When Maud was a girl, the “lure of the west” had been strong. She would have stayed if the new Mrs. Montgomery had not driven her away. Her life, she speculated, would have been a different one: she would have written books, because she had to write, but she would have lived a different life and written different books.
Maud returned to new fears at home. When Chester had left for university in the fall of 1930, he had still been courting Luella Reid. Her father, Robert Reid, a successful but rather gruff farmer, was a leading elder in the Presbyterian Church. Maud was very fond of Luella’s mother, a refined and charming woman. Nevertheless, she thought Chester was far too young to get serious. The Macdonalds had hoped that the romance would cool off once Chester began university, but in the fall he had instead returned to visit Luella every weekend, neglecting his studies. They saw that Chester was still drifting, with little focus except on girls.
After Christmas, Maud’s worst fears materialized. Chester had chosen to study Mining-Engineering at the University of Toronto, something Maud thought very unsuitable for him. He had heard Nora Campbell’s husband, Ned, one of Canada’s top mining engineers, talk about their travels, and it sounded romantic. It was a difficult course of study, and anyone who worked in it needed to be active and fit. Chester was neither. He was “bone lazy,” overweight, and had no self-discipline or self-control. Would he keep up with his studies? The answer soon came.
On February 8, the Varsity Council on Delinquency at the University of Toronto wrote to Ewan and her, recommending that Chester withdraw from the university. Ewan and Maud immediately went into Toronto to talk to Chester’s professors, particularly Professor Herbert Haultain (1869–1961).48Haultain was a no-nonsense man who gave the distraught Macdonald parents little sympathy. They learned that Chester had been attending his classes only part of the time. Clearly, he had made a very bad impression on several professors in a program where the professors knew all their students by name and kept very close tabs on them.
Maud sensed that there was something else behind the advice to withdraw him. She felt that his professors were somehow prejudiced against him for more than they were willing to say, but she could not fathom it (or would not reveal her suspicions in her journals). Unsatisfied with the professors’ explanations, Maud insisted that he stay in school, despite the advice to withdraw him. He remained through the term, promising to mend his ways, but his mother knew too well what his promises were worth.
Maud kept up her own steady pace in public events throughout this dismal February, despite headaches that were increasing in severity. She did readings for the Canadian Authors Association, for the students at the Jarvis Collegiate in Toronto, for a concert in Preston, Ontario, and, for the first time in her life, she performed on the radio. For two weeks, she even took into her home the difficult thirteen-year-old daughter of a parishioner who was in the hospital for an operation.
Chester came home one weekend when the girl was with them. Maud reported later that the girl told a story about something that happened at their house, something too upsetting to confide to her diary. “I can’t go into details,” Maud wrote, berating the girl for “lying.” She added with unconscious irony, “There is not much use in trying to help that class of people. They are incapable of gratitude” (March 14, 1931).
Norval was shrinking rapidly as a result of the mill burning down. The bank closed in April 1931, and its depressed and distraught manager, Mr. Greenwood, died in July. Maud had called him the “best amateur actor” she had ever seen, and she felt his loss personally. He had starred in many of the plays that she had directed for the Presbyterian and Anglican churches. The radial railway also closed in 1931—partly a result of competition from automobiles—leaving her with no easy transportation to Toronto.
Ewan was so eager for Chester not to come home in the summer vacation that he himself went in to see Professor Haultain to plead Chester’s case in obtaining a summer placement in the Frood mine in Sudbury. Haultain had already told Chester that, given his poor record, there was no place for him, but Ewan could be very persuasive, and the end result was that Chester was given a summer job in the mine. At the end of April, Ewan and Maud drove the three hundred miles to Sudbury to take Chester to his first real job.
A few days later a letter came from Chester saying that he had been fired, but that his peers had intervened and he had been given a second chance to “prove himself.” On May 9, the Toronto newspapers published the university “pass lists.” Chester’s name was not included: he had failed his first year. It was not a question of ability, Maud knew: at St. Andrew’s, where he had applied himself at least part of the time, he had graduated with an average of 80 percent, with many favourable comments about his ability. On May 19, Chester suddenly arrived home from Sudbury, having made his way back on his own. He said that he had been fired, for good this time.
