot-bellied stove—yet there was something special; everyone had to help out to make it all work. This produced a unity and spirit that was as “hard as a rock.” These were formative years, and I learned a lot about punctuality, discipline, and getting by with whatever one had at the time. There was no whining or excuses, at home or in school.
Many years later, one of my ministers would have occasion during an election to solicit support from a convent in St. John’s that hitherto was somewhat unfriendly to the Conservatives. He was to discover that there were a number of Sisters who had been part of the Marystown convent during our family’s years in Marystown, and who were eager to lend their support. I remember a final rally in St. John’s, during my first election as premier in 1979, and in referencing the Sisters’ role in my education I was quickly informed that there were some in the audience.
My father’s work took him to visit many communities in Placentia Bay, many of them islands. I was interested in going with my father on these jaunts, and I well remember a particular trip by a small boat owned by a gentleman in Baine Harbour.
Leaving Baine Harbour one morning, we were quickly surrounded by fog, and with only a compass to go by, it was for me a harrowing experience, and judging by the expressions on the faces of my father and our operator, it was not fun for them either. But our skipper knew the bay well. Our destination was Oderin Island. So the skipper simply said, “Okay, we have to steam so many minutes in a certain direction using the compass, then so many minutes in a slightly different direction using the compass.” And so this was done. After some anxious moments—presto, we see through the dispersing fog land on both sides of us—we were smack dab in the centre of Oderin Island harbour! There are some on the water who say they can smell the land in the fog. I was to remember this incident many years later when I travelled Green Bay, White Bay, and the Labrador Coast in small boat. Anyway, here we were in Oderin harbour.
Father had to visit some clients—widows and disabled people who qualified for government assistance. After a quick lunch that day, Father had to travel to the other side of the island, walking along a small pathway. Noticing my boredom, he invited me along. Along the way, Father informed me that there were but a few families on the other side and that he had only one visit to make. However, in mentioning this, he went on to describe to me a mysterious tale that was told on the island. He said that we would soon arrive at a small gully or pond near the beach on the back side of the island, not far from the ocean. It was said that the famous pirate Peter Easton had frequented these parts, and being chased by his enemies he had actually buried a treasure at the bottom of the pond. The tale relates that the pirate drained the pond, being of higher elevation than the beach, placed the treasure in the bottom of the waterless pit, cut a number of trees, and after removing branches placed the “longers” across the bottom of the pond, and then the natural spring of the pond filled it up. A real place of safekeeping!
Father said that we should check this tale out by taking off our boots and socks and walking out in the water of the pond to see if we could feel something like a floor. This we did. It was eerie—we could feel that there was something like a floor! A mystery to this day!
Socks and boots back on, we proceeded to a large two-storey house on the far side of the beach to Father’s lone client here. On approaching the house, I noticed that a curtain in an upstairs window parted slightly. Upon entering, we were warmly greeted by a middle-aged woman, and Father proceeded to complete some necessary forms. In the course of the conversation the woman mentioned that her young daughter had become frightened, since visitors were few, and we being total strangers, she ran to an upstairs room to hide.
In the 1980s I was relating my early experiences on a local CBC radio show, and one of the stories I described was this one about Oderin Island, the treasure, the walk in the pond, and the visit to the house of the lady and her daughter. In just minutes, a lady called the radio station to inform us that she was that little girl who had run upstairs and nervously parted the curtain to glimpse the approaching strangers.
So my time in Marystown from age nine to age fourteen was a pleasant one, filled with childhood memories: of homework by Aladdin lamp, snow sledding in the winter, bike riding, and swimming in local ponds in the summer, and our share of beachcombing, digging for “cocks and hens,” and smoking cigarettes made from stolen tea, and cigarette papers purchased from older friends. A few crabapple trees were also the victims of wayward childhood ways and saw on one occasion some serious reprimand by my parents.
I think I travelled to St. John’s once during that time. I was told that I had large tonsils and that they were to be removed. Really, it was a sinus problem, I was to discover years later. But the medical fad then was that if a child suffered from a cold and co
ugh, it had to be those darn tonsils and adenoids. So at a convenient time when a friend of the family was travelling by car to St. John’s, I travelled with my mother to the big city. Well that was some ride. I never thought that we would get there. What I remember most about that visit is not the city, large and different as it was, or the time at the hospital, frightening and unusual as it was, but rather seeing TV for the first time. I think I was twelve. I sat in my grandmother’s room too dumbfounded to speak— there was a game show and then some ads about buying some type of food. I would not see TV again for another two years.
