What my father was trying to say,I think,is that it is a shame to forget where you come from,because that is you.He never said it in so many words.It was a concept that was likely too philosophical for him.But he lived it out in his life.
I mentioned that my father seemed to have a bit of a love hate relationship with his hometown.I think perhaps most people do.Not with Springhill,that is,but with whatever town they happen to call home.It's just a simple fact that life is often times cruel,wherever you happen to live.So while he never thought of living there again,so far as I know,he certainly never abandoned his hometown.Most of his people spent time in other places,but most of them returned to Springhill at times too,sometimes to live for a period of time.We often took family drives in and around Springhill,and it was usually a time that my father took to relate family stories of the times that went before.
According to my grandmother it was a cold night when she went to the hospital to give birth to my father.I seem to recall that she said she went via horse and sleigh.
They must have grown up poor.My father would often mention as we would drive through Springhill Junction,where the railroad tracks are,about walking along the tracks when he was young and collecting coal that would fall off the passing trains.He said that many people did it in order to provide heat that they otherwise could not have afforded.You would get in trouble for collecting coal if you got caught he said,as the coal company regarded dropped coal as still being it's own property.
As a boy,my father liked to go to the beach.He liked the sun and the heat.Springhill was some distance from the beach,or at least the beach where he liked to go.That would be Heather's Beach,near Port Phillip,a distance of maybe twenty five miles.It was maybe twelve miles to Oxford,and something like twelve or thirteen more miles to the beach.They would go on foot,my father said,and stop to steal and kill a chicken along the way.They always killed the chicken,he said by squeezing it's neck so that it would not alert the farmer to what they were doing.It must have been rather more dangerous to raid someones chicken coop in those days than it is today,but he says they never got shot at.
I never knew exactly where my father lived,though I believe it to be in Mapleton,a bit out of town,towards Parrsboro.He never pointed out an exact house to me.Maybe the house is no longer there,or perhaps I simply cannot remember him showing me one.He did say that he liked to fish and mentioned a place called Southbrook which was more or less nearby,if in fact the family home was in Mapleton.We used to visit people in Mapleton,though I'm not entirely certain who those people were.They lived in a small house across from a plant that processed locally grown fruit,especially blueberries.Mapleton as I recall was dense with blueberries.
One day as we were driving back towards Springhill,my father pointed out a certain house,on the same side of the road as the fruit processing plant and not too far up the road in the direction of town.He said that when he was young,maybe twelve or so,he wrapped up some coins inside a tin can and buried them beneath a grove of trees.He claimed the coins were valuable,but that he would never be able to retrieve them,because the owners of the property on which they were buried were angry with him.He said that I should retrieve them,though he never said how.
What happened to my father to cause the fall from grace with one of his neighbours I don't know for certain,but it was noticeable to my eyes that he was not on good terms with every one from Springhill.He was, I came to realize being quite selective about who he visited and associated with from Springhill.We visited with many different people from Springhill,both in Springhill and in other places.Once we went to visit someone in Montreal and they ended up having a kitchen party of sorts,talking about the old days,while I tried not to fall asleep and had an interesting visit with a couple of Hesidic rabbis on a short trip to the store.Well,that's a story for another time
There was a man in Moncton who would visit my father too.He was from Springhill and his name was Shorty.He had a bit of an Irish accent and one year at St.Patrick's Day he appeared with green hair.As to what his background was with my father in Springhill,I really cannot say.they appeared to have a rather close relationship in Moncton though.Shorty seemed to be rather serious about being Irish,which my father never was,though half of his family were Ryans.My grandmother was Rose Ryan and she had a lot of brothers and sisters,though I don't recall that we ever visited the most of them.Her brother Jim Ryan,owned a store at the top of Main Street,and we would sometimes visit there,before it burned down in the 1970's.
Now I came to meet people in Moncton who were from Springhill and who seemed to cause a reaction of discomfort in my father.Leona Marshall was one such person.she lived nearby and for a while,when I was maybe ten I would spend a lot of time with Her daughter Patricia.I mentioned to my father that they were from Springhill,but ,although he said he knew who Mrs.Marshall was,he never said another word about them.The Marshalls never visited us,except for the one time that Patty came to my birthday party.I always thought it odd that talk never turned to Springhill on that occasion.
As far as I know my fathers schooling seemed kind of ordinary.He completed eighth grade.He never said if it took eight years to complete that many grades,or if perhaps it was more.The only story I can recall that he ever told me about school was of a sort of punishment,presumably for minor transgressions that he once received.It was a variation on the theme of a time out chair,or,if you will,standing in the corner.Nova Scotia schools were,to my understanding in those days segregated,and Springhill had a significant black population because of the mines.My father told of a desk that was said to have been brought from the black schoolhouse,in which you would spend your time out.It was set somewhat to the corner of the class and was referred to as the "nigger chair"It seems so unimaginably mean to me that such things ever took place,but it was viewed differently in those days.
My father seemed to be respected by black people.I once met a man,out in Alberta who said he knew my father well and that he was a good man.He said that he lived in "nigger alley" which was close to where my father lived.Another clue as to the fact that they may have lived in Mapleton.Also somewhat of a commentary on the time that a black man could refer to a place as "nigger alley" so comfortably and without a trace of bitterness.I can't say if my fathers alternative seating arrangements while in school were in any way involved in his view on black people,but even in the 1960's they seemed progressive.We were never to use a racial slur,we were to treat everyone with respect and my father set a good example in this regard.He would as often stop to speak to a black person on the streets of Springhill as he would to a white person.It's caused me to wonder if there might not have been a period of time when the most of his friends were black,and what brought that about.I have never heard a black person ssay a bad word about him though.
If it only took my father eight years to finish school,then three years passed between the time school ended and the time he left Springhill for good when he was seventeen.Of those years I don't know a lot.He does mention that he worked at a hotdog stand at the beach for a man named Art Jardine.Art was a war veteran who took a load of shrapnel in his face in WWII and who was involved in boxing after the war.Art was a man my father was very close to throughout the years.We visited them nearly every time we went to Springhill and when my father built a summer cottage,the Jardines had a cottage less that half a mile away.
It's only speculation on my part,but I would think if you lived in Springhill in the late 1940's or early 1950's and were not attending school,you would have been under considerable pressure to find work in the mines.My father certainly never wanted to work in the mines,but I can't say that it was the reason,or at least the only reason he left Springhill.He did make mention of a fight with someone whom he says he laid out one day after a rather long history of conflict.That would be,to my reckoning 1951.My father moved to Goose Bay Labrador.Labrador is part of the province of Newfoundland,but geographically it is located on the Canadian mainland and is a part of Canada's north.He was,as he always said,seventeen at the time.
My father used to have a picture in his wallet of him at seventeen.He was of medium height with a slim build and,if the photo was any indication was a good looking man.It was the beginning of his adult life.He never returned to live in Springhill,yet it was never really far from home for him either.
Refrences.
Here are a couple of references which I should make note of in regards to the preceding blog entry.They are informative in respect of coal mining and mining disasters in Springhill,and segregated schools in Canada.I've read the book and viewed the video and both provide invaluable background to subjects I've touched upon in this latest blog entry.
1.Blood On The Coal:The Story Of The Springhill Mining Disasters-Roger David Brown.
2.The Little Black Schoolhouse:Revealing The History Of Canada's Segregated Schools(video,2007).
No comments:
Post a Comment