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Currently, my wife, Jean--a retired teacher--and I live in, Thornhill, one of the oldest settled areas in this part of Ontario. It is immediately north of Metro Toronto--which, in 1793, was called York (in honour of the then Duke of York). Settlers named it "muddy" York. York region, especially just north of Thornhill, has lots of green space, for now.
York was founded by Sir John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant governor of the newly-created province of Ontario. As part of the War of 1812, York was captured, by the US army, in 1813. BTW, later the British burned Washington, including the White House, so there!!!
In 1834, York was re-named Toronto. Then, it had a population of about 10,000. The first mayor was William Lynon Mackenzie, the grandfather of William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950)--prime minister of Canada before (1921-1926-1930), during (1935-1948) and after WW 2. I remember hearing him speak him. Very dull. But he was a good debater. He was a bachelor. Educated (theology, social work and law (labour)) at the universities of Toronto, Chicago and at Harvard, he was a liberal democrat all his life.
Interestingly, W.L. Mackenzie led a rebellion, in 1837, which favoured the American kind of republicanism. The ancestors of some of the members of the church I served (1966-1994) were part of that rebellion. The rebellion failed, but it did lead the Brits to give in to certain reforms which were demanded and later, 1867, led to the Dominion of Canada. Thanks to our American cousins, Mackenzie escaped being hung for treason, by fleeing to the USA.
Now to the present: Over our career, Jean and I--both graduates of Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB) lived in Halifax, NS, Goose Bay, Labrador, Newfoundland, Boston University, northern NB, Montreal, Scarborough, Ontario, north Toronto, and our las move was to Thornhill, in 1988.
Thornhill is one of the oldest villages within the spread-out city of Markham, part of the region of York--a dynanmically growing area. My wife and I love it here. In good traffic, we can be in downtown Toronto, within 30 minutes. Pearson International Airport is also within easy driving distance. We can be in the north England-like country area in minutes. Thornhill is 1300 killometers from Fredericton, NB. We visit the area once or twice a year. It takes one overnight stay at Trois Riveres, Quebec, on the mighty St. Lawrence River, just north of northern New York State.
By air, we also visit Treasure Island, Florida. We drove it, once. It took two overnight stays.
I was born (Jan.14, 1930), in the rough and tumble iron-ore-mining town--beer parlors, dance halls, sports arena, soccer field, and all--of Bell Island, Newfoundland, which then had a population of about 10,000. In the busy war years of the1940's there were over 2000 miners underground. Next to St. John's, about 10 miles away, it was then the second largest town in NL. http://www.bellisland.net It is about eight mile long by three miles wide.
My primary source of education was, of course, my parents and my older siblings--I was number seven of eight. My next brother was ten years older than I. From them I learned a lot of life lessons, including some things not to do.
MOST SOCIAL ACTIVITIES CENTRED AROUND THE SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES
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While I do NOT have memories of being oppressed by our religious leaders, I GREW UP IN A COMPLETELY CHURCH-OPERATED-DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOL SYSTEM. Each church on the island--the Anglican, the United Church, the Salvation Army, the Roman Catholic Church (being 50% of the population had more than one school) and, later, the Pentecostal church--had its own school. In recent years, under Premier Brian Tobin--a RC married to a UCC--the system, despite strong opposition, became amalgamated into a public system.
BELL ISLAND IN THE1930's
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From January 14, 1930 to the summer of 1938 I lived in a place called, "Old Number One". Eventually, there were six mines. Old Number One got its name, I was told, because it was the first place that iron ore was mined on the island. Nancy--my younger sister by one and one half years--and I were born there. Our next older brother, Ernest, was born on the Green--an interesting part of Bell Island--in 1920. Our older siblings: Joe, Gladys, Bill, Elvia and Rector were born elsewhere--La Scie and Perry's Cove--before our parents (Eleazar and Maud) came to Bell Island, seeking a way to earn a living.
LIFE IN OLD NUMBER ONE
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My first memories are of my life in Old Number One. Imagine! What a name! Old Number One! It was the name my elders gave to the place in which we lived. It was about five minutes drive west of Town Square--the big shopping area. Even though, looking back the Kings lived in what most, today, would consider to be third-world conditions, for me, life in Old Number One was a time of joy and high adventure.
Looking back from the 21st Century--I am now (2008) seventy eight--here is how I explain how it is that I feel this way: I give the credit to my older siblings and to my parents who raised them and me.
PARDON THE INTERRUPTION
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Let me interrupt here and ask: How do you relate to what I just wrote? Think about your place in your family. Think about your parents, or any younger, or older, siblings. Or, perhaps you were you an only child. Keep in mind that I am not asking you to come to any firm conclusions; I am simply asking you to remember your past life in your family, and to think about it.
