The Hern Cousins: Wally (pt. 1)

Lois' grandfather Robert Hearn had a older brother John. Of John's four sons, one achieved fame as a goalie with the Montreal Wanderers, the illustrious hockey team which won the Stanley Cup for five years in succession beginning in 1906, and a second son who became "famous regionally" as a hockey player in Stratford. Riley, the one who became truly well-known is standing on the left in the above picture. His younger brother Wally is standing on the right. Albert and Frederick the two older Hern boys are sitting in front. This blog is about Wally. Born in 1882, Wally was the youngest of the seven children of John Hern and Frances Barnes. The family lived first in St. Marys and then in Stratford where the father John worked as an ostler at one of the large hotels.
Wally appears to have been a natural athlete. By the time the report above appeared in the St. Marys Journal on 10 February 1898, Wally already was the county speed skating champion for the five mile distance.

At the same time, the world of scholarship may not have been as satisfying for Wally as was the skating. In the St. Marys Journal of Nov. 11, 1897, W. Hern (presumably Wally) in Form II at the Collegiate Institute is recorded as achieving a 44 in arithmetic, and a 59 in Botany. Then, on Dec. 7 the newspaper reports that Walter Hern got a 36 in Latin, a 55 in Euclid, and a 44 in Physics.What was not in doubt, however, was Wally's proficiency as a hockey player. In the 1898- 99 season he played for the Stratford Junior team in the OHA league where the correspondent from the Stratford paper wrote on 1 Feb. 1899: "probably "Wallie" Herne did the best work on the forward line for Straford. He made many good rushes and on one occasion took the puck from one end of the ice to the other and scored the first game of the evening. It was a grand play and "Wallie" was the hero of the evening." During this period Wally lived with his mother and his older brother Riley on Brunswick Street in Stratford. He worked as a clerk in a dry goods store earning a salary of $100 a year. He continued to play hockey in Stratford and was considered good enough to be offered a professional contract in Montreal. According to family stories, Wally refused this exciting opportunity because he could not envision himself leaving his widowed mother on her own.Here is Wally with a group of friends in 1907 on a road trip to Humber Bay near Toronto. A notation on the back of the photo says that they were entertained by the Eatons. Wally is second from the left in the front row.

Wally later married Myrtle Black, a young woman who sang in the choir of the Centennial Methodist church. Myrtle's sister Margaret also sang in the choir. In later years, Margaret's son George Johnston wrote some reminiscences of his family in which his Uncle Wally figures prominently:

Wally and Myrtle visit with her Margaret"Myrte and Wally came and stayed for a fortnight, their young daughters Margaret and Edith with them. Wally then had his gents' furnishings shop and was well off and full of confidence. He had been mayor of Stratford for a term. While Benson (Margaret's husband) was in town, minding JOHNSCO'S thriving business, Wally put in the time, good-naturedly, with Myrtle and Margaret and the children, taking them shopping and on other junkets in his expensive, leather-upholstered McLaughlin touring car. Afternoons he spent at the Burlington Golf and Country Club. During the second week he proposed an excursion to Toronto.
They should take in a ball game, he said. The weather seems to have smiled on the trip there, and the picnic lunch on the beach at Sunnyside was sand and fly-bitten but a cheerful festivity. Then the two women were taken to Riverdale Park, where there was a small zoo, and left there with the four children. It seemed a likely enough place. The McLauglin stayed with them a a sort of headquarters. Neither Margaret nor Myrt knew how to drive.
There was no forgetting that afternoon for the men. Back they returned from the game in high spirits and were brought up short with It's about time! and fretfulness in their children of a degree they had not encountered before. An unforgiving calm descended for the drive home, and the children dropped off to sleep almost at once. By and by the women dozed off too."

( Stories to be continued in the next blog.)