It was in Marystown where I gained an appreciation for baseball. Yes, baseball. There was no baseball in Marystown, of course, but across Placentia Bay from Marystown was the American Naval Base at Argentia. It was easy to pick up the Armed Forces radio on our battery-operated radio (a much-used instrument in our family), and in the evenings of spring, summer, and fall there were many baseball games broadcast. It was from the radio I learned the names and the rules of baseball, and my favourite player was Willie Mays. A young boy’s imagination fuelled by the noise of the game and the descriptive play-by play-of the announcers brought me into the wonderful world of baseball.
In 1954 my father had to take a trip to visit his counterpart in Grand Bank, and of course I tagged along for the ride. After entering the house I was immediately struck by the sight of a small magazine on baseball (it was The Baseball Digest, still publishing today) lying on a chair in the kitchen. My focus was so fixed on this magazine that my father’s friend took notice and suggested that I pick it up and read it while my father and he conducted their business in an adjoining room. Excited beyond words, I was eager to see the two adults depart to the other room so that I could hold this magazine. On the cover was my baseball hero, Willie Mays. I had never seen his picture before, and now here he was featured on the front page of this important magazine. I devoured the article and was still busily engrossed when the adults returned. Feeling a little embarrassed, I put the magazine down and got up to leave. And then my father’s friend uttered the words, “You really seem to like that magazine. You can have it!” Months after, I was still rereading the articles and studying the statistics. And now the radio broadcasts were even better.
There was one really magical part of our family lives. Each birthday we would receive a card and money from our Aunt Bessie in faraway Boston. There was a time before Confederation in 1949 when Newfoundlanders gravitated to the “Boston States” for employment. My aunt was one of them. She travelled to Boston in her early twenties, enrolled in nursing courses, and graduated with an RN from Leonard Morse Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1926. She never forgot anyone in the family. She was affectionately known as Auntie Bett to all the people connected to my father’s side of the family. And at Christmas you could be as sure that snow would fall that a large parcel would arrive before Christmas (never late) from this great lady. And what a parcel it would be—from clothes for all of us, to books and other practical and needed things; we were, each season, aghast at the quantity and quality of what she would send. My brothers and I would have modern clothes to wear to school each new year right from America’s fashion houses. So we grew up with our own fairy godmother. In Whitbourne, on my seventh birthday, this shiny blue Buick pulled up to our door that afternoon, and on top of the car was an unusual thing. Once the car stopped, out stepped Auntie Bett; she fiddled with the thing on top with my father’s help, removed it from the car, and placed it on the ground: a birthday present—my first bike! Our house was full of magazines, compliments of you-know-who.
As I grew up I became fascinated with Auntie Bett: her stories of nursing terminally ill wealthy people in the Boston area, receiving postcards from her from other continents as she travelled with her employers around the world, to coming home each year to see her mother, this lady led an interesting and productive life. Her generosity was exceptional, and her commitment to family unlimited. When she was much younger, she had told her mother that if the day ever came when she, her mother, could not look after herself, she would come home and care for her. And she did. The last two years of my grandmother’s life saw Auntie Bett leaving Boston to care for her mother in St. John’s until her passing.
My aunt was always interested in seeing her nephews and nieces succeed. And if they showed they were willing to work and commit, she was always there to help. On entering university I was to receive from Auntie Bett annual complimentary tickets to all the happenings at the local Arts and Culture Centre. When I travelled to remote rural parts in the summertime as a temporary social worker, I was sure to receive a parcel of recent magazines and newspapers from Boston or St. John’s.
No one knew her politics. But one evening, after inviting me to her favourite St. John’s Chinese restaurant, she did confide to me that she was a financial contributor to the Republican Party and was therefore invited to many of their political dinners and events. I got up enough courage to ask her why she was a Republican.
Her answer was simple: “I believe in hard work,” she said. “Everyone must earn their keep, if they are able.”
My aunt was eighty-five when she died in St. John’s; and in death as in life, she ensured that all the immediate family received a generous part of her estate.