Back to my story: My oldest brother was Joe King--Yes, joking. I use this connection, jokingly, all the time.
But seriously, my oldest sister was Gladys. Joe, Galdys, and Gladys' husband, Bill Flight, and their two children, all died before I was three? Or was I four? No matter. My point is that My brother and sister, and her family, all died, long before their time.
The immediate cause of their deaths was listed as: tuberculosis. However, I have the strong feeling that it is more complex than this. What I want to know is: What is tuberculosis? And what is the role played by social, educational and economic conditions in causing the spread of such communicable diseases?
Yes, I remember my older siblings. But not at a deep kind of level.
However, I certainly remember my mother. She nursed my oldest brother, my oldest sister and her family. This probably led to her death. She died when I was five. I have a strong memory of being with her, and others, in the ancestral home at Perry's Cove, which was across the bay, north of Bell Island. I wish I could remember more of the details. That was in 1935.
UNDER REVISION
Conditions at the time and later: There was no was no central heating--we used coal stoves--there was no central heating, no car, not even a bicycle. There were, maybe three books in the house, including one black-covered-fine-print King James version of the Bible--not easy reading. There was no regular daily newspaper. At one or two small-family-owned shops--no supermarkets in those days--one could buy the St. John's Daily Telegram, which came by ferry, the S.S. Maneco, which travelled back and forth the three miles from Portugal cove, which was nine miles north of St. John's.
The first time I ever saw the "big" town of St. John's was in 1942. I was twelve. As a matter of fact, I was the first in my family ever to do so. My friend, Colin Taylor, and I saw a huge parade of troops--Canadians, Americans, and Newfoundlanders--just before they embarked for further training in England. They went--we found out later--to get ready for the coming major offensive in Europe, which was planned in the summer of 1944.
Now and then, we did get the Toronto Star Weekly, or the Montreal Standard, on the weekends, if we had the money. Books?
There were two movie theatres. One of the theatres was owned and operated by the RC church, showed the popular shoot-em-up B movies, and adventure serials--I remember, Drums of Fu Manchu and The Shadow. Any time I could get my hand on five or ten cents, I went when I could. Let me now confess:
In 1936 we got our first radio. It was a Marconi, table model. Exciting. I remember hearing numerous broadcasts from Boston, and the BIG Apple, including all the Joe Louis fights.
Because of the direct American involvement, in WW 2, after Pearl Harbour, 1941, and the building of bases in Newfoundland, I became more and more aware of what my American cousins were doing. By and large, they were welcomed as very helpful allies. Their presence, in preparation for an invasion from German-occupied Greenland, even created lots of employment for Newfoundlanders in need of work. Needless to say, all this economic activity benefited the King family, and me, personally.
Back to my personal history: Keep in mind that I was raised in virtually third-world conditions. Until I was eight, I lived in a part of http://bellisland.net which was known as, "the back of the Island." It was too far away to walk to church. Any knowledge I got about religion came from my parents and older siblings. The minister came to visit, once in awhile. In the fall 1938--I was eight--we moved to be near the church and the church-run school. I began to learn about the Bible from the minister's readings and sermons, and from the not-very-well-trained Sunday School teachers. I confess, that until I got old enough to think for myself and to ask some cheeky questions I was raised to believe that God was the one and only perfect, almighty, all-knowing, everywhere-present- all-loving and heavenly creator of all things and all people. And the church was His agent on earth.
We children were taught to believe in the Bible. That is, we were taught that in the beginning of time, about 4004 B.C., God created everything in six days. On the sixth day He created us lowly human beings to be his adopted children. But things went terribly wrong when, shortly in the Genesis story, the first parents of all people, Adam and Eve, sinned by disobeying God and eating from the tree of "knowledge"? Following this, for all humanity, it was down hill all the way, until about two thousand years ago, God, out of his mercy, and by the miracle of the virgin birth, came up with a plan for our salvation. He came to us in the form of his one true son, Jesus.
Jesus, with the help of his all-male disciples, started the church. Then he died for our sins, rose, bodily from the dead and then went back to be with His Father, God. We were told that all of this was part of the plan; that if we all agreed to believe in God, and his Son, Jesus, and his church, and not to raise any serious doubts, we would be saved from hell and damnation. Being baptized, reading the Bible, saying our prayers, getting confirmed (12-14) and taking Holy Communion, regularly, became equivalent to being saved. We were told: Pray to God, who will listen to your prayers and he will answer your prayers, if they are in accord with his will. I wondered, silently, at the time, why it was his will to say "No!" to my father's prayers and let my oldest brother, my sister, her husband and only two children, and my mother, die before I was six. When I was 14 my father died. He was 64. Again, I wondered: Is this your will, God?
