My cousin stopped at my condo on her way back to family in Calgary. She was on a return trip home to the Okanagan, with the forecast calling for heavy snowfall. We had all been to a family funeral, comforting and being comforted. The event led to memories and discussions of our joint ancestors.
Rita was in the area visiting her own overextended family. She carried with her various black and white photos and her portion of the family tree sent out by my brother Larry, the family historian. She also came with questions.
Rita was one of the connections in the Good family, my maternal grandparents’ line. Her father Clayton was the eldest in the family, my grandmother Vera the only daughter in the family of six. She gazed with longing at a four-generation studio photograph on my bookshelf. It featured my brother Larry as a small infant. Mom was holding him, with Grandma Vera and Great-grandma Lucinda on either side.
Because Clayton married quite late in life, Rita didn’t exactly match up with any of our generation. I found in mom’s boxes many snapshots of family gatherings. One included a Sunday afternoon group, all of us in our Sunday best, fresh from church. I appear to be about three or so but that didn’t account for the baby in mom’s arms. Some pondering revealed Clayton, his eldest daughter Dorothy but no Aunt Edith.
No doubt she took the photo. Everyone else seemed accounted for. That meant the baby mom was holding was likely Rita herself, not my younger brother. In that impromptu still life, great-grandma was the tiny somber lady surrounded by her family. Lucinda. Both Mom and Rita have her name as part of their own. An unusual name.
I’ve read Larry’s account of Silas and Lucinda’s life history. They came to Alberta on the settlers’ train, with Clayton and possibly Vera as a baby. They brought all they possessed with them. The train included a car for livestock, if they had any. One also held a cookstove; they had to prepare their own meals. I can only imagine the noise, chaos and the aromas. I joined my sisters on a visit to Heritage Park. We heard a retelling of the history of the settlers’ trains. One restored car with its wooden seats offered little comfort for 30 minutes, never mind a long journey.
How did they manage? I remember grandma talking of her mother with some regret. Three of her children died at a very young age. Grandma recalled rocking one of her little brothers, one of the little ones that did not survive. She wished that she had paid more attention and been of more help.
Grandma Good suffered with loneliness and anxiety. The homestead was originally isolated from their nearest neighbours. The first winter an RCMP officer came through on horseback occasionally to check on them. The photos of their home show a small building not much more than a granary, with a rough weathered exterior. She was always afraid of the possibility of fire and on one occasion did accidentally set her kitchen curtain alight with the lamp. There was no real damage but the fear was always there.
Grandpa Good had a cheerful countenance. He was known for enjoying a good laugh. Mom remembered him trying to put on his winter coat. He was laughing so hard, he was stuck and needed assistance. The sight of his serious, soberly garbed Mennonite wife demonstrating how to skip rope tickled his sense of humour. The fact that she had caught her heel in the hem of her long skirt added to his laughter.
I remember very little of great-grandma. I look at her eyes in that photo and I see endurance.
Her life had been very hard; she lost her husband much too early and lived out her long life rotating between her three children.
Rita never knew Lucinda either but wished she had. Rita has the great humour, hearty laughter and outbursts of wit. And yet, she gazes with regret at the somber unknown connection. A grandmother willing to lower her dignity in order to skip rope had to have humour underneath that countenance. I too wish I had known her.
- Joyce Hoey is a longtime Gazette columnist
