Engagement Notice

This very likely appeared in the St. Marys Journal Argus in the Fall of 1937.

Lifelong Friendships

Lois is a very social person. Her unique capacity to reach out and to connect with people, has meant that her friendships are often solid and long-lasting. As a teenager two of her good friends were Mary Riley and Helen Teahen, both girls she went to school with at # 9. Here is a picture of the three of them in the summer of 1930 when Lois was 16. Lois refers to Mary Riley as her best friend in those years. Mary came from a large family which, like Lois' family was poor. Mary's mother had died early and "Grandma Riley" had taken over as mother. After finishing high school Mary took a business course in London and, it was there that she met George Grant who was "a Protestant". Of course Mary was Catholic and in the 1930's in Perth County there was a strong bias against interfaith marriage. In spite of possible objections, Mary and George did marry and went to live in Chicago.

The second picture was taken on a Sunday outing to Grand Bend also in 1930. Lois' date on this occasion was Earl Boyes, a farmer, two years older than Lois. He lived with his mother and step-father on the homestead near Sebringville. They went in Earl's car. While they certainly did not go swimming at the Bend, they did walk around and got someone to take their picture. Sixty years later when Lois and Earl were both widowed, they remained good friends and frequently got together to play cards, to go out to eat, or to take drives through the country. The couple on the right of the picture is Florence Bell and Ting Murray. They later married. Ting and Florence lived on the home farm within a few miles of Gordon and Lois and the two couples often went dancing at Lakeside. Like Lois and Gordon, Ting and Florence were great card players. The two couples established teams with Lois and Ting on one team and Gordon and Florence on the other team. They played cards at least once a week. They kept track of the hundreds of games they played, and at the end of December they declared a winner for the year. In one year Lois remembers that there were only 2 games separating the teams. Ting was an excellent card player and his comment: "Just take a smoke, Lois" was a signal that he wanted to play a lone hand. It was not unusual, Lois recalls, for Ting and Florence to arrive soon after supper on a Saturday night so that the two couples could play a few games of cards before driving to the dance at Lakeside. After the dance they would return and play more cards. By then it was likely 2 a.m. and, of course, they all had to be sitting in church for the eleven o'clock service the next day.
The couple in the middle of the picture is Helen Lang, another good friend of Lois', and Slim (Melvin) Murray, a cousin of Ting's. The Langs lived down the road from Lois, and Slim lived near Ting's on the road behind Earl. Lois remembers Slim as a "lovely dancer."

Mother's Day Tradition

Sunday May 13th

Lois told of her mother Mae and the Mother's day tradition that Lois remembers:

Lois' mother Mae had strong religious beliefs established by her Methodist parents who came from the robust protestant tradition of Northern Ireland. It was only natural, then, that once she was married and had moved to the farm, that she would attend the Bethesda Sunday School, a tiny frame structure located 3/4 of a mile up the road from their farm on land that originally belonged to the Delabols. Mae played the organ in the Sunday School and taught one of the classes. The Sunday School which was developed as an outpost from the much larger Methodist church in St. Marys operated only in good weather. It had no minister but Mr. Proudlove and Mrs. Vanstone took turns acting as superintendent. Each Sunday Mae and her children would walk up the road past the farms of the Boyds, the Ogglesbys, and the Turners, arriving for the 2:30 service. On Mother's Day it was traditional for each person to wear a flower: white, if your mother was dead, and coloured if your mother was living. Lois remembers she, her brothers and her mother all wearing brightly coloured flowers. Mae loved Bleeding Heart flowers and had several large plants in her garden. It is likely that at least one of them wore a red Bleeding Heart flower on Mother's Day Sunday. Sadly Mae never got to wear a white flower. She died in 1933 when her children were all young, and a full five years before her own mother.

Bob here: Years later when Lois and her children, Lou, Loiey, Terry and I attended the large Methodist Church, but by then called the United Church, in St. Marys, I remember Lois following her mother's tradition. Each of us wore a flower. Lois wore a white flower and we four children wore a coloured flower.