Chester had wasted a year’s worth of university fees, plus room and board, at a time of financial hardship. He would have to repeat the year. The professors already saw him as a slacker. On top of his academic failure—which spoke poorly for his future—Maud worried as always about what others “would think.” It would be a public humiliation with parishioners, with people in the other churches, and with family and friends in Toronto and on the Island. For a mother who had such high hopes for her talented sons, she was heartbroken. She had worked so hard to provide them with the kind of education that she had wanted for herself, and now Chester did not appreciate the opportunity she had given him.
And worse, Chester would be home all summer—fighting with his father and pursuing Luella, or other girls. Remarkably, Chester managed to convince his mother that he had been treated unfairly at the mine. Someone else might have wondered if Chester had simply taken stock of what would be expected of him—long hours of very hard, dirty work underground—and decided that the best course of action was to get himself fired.
Maud was demoralized, indignant, and feeling increasingly helpless. She felt too paralyzed to work on her next novel, Pat of Silver Bush, and turned instead to her journal, her only real confidant. Ewan had always had a prejudice against manual labour for his children, thinking it beneath those destined for the professional classes—except in this case, which connected to Chester’s future occupation. Nevertheless, he blamed Maud for Chester’s failure (which he had predicted). His repeated line to his wife was a frustrated, “I told ye so.”
Besides suffering from asthma and headaches, Maud was now bothered by a strange eczema on her neck and arms. By June, she complained of feeling “nervous unrest all the time.” Significantly, she shifted to writing in her diary about Macneill and Montgomery family history. It appears that this restored her self-esteem, her sense of coming from “good stock”—as if that might right Chester’s behaviour.
Throughout the fall that year (1931), the Macdonalds continued to watch Chester. He seemed more settled during his repeat year, but Maud knew that he could not be trusted to tell the truth about anything. However, Chester worked harder and got through the year, with a 73 percent, and good standing in his class.
He returned to the University of Toronto and his second year in Mining-Engineering, in September 1932. It was not long before he was slacking again, and visiting Luella too much. Ewan complained to Maud that Chester’s behaviour was unwise; the implication was that Maud herself should correct the problem. She grew as angry at Ewan as she was at Chester.
On February 1, 1933, unbeknownst to the Macdonalds, some twenty-three members of the Engineering Faculty Council met to discuss Chester’s performance and grades and unanimously voted to have him withdraw for the remainder of the term. The same day, seven members of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering’s Committee on Delinquents reviewed his case. The council stated that he “had failed in Field Work, Chemical Laboratory and Dynamic and Structural Geology.” Further reports of “delinquency” were also received from the departments of Engineering Drawing and Mineralogy, and “tw
o petitions for consideration were read.” After prolonged discussion and consultation with Professor Haultain, they recommended to the council that he be directed to withdraw from the faculty, under the provisions of the Calendar, Clause No.1, that “No student will be permitted to remain in the University who persistently neglects academic work, or whose presence is deemed by the Council to be prejudicial to the interests of the University.”
On February 3, 1933, Chester received a letter, directing him to withdraw. Ewan immediately made an appointment to speak to Professor Haultain, who told him that Chester had failed four exams and had not been attending classes. Later Chester told his parents that he’d run into two of his professors who had told him that he had not failed in their courses. His transcript for that year shows that he received 45 percent in Field Work, 23 percent in Chemistry Laboratory, 13 percent in Mineralogy, and 33 in Dynamic and Structural Geology. He received 65, 53, 60, and 75 in the rest of his courses (Mining Laboratory, Inorganic Chemistry, Theory of Measurements, and Steam Engines, respectively). So it is true that he did not fail in several other courses. Wanting to think that her son had been badly treated, Maud decided that Haultain had lied to the Committee on Delinquents about Chester’s grades. The record, however, does not bear this out. Chester had failed in four courses, and the Engineering Council was clearly fed up with him and wanted him out of the program.