We were raised to believe that God knew about an planned, everything. He even planned the birth of every single person everywhere in the world; that He had the ability to observe everything we did; that He knew every detail of our lives, including what would happen in the future. We were raised to, also, believe that If we gave Him absolute control of our daily lives--physically, mentally and spiritually--He was willing and able to look after all our needs, now and forever and ever. This, we were taught, was what "being saved" was all about.
As I grew into my teens and saw movies about other parts of the world I began to ask, mostly myself: What about people of other races and creeds? I wondered about the Chinese, the Africans, the Jews?
As I recall, there were only four Jewish families among the ten thousand people on our island. Two of Jewish families (both Cohens) were the only ones with children. Interestingly, the Cohen children went to the RC school. I got to know them when we played hockey and soccer--we called football--against the Catholics. Their parents, I heard later, put up with the dogmas of Christianity, and with a certain amount of prejudice, because they liked the strict discipline dispensed by the RC nuns. The Cohen boys did get through school with good marks.
Interestingly, I don't remember there being any open-kind of prejudice in my family. Later, Jack Cohen and I even roomed together, at university. We got along, famously. The Chinese? The official prejudice was: Men only allowed. They owned the restaurants. I don't remember ever seeing them at any place but in their place of business. It must have been a dreadfully lonely life.
WOMEN WERE EXPECTED TO KNOW THEIR PLACE
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Back to my personal education. There was obvious prejudice against women. For example, other than teaching and nursing, I do not remember any women having any kind of authority outside the home. The minister was always a male. He was the chair"man" of the board of the church, and of the Board of Education--all men. The school principal was always a male. Women did women's work, mostly in the home. Outside the home it was okay for them to do things like putting on concerts, plays, and meals, to raise money. There were no chair-women, or members of the boards, then.
God, was spoken of as "He" or "Him". We sang, "Rise up O men of God..." We were taught to imagine God as a white, lordly, male-like and a kingly personage--a kind of super-being, and preferably Protestant. We had many doubts about the salvation of RC's. Of course the RC's felt the same way about us non-Catholics. And as for non-Christians...Well!!...Unless they repented and accepted Jesus as the Son of God and Saviour, their case was hopeless. Generally speaking, it was presumed that God was only interested in good Christians. And only those who went to church, regularly, supported it in all ways, who read the Bible, said their prayers and lived as good repentant Christians could expect to inherit the Kingdom of God.
As I have indicated elsewhere, WW 2 opened my eyes as to what was really going on out there. I was only nine when it started. When I was 12, in 1942, our island was attacked by enemy subs--twice. The subs sank four ore carriers and blew the end of one of the loading piers. I saw the battles and bodies dragged ashore. Sixty-nine people lost their lives. In 1943 I became a mature teenager, with many questions.
Around that time I also made some good friends, including Catholics, and Jews--like the Cohens--and even some skeptics. One skeptic, my father, asked: Why did Italy, the home of the pope of God, enter the war on the side of the Nazis? And why were European Christians, including Protestants, all over the place killing one another? And through the Cohens we heard rumblings about what was happening to the Jews. Was this all part of God's will and plan, I wondered?
INFLUENCE OF THE MOVIES, MOSTLY AMERICAN
Because I became friends with the son of the manager of one of the theatres--the one that ran the A and classic-type movies, I was also able to see a lot of good movies about what was going on around the world, including movies about the war--Mrs. Miniver, Casablanca, Battleground. I was impressed, not only by films from Hollywood, but by those made by British producers like J. Arthur Rank and by some produced in France and Russia. I loved all the films of directors like Frank Capra, John Ford, Henry King. It was at the movies, shortly after the war, I also saw the first documentary films of the holocaust against the Jews.
My friend's father was very knowledgeable about films, a great conversationalist, a well-read and broad-minded thinker who associated with all races and creeds. I learned a lot from him. Because he loved to talk and liked my questions, he invited me to dine with the family, frequently.
Looking back I now know that the movies influenced me, greatly. Through them I began to become aware of what was really going on in the world, and I began to have my doubts about those who claimed to have a hot-line to God.
Given the opportunity, I asked some serious questions. During high school, for awhile, I even veered away from religion, as such, to the hard and more materialistic sciences. All this stimulated me to seek a university education and to begin my search for a new way of thinking about G�D. And, IMO, New ideas always need new words--new wine skins, as it were--to identify, contain and describe them.
Rick, if you are reading this, I checked out your bio on your site. Interesting.