My father was transferred to Lewisporte in 1956, a far more “advanced” town in northeast Newfoundland. It was quite a change. Here were hotels and the shunting of trains and a bustle and activity not present in the more isolated Marystown. And now, instead of being in a largely Catholic town, we were in a predominantly Protestant town, with a large United Church of Canada congregation as well as a viable Salvation Army church, a small Anglican church, and a quickly growing Pentecostal group. There were shops and restaurants, more than one doctor (which had been the case in Marystown), and even a dentist. Lewisporte owed some of this activity to the fact that it was the terminus for a number of CN coastal boats. It was strategically located to serve the transportation and passenger needs of northeastern and northern Newfoundland and Labrador. A railway spur line of nine miles joined the town to the railway’s main line at Notre Dame Junction. So there was a large workforce at the dock, loading and unloading freight from railcars, and the processing of passengers. The people of the town were entrepreneurial and independent. I completed my high school education there. This was a much larger school, and it did not have the rigour and discipline that we experienced in Marystown. This was a shock at first. Of course, like most kids of my age, it did not take long to get used to it.
There was one shining exception to this, and that was our main grade eleven teacher. I say main in the sense of a homeroom teacher who also taught us a number of subjects. His name was Mr. Paddock (Brose); he later moved on to teach at Memorial University and become Dean of the Faculty of Education. We were a lucky forty-two students to have him as our teacher. For the first time (outside of Father’s admonitions) I was encouraged to think about things, not to accept things at face value, that reason was a very valuable commodity, and that dogma and entrenched positions often retarded advancement. This was all new to me but very exciting. I had been so involved in sports and friends and all the normal adolescent things that this was the first time I had been forced to stop and consider the larger world.
The culmination of this new thinking occurred one day when Mr. Paddock asked me to stay for a few minutes after school. After school! This was unusual, and I didn’t know what to expect. Sitting in the back of the room, I had become a bit of a distraction for the teacher, and while I was doing well in most of my subjects, I think Mr. Paddock felt I was unfocused and just a little too carefree as a high school senior. He approached my desk and abruptly asked, “Brian, what do you intend to do with your life?”
I stuttered something stupid in reply. And then it was over. Mr. Paddock turned and left the room. I struggled to my feet and left the room and school, pondering that simple but provocative question. I knew this was an attempt to shock me to m
y senses, and it worked. I had given little thought to my future, and it was time. Within several months, high school would be over, and what then?
I enjoyed my Lewisporte years and became heavily involved in sports, especially baseball and hockey. Now, we had few facilities at the school or in the town generally. Across from the school was an outdoor rink, and just “up the road” from the school was a level ground that was supposed to be the sports field. We made the best of it, and in my last year we had organized games on that rink and actually played hockey with other teams in nearby towns of Botwood and Gander. There were a couple of really cold winters when we actually skated and played hockey on the harbour. Our out-of-town games were a real treat since we would be playing indoors. In Botwood it was in an old World War II undersized building, with real ice but of course no snow clearing, while in Gander it was a regulation-sized artificial ice surface in an arena. We really had no coaches, but I recall on our out-of-town excursions our vice-principal acted as such, and I can remember him urging us in the car on our way to our game to “shoot when we got in over the blue line.” I don’t think we won any of those out-of-town games! Similarly, we had a few teams organized and played baseball on a makeshift diamond on the nearby field. I liked hockey, but I loved baseball. There seemed to be more strategy and planning, and I enjoyed how quickly explosive it could become.
And then there was my paper route. I delivered the weekly Grand Falls Advertiser every Saturday along the main street, from the United Church building almost to the end of Lewisporte West. I came to like this weekly ritual on my bike. It was the people once met who I remember most. There was an elderly Mr. Lacey who still kept his little grocery shop open, although few now frequented such an outdated place. Bigger stores had sprung up, and the little guy was soon to be no more. But it gave people like Mr. Lacey a reason to get up in the morning and a chance to chat, even to a boy like me. He was not well, and often when I would inquire about his health he would exclaim that he was “wonderful sick.” One got the pulse of this part of town, from Mr. Lacey, to young adults with a second-hand motorcycle under constant repair in the yard, to the elderly lady whose generous tip at Christmas was always exhilarating, to Vatcher’s auto mechanic shop, where there always seemed to be someone in the pit fixated on looking up at the underbelly of a decrepit Chevy, Ford, or Chrysler.
Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More Page 2