He returned home in February. The entire village could see that he was home, and since the newspapers carried “pass lists,” they already knew that he was in trouble again. Maud’s humiliation—and her injured pride—can be seen in a letter she wrote to a relative, on February 12, 1933: “Chester is home for the winter. The plain truth is that, as times are, Mr. Macdonald and I decided that we could not afford to keep both boys at college this year.” She goes on to explain that they thought at first they would keep Stuart home, but as Chester had been sick for three weeks in the past term, he had fallen behind in his work and was afraid he could not catch up, so she thought he was the one who should stay home. She adds an upbeat conclusion: “We must hope things will brighten up next year.”49
Maud’s upset, her anger over the money wasted on Chester, her worry about his future—these were capped by the receipt of an especially offensive letter from Isabel Anderson on February 6, 1933, announcing that she was coming down, not for a “visit,” but for an “interview.” She alluded sarcastically to Maud’s “overcrowded life” and obviously didn’t care whether Maud wanted to see her or not.
The Macdonalds had let Chester choose Engineering himself, but he had made “a mess of it.” Maud decided that he would do well in law. Since he had chosen science subjects at St. Andrew’s, he now lacked some of the necessary prerequisites for entry into a law course. He would have to go back and take the necessary high school courses: British and Canadian History, and French Grammar and Literature. Unwilling to go back to high school, he decided to study these courses at home.
Distressed as she was over Chester, Maud put on a good face on February 22, and performed in the Old Tyme Concert she organized each year. The next night she entertained all the men in the Church Session for dinner and wrote in her journal that she “gave them a better feed than some of them deserved.”
In spring Chester sat for his examinations at Georgetown High School, and passed. But the next step was unclear. To obtain a degree in law at that time, students were required to work in a practising lawyer’s office for two years, and then to attend Osgoode Hall for another three years. All the placements in law offices were already taken up with students who had sought them earlier. Finally, Maud found Chester a place with a young lawyer in Toronto named Ernest Bogart. She hoped that this would “take.”
In the summer of 1933, there was an unexpected death in Norval—Luella Reid’s mother. She went into the hospital in early July for what was then called “female surgery.” The surgery was routine, and Mrs. Reid came through the operation well, but soon a mounting fever indicated an infection, a serious hazard before antibiotics. She grew worse and died, but not before begging Maud to look after Luella as if she were her own daughter. Luella, who was then almost twenty-one, had been a premature baby and a delicate child, and her mother feared that, left in the care of her insensitive father, Luella would suffer from a lack of maternal guidance at a crucial time in her life. Maud liked Luella well enough, and promised, having no choice but to agree to her dying friend’s wish.
This promise was naturally complicated by Maud’s reservations about Luella as a potential wife for Chester, since they were seeing a great deal of each other. The Reids were a “good family,” descended from the same ancestors as Timothy Eaton, the man from the Glen Williams area who had founded Canada’s famous Eaton’s department store chain. But with Chester headed for a career in law, Maud believed he would need a socially adept wife. Luella did not have her mother’s gracious social manner (or her pretty face), and at any rate, Chester could not support a wife. Maud thought them both too young and inexperienced to choose a life-partner. Chester would have many years of study and training ahead. His parents were more worried about him now than they had ever been before.
Stuart had been completing his high school education at St. Andrew’s while Chester was struggling in the Mining-Engineering course. But as 1932 began, Stuart, who had been getting excellent marks and many prizes, now started faltering in his academic work. He was putting all his efforts into competitive gymnastics. When his parents had moved to the seemingly idyllic Norval in 1926, Stuart had been eleven years old and very small and slight for his age. Some local bullies had beaten him up because he was the “preacher’s son.” He’d told no one about this. Instead, he’d undertaken a rigorous regimen of body-building, and kept a wary eye out to evade the bullies until he got bigger and stronger and could defend himself. He had continued the regimen at St. Andrew’s, which had an excellent program in sports and gymnastics. He was small-boned like his mother, and, proving to be a superb gymnast, he diverted his attention to this sport.