The Face on the Barroom Floor

Here is the other poem that Gordon's mother Beanie used to recite to us, her grandchildren. While I (Bob) do not remember the words, I do remember the "horror story" quality of the telling. I've omitted some of the stanzas here. A google search will find you the whole poem, or email me, and I'll send it to you.

The Face on the Barroom Floor

'TWAS a balmy summer evening, and a goodly crowd was there,

Which well-nigh filled Joe's barroom, on the corner of the square;

And as songs and witty stories came through the open door,

A vagabond crept slowly in and posed upon the floor. [....]


This badinage the poor wretch took with stoical good grace;

In face, he smiled as tho' he thought he'd struck the proper place.

"Come, boys, I know there's kindly hearts among so good a crowd --

To be in such good company would make a deacon proud. [...]


"I'll tell you a funny story, and a fact, I promise, too.

Say! Give me another whiskey, and I'll tell what I'll do --

That I was ever a decent man not one of you would think;

But I was, some four or five years back. Say, give me another drink. [....]


"I was a painter -- not one that daubed on bricks and wood,

But an artist, and for my age, was rated pretty good.

I worked hard at my canvas, and was bidding fair to rise,

For gradually I saw the star of fame before my eyes.

"I made a picture perhaps you've seen, 'tis called the `Chase of Fame.'

It brought me fifteen hundred pounds and added to my name,

And then I met a woman -- now comes the funny part --

With eyes that petrified my brain, and sunk into my heart. [....]


"Boys, did you ever see a girl for whom your soul you'd give,

With a form like the Milo Venus, too beautiful to live;

With eyes that would beat the Koh-i-noor, and a wealth of chestnut hair?

If so, 'twas she, for there never was another half so fair.

"I was working on a portrait, one afternoon in May,

Of a fair-haired boy, a friend of mine, who lived across the way.

And Madeline admired it, and much to my surprise,

Said she'd like to know the man that had such dreamy eyes.

"It didn't take long to know him, and before the month had flown

My friend had stole my darling, and I was left alone;

And ere a year of misery had passed above my head,

The jewel I had treasured so had tarnished and was dead.

"That's why I took to drink, boys. Why, I never see you smile,

I thought you'd be amused, and laughing all the while.

Why, what's the matter, friend? There's a tear-drop in you eye,

Come, laugh like me. 'Tis only babes and women that should cry.

"Say, boys, if you give me just another whiskey I'll be glad,

And I'll draw right here a picture of the face that drove me mad.

Give me that piece of chalk with which you mark the baseball score --

You shall see the lovely Madeline upon the barroon floor."

Another drink, and with chalk in hand, the vagabond began

To sketch a face that well might buy the soul of any man.

Then, as he placed another lock upon the shapely head,

With a fearful shriek, he leaped and fell across the picture -- dead.

Hugh Antoine D'Arcy

Somebody's Mother

We have talked about the poetry that Gordon's mother Beanie used to recite. As a young child I remember the tension and "apprehension-approaching-fear" that I felt as I knelt on the floor of the darkened sitting room while she sat high above us in the great oak chair beneath the gold-framed picture of her brother Will who died mysteriously on someone's doorstep. In her quavering, old lady's voice she would recite the poem Somebody's Mother : "she was old, and feeble .... down the street came the bouncing boys ..... God bless the boy who is somebody's ..... . While the emotion comes back those are all the words I can remember. However, tonight I have found the original poem and here it is:

Somebody's Mother

- Mary Dow Brine (1816-1913)

The woman was old and ragged and gray
And bent with the chill of the Winter's day.

The street was wet with a recent snow
And the woman's feet were aged and slow.

She stood at the crossing and waited long,
Alone, uncared for, amid the throng

Of human beings who passed her by
Nor heeded the glance of her anxious eyes.

Down the street, with laughter and shout,
Glad in the freedom of "school let out,"

Came the boys like a flock of sheep,
Hailing the snow piled white and deep.

