The Print of Summer Flowers

In the spring of 1942 Gordon saw an advertizement announcing that the trustees of SS#3 North Oxford were looking for a teacher for the one-room schoolhouse at Dickson's Corners. A teacherage came with the job. There are several stories to be told about how Gordon got that job and about the very different reactions of his wife Lois and his mother Beanie to the move from St. Pauls in Downie Township to Dickson's Corners which was 30 miles south in Oxford County .... but that is for another time. This story is about the picture that hung in the living room of the cottage that sat on the school grounds. The new house had to be furnished and Gordon and Lois carefully picked out brand new furniture for the living room at Hudson's store in Stratford. The furniture consisted of a couch and two chairs, all overstuffed in long-lasting dark green and maroon fabric. After spending more on the furniture than they thought they could afford, Lois realized that she had nothing for the walls of the new living room. She consulted with Gordon and together they decided that they could buy one picture for which they paid $2.95. That print of a bouquet of summer flowers hung on the wall in the cottage at Dickson's Corners for the next ten years. Here, in about 1951, are the four McEwan children sitting wide-eyed and excited (likely because they were having their picture taken with a "flash") in front of the $2.95 print.
When the McEwans moved back to Perth County in 1952, the picture of the summer flowers was relegated to the storeroom, and then, many years later, it was moved to Lou and John's house along with the overstuffed couch and chairs (which incidentally had never seen the light of day because they were always carefully covered with slips in a variety of exuberant flower patterns). The picture rested in Lou and John's attic until three years ago, when it was given to Bob and Jean as a Christmas gift. Now, 65 years after it was first purchased, the print of the summer flowers hangs in Bob's living room, a reminder of a different era in which young couples debated over whether they could afford $2.95 for a picture for their living room.