In March 1932, when he was sixteen, Stuart competed for his school in the Junior Gymnastics Championship in Toronto, and he became the Junior Gymnastic Champion of Ontario. He redoubled his efforts to improve his grades, and in the next year they rose again. In autumn 1932 he began his last year at St. Andrew’s, and in spring 1933, he again won the province’s Junior Gymnastic Championship.
June 1933 brought Stuart’s graduation from St. Andrew’s. He led his class academically and won the Lieutenant-Governor’s Silver Medal. He also won the French Medal and tied for the prize in Latin. Stuart was as adept at language and writing as Chester was poor. In September, Stuart would compete again at the Canadian National Gymnastics Exhibition and win a gold medal, becoming the Junior Champion in Canada.
But by summer 1933, there was a cloud over Maud’s pride in Stuart. Like Chester, he had a girlfriend in Norval. Joy Laird was a pretty, bright, and sweet girl, but her parents did not meet Maud’s standards. In her journals, Maud called Joy’s father, Lewis Laird, the “black sheep of a respectable family,” “a drunken sot,” a “notorious bootlegger,” and a “thief” who “kicked and beat his wife when he was drunk and she did not bear all wrongs in silence but proclaimed them from the housetops.… She was a hardworking creature but came of a family in Glen Williams who were simply a bunch of crooks.” Maud dismissed Joy herself as “ignorant and shallow,” “boy-crazy,” and “no companion for my son” (November 30, 1936).
The Laird clan, early settlers in the area, were in fact very capable businessmen and craftsmen. For instance, all the carpentry in the Norval Presbyterian church, started in 1878, had been done by the Laird brothers. Lewis Laird, Joy’s thirty-nine-year-old father, was descended from these early Lairds, and his Laird relatives were pillars in the church. In 1933, Joy was sixteen and Stuart was eighteen. Stuart had been in elementary school when they came to Norval, and although he had been away at St. Andrew’s for secondary school, he had returned home durin
g holidays and the summers, where he’d spent much time at the Credit River swimming hole. Over the years, Joy had progressed from being Stuart’s friend to being his “girl,” and he’d corresponded with her regularly while he was at St. Andrew’s. Maud had kept a very close watch on Stuart during the summers of his high school years. When he slept in his tent down by the river for all those summers, rather than share a bedroom with Chester, Maud made frequent trips down to the tent in the evenings to make sure Stuart was alone. These visitations, made on various pretexts, irritated him a great deal. At the end of his life, he still spoke of his annoyance at his mother’s lack of trust and her intrusiveness over Joy.
Maud expected Stuart to forget about Joy when he went off to university and met other girls. There was no possibility of Joy going to university; although she was very clever, her family did not have enough money to send her, especially during the Depression years. But as time passed, Stuart’s relationship with Joy seemed to be deepening rather than diminishing. In August, when Ewan took a much-needed vacation to PEI where he could stay with his sisters, Maud did not accompany him. She was keeping an eye on her boys.
In the autumn of 1933 Stuart began his education at the University of Toronto, intending to study medicine, something his mother had strongly encouraged—she hoped for a lawyer and a doctor. He went into residence at Knox College, as Chester had done before him. (Knox College, being affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, gave special rates to sons of ministers.) Stuart soon noticed that the other students in Knox treated him with watchful wariness. He would eventually learn the reason why: Chester’s reputation lingered. He had been known there, and to some extent on the wider campus, as a petty thief. (This reputation had likely reached the Engineering professors like Herbert Haultain.) Students’ possessions often disappeared when Chester was around. When he was short of pocket money, he’d remedied this by purloining books, watches, clothes, equipment, and any valuables that could be taken to one of several pawnshops—busy places in the Depression years.50Stuart did not want to upset his mother further so he did not tell her this. It is likely that Maud had already observed her own things disappearing, however, and suspected that Chester was the culprit. This could explain part of her earlier comment (July 2, 1932) that there were many problems with Chester.
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