Past the woman so old and gray
Hastened the children on their way.

Nor offered a helping hand to her -
So meek, so timid, afraid to stir

Lest the carriage wheels or the horses' feet
Should crowd her down in the slippery street.

At last came one of the merry troop,
The gayest laddie of all the group;

He paused beside her and whispered low,
"I'll help you cross, if you wish to go."

Her aged hand on his strong young arm
She placed, and so, without hurt or harm,

He guided the trembling feet along,
Proud that his own were firm and strong.

Then back again to his friends he went,
His young heart happy and well content.

"She's somebody's mother, boys, you know,
For all she's aged and poor and slow,

"And I hope some fellow will lend a hand
To help my mother, you understand,

"If ever she's poor and old and gray,
When her own dear boy is far away."

And "somebody's mother" bowed low her head
In her home that night, and the prayer she said

Was "God be kind to the noble boy,
Who is somebody's son, and pride and joy!"

Gordon's mother Beanie

Gordon’s mother Beanie (a diminutive of the name Rubina) was a complex person, eliciting very different emotions from among those of us who knew her. Born in 1880, she was the youngest of nine children of Scottish parents. While she claimed to be no great scholar, she also claimed that she could throw the ball further and run faster than anyone else in the school. At school she did learn to recite poetry and, as an old woman she would repeat “The Face On The Barroom Floor” with all the melodrama of the Victorian music hall. Above is a picture of her and Jack likely before they were married. Lois remembers her as being a good sport on the trip to Niagara Falls.

At the same time, Beanie was obsessively controlling of her son Gordon and she made Lois desperately unhappy when the older and younger couple shared the family farm home for a short time after Gordon and Lois were married. Beanie loved fashion and deeply regretted that they had no money to buy luxuries. After Jack died she went to work for a short time in a knitting mill in Stratford. Then she moved in with her sister Alice and her brother-in-law Charlie Ballantyne who owned a big red brick house on Elizabeth Street in Stratford. (As an afterthought: if you click on the picture, it will enlarge to full screen size.)

Gordon's father Jack & the Canada Company House

In our first post we met Lois, Gordon, and Gordon's parents, Jack McEwan and Beanie McEwan (Irvine) on their trip to Niagara Falls. Today we'll write more about Jack McEwan, and his brother-in-law Charlie Ballantyne, who lived on a neighbouring farm in Downie Township.

Unlike his prosperous brother-in-law Charlie Ballantyne, Gordon’s father Jack McEwan was not really a farmer at heart. He had been happy working as a bicycle salesman in Kitchener when he father became ill and died of cancer. At the age of 16, then, Jack had no choice but to return home to take over the farm. His mother and his two older sisters needed support. When Charlie Ballantyne married Alice Irvine, Jack was introduced to Alice’s younger sister Beanie and nine years later, when he was 30 and she was 26, they were married. At first they lived in a “Canada Company” house which can be seen above. Gordon told stories about how drafty the house was. He could remember waking up on a winter's morning with snow piled up on the inside of his window. Later they built the two storey red brick house which can be seen just to the left of the Canada Company house.

Life was hard for Jack. He never had good farm equipment. At one point his barn burned down. For many years he had a creamery route where he collected milk from neighbouring farmers for delivery to the cheese factory. His sociability was a common theme throughout his life. It is said that when he was out plowing and saw a neighbour passing, he was always ready to leave the team for a friendly chat over the fence. Jack’s brother-in-law Charlie, in contrast, kept two teams of horses going. When one team became tired, Charlie’s wife would have the second team harnessed and ready so that there would be no time lost.

Jack was 38 when his only son, Gordon, was born. From the very beginning, Gordon's mother actively discouraged him from being a farmer. Beanie wanted her son to get an education and become a professional. Jack kept the farm until roughly 1942 when he and Beanie sold the farm and rented a house in St. Pauls, across the road from Houcke's General Store. Jack developed circulation problems as he got older, and slept with his foot inside a box where a lightbulb provided heat to improve the circulation.