The lost digit

Like all good story-tellers Gordon had an ability to create a verbal-movie with sufficient drama and tension to make the story truly memorable.  Here is one such story that has been repeated  several times over the years.  While, certainly, I  enjoyed the sense of horror the story creates, I sometimes questioned whether it was factually true.  The story involves two of my grandfather Jack's first cousins - the children of Alexander McEwan who lived on the original family farm next to Black Creek Cheese Factory.  The protagonists are Bessie and Robert the second and third youngest of Alex's nine children.  One day Bob and Bessie were in the woodpile presumably chopping wood for the family cook stove. As Gordon wrote it "Bob placed his fingers on a block and looking up at Bess who had the axe in her hand he uttered an unusual request: "Cut

them off, Bess!" he dared.  No sooner said than done -- and from then on Bob had a problem doing up his shirts with that hand."  As I have said already, I sometimes wondered whether the story was actually true or whether it was told to explain a bigger truth about the hardship of farm life in the late 1890's. Recently I came across a family photo of Alex McEwan and his family.  I have attached both the photo and a close-up of Bob's hands.  You can judge for yourself whether there is a digit missing on the pointing finger of his right hand and whether that is sufficient evidence to verify Gordon's story.

MacEwans: The New Zealand Cousins

After close to 50 years I have re-connected with our MacEwan cousins who live in New Zealand.  The first connection was made in England and occurred under one of those rarest of coincidences.  Here is how it happened. In the Fall of 1967 after I graduated from university I travelled to Montreal, toured the Expo site and then flew to London, England to have "some new experiences".  Since I didn't have much money I immediately began looking for work and within a week I had a job teaching in a Junior School on the huge Dagenham housing estate in Essex, east of London.  Shortly after I began working in the Matthew Arnold Junior School, the Head Master mentioned that he had had a recent contact with a family from New Zealand who had the same last name as mine.  Coincidentally, Ian MacEwan from New Zealand a distant cousin of my father was at that time staying with my parents while he attended a conference in nearby London, Ontario.  Ian was able to confirm that, indeed, the family in England was his son and daughter-in-law and their children. I visited the MacEwans and the first link was established. After that visit I went off travelling on the continent, the MacEwans returned to New Zealand and after three years I came back to Canada. In the meantime my parents heard that Ian had had a stroke and then everything went silent.  That was until recently when I noticed that Callum MacEwan was managing a genealogy web site on which he has created an extensive family tree which includes some of the Canadian ancestors. Callum has expressed an interest in hearing more about the Canadian McEwans particularly stories of why three young men chose to travel across the globe to begin new lives in New Zealand.  I know a little about that history and I will write down some of the stories which I have heard.  In the meantime and to begin the narrative, I am attaching a picture of the brothers - George (I believe), Arthur and James

who left Canada in the early 1890's and who emigrated to New Zealand.  The second picture taken in my parents' home is of my father Gordon McEwan and his New Zealand cousin  Ian MacEwan in about 1968.