Gordon's sense of humour

Jokes and fun were an important ingredient in the lives of Gordon and Lois. "We had a lot of good laughs" is an expression Lois uses frequently in describing an evening of playing cards or other forms of socializing. Roberta Dundas recently related a joke which she and her friend Gladys Campbell, as little girls played on their teacher Mr. McEwan. One lunch hour Roberta and Gladys decided to exchange clothes and to become the other person for the afternoon. When the bell rang to end the lunch hour, the two girls went and sat in each other's desk. The teacher recognized the joke, and for the whole afternoon he called each girl by the other's name. Of course they loved the idea that they were fooling their teacher. I am sure that there were lots of exchanges of giggles between the girls that afternoon, and I am sure that the teacher also enjoyed the joke. On occasion, however, Gordon's sense of humour could get him in trouble. The annual Christmas concert at the school was an important event for the whole community with not only the parents of the children, but also the extended family and the neighbours attending. At one of these concerts at SS# 9 Downie, Gordon told a joke involving two of the school trustees: Freddy Fulcher and Joe Killoran. The joke went like this: One day Freddy met Joe on the road. Freddy stopped Joe and said "look at your nose and tell me what time it is". To which Joe replied "Look at your own, mine ain't running!". Thinking this was a wonderful joke, Earl Richardson a neighbour of both Freddy and Joe, laughed loudly and long. Unfortunately, Fred Fulcher did not see the humour in the story. Thinking that Earl and the teacher had planned this together to make him look foolish, Freddy was deeply insulted. By the next day, the teacher as well as the whole community had heard how Freddy reacted to the joke. There was nothing to be done but Gordon had to pay a visit to the Fulcher home and to humbly apologize and assure Freddy that the joke had not been pre-arranged with Earl Richardson. Here is a picture of #9 school, the site of the infamous "running nose" joke.

Our Calder Friends

When Gordon and Lois moved to Dicksons Corners in 1942 one of their closest neighbours was the Calders. Jim and Mary Calder who lived in a large white frame house on 100 acres of land across Highway

2, had two children: Gordon who was younger than Betty Lou and Margaret who was a year younger than Lois Ann. As children, we spent a lot of time with the Calder kids. Of course, we attended the same school SS#3 North Oxford where Gordon McEwan was the teacher. We also attended the same United Church in the nearby village of Thamesford. Here is a picture taken in March 1946 of the five children standing on the front steps of the school on a Sunday after we had arrived home from church. Then, in a re-creation of that scene, here are the five of us on a recent Saturday afternoon over 63 years later.

May 24th Holiday 1935

This weekend is the 24th of May holiday. Traditionally, this weekend marks the beginning of summer. When I was growing up in the 50's it stood for firecrackers, soapbox derbies, the first swim in the quarry and, if you were very unlucky, the weekend to plant potatoes. Today was rainy and cold and that type of weather reminded Lois of a Victoria Day picnic which she went on in 1935 when she was dating Gordon. They were both 20 years old. Lois was at home raising Vic and Roberta and running the home for her father and her four other brothers. Gordon was in his first year of teaching at Black Creek School near Sebringville. To mark the long weekend, they decided to go on a picnic with Gordon's friend Reg Hammond and his date Isobel Waldie. This must have been planned well in advance because -- and this is the part that was important to Lois -- her Aunt Minnie, who was an excellent seamstress and was a strong supporter after the death of Lois' mother --- made Lois a new dress. It was yellow with a yoke collar. A large decorative button was fastened to the left side near the collar. Unfortunately, when the day of the picnic arrived, the day was exceptionally cold, but the two couples decided to go on their picnic, in spite of the weather. They drove around and finally settled on having their picnic near Trafalgar bridge, a heavily braced steel bridge, a sight which was once common in rural Ontario. Trafalgar Bridge which was build in 1905 sits on the boundary of Banshard, Fullarton and Downie Townships and spans the Thames River as it heads toward St. Marys. Lois never said whether she was sensible and wore a coat or whether she was foolish and decided to forgo the coat so that the yellow dress would be shown to its best advantage. At the top is a picture of Trafalgar Bridge as it may have looked on the day of Gordon and Lois' picnic, and here also is a picture of the same bridge as it appears on a pleasant day in June 2009.

The Short Course of 1933-34

Lois' mother died in the spring of 1933 leaving husband Bob and seven children, ranging in age from Roberta at 1 and Vic at 3 through Don, Ivan, and Kelly, to Lois at 18 and Lyle at 21. While the shock and sadness undoubtedly hit everyone hard, I think it would be fair to say that-- of the children -- it was Lois who was forced to make the biggest adjustments and the biggest sacrifices. After the initial period of mourning, the boys returned to their regular routines. But for Lois, the world had completely changed. In place of being her mother's helper, she now was the one in charge of all the cooking, cleaning, and washing needed by a large family. The new role involved an awful lot of work, but it also involved sacrifices. One of the early sacrifices that needed to be made, was to forgo the chance to attend the Short Course offered by the Perth County Department of Agriculture in St. Pauls during the winter of 1933. The course ran 5 days a week for three months from December 1933 to February 1934. The men studied theory of agriculture and travelled to area farms to judge livestock. The women, who met in the upstairs room over Hauke's store (which was reputed to be a very cold place in February) studied nursing, interior decorating and home economics. While the information given was doubtlessly useful, I suspect that the reason why so many young people attended was because the course offered a chance to socialize with other people in surroundings something like a "college experience." At the top, is a picture of the participants. You will notice that Lois is missing (at home looking after children) and so is Gordon (living in Stratford with his Uncle Charlie and Aunt Alice Ballantyne while he attends Teacher's College.)

Another John McEwan Story

Here is another story of John as told by his Grandson Jack to his son Gordon. The narrative picks up from the train story told previously. "John's good-natured courage was not always so pleasingly evident when he had been drinking. When he came home late from the settlement, an anxious Agnes would often take him to task for worrying the family and leaving them with the chores to do. Her scathing remarks aroused in the culprit a need to "put her in her place" and the sight of the rather unsteady John attempting to lay hands on the nimble-footed Agnes irked the boys who were entering the portals of manhood.
"The next time he comes home drunk and tries to lay hands on you, Mother," they promised, "we'll take care of him!"
Well, the night arrived when a tardy John feeling the effect of strong drink, arrived home late and true to form Agnes met him with a blistering tirade of tongue-lashing. It wasn't long until the race was on and the fleeing Agnes sped through the door, by which, shrouded in darkness, stood her sons. You can imagine the surprise of the pursuing John when he was seized by six strong hands and carried bodily to the watering trough. Despite numerous threats and protests he was dumped unceremoniously into the drinking place for horses, held there for a moment, brought to the surface for a breath of air and again pushed to the bottom. After a series of dunkings, the boys brought him up for air, allowed him to cough up any of the tank's contents and when they were certain he was in condition to listen, they stated tersely, "Dad, if you ever come home and try to lay hands on Mother again, we'll take you to the tank and keep you on the the bottom!"
The treat was sufficient to change John's belligerent habits and as my father expressed it "from then on, Grandma chewed at him for the rest of his life and he never spoke back to her once."
Here is a picture of John and Agnes as a middle-aged couple and then one of Agnes as an old lady.