The Lansdowne Letters: Bittersweet

About this time fifty-five years ago,
my father was cut off from the Outside,
as he and others in Northern Ontario waited 
for the lakes to freeze solidly enough for bush planes 
to land and connect them with civilization again.

Winter in Northern Ontario

Flickr: peupleloup   license

While Dad waited it out in Lansdowne House, 
Mom persevered alone, looking after we five children
in her mother's home in Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia. 
He had no contact with his wife and family,
and they had no contact with him.

In Our Grandmother MacDonald's Backyard
Roy, Donnie, Louise (Me) with Bertie, and Barbie

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia
Photo by Sara MacBeath
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

During this period my mother made a special effort
to write letters to her mother-in-law, a widow,
living alone in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
Being unable to communicate with my father
was a hardship for my Grandmother MacBeath 
because Dad was her only surviving child.

A Rare Photo of My Father
with His Parents,
Roy and Myrtle MacBeath
Prince Edward Island, Canada

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

My mother's letters were usually simple.
With five children aged one to ten,
she was lucky to cobble a few words together.
But her scant sentences, followed by a few of my own, 
trigger bittersweet memories for me,
and remind me again, of a path not taken.


On Friday, November 25, 1960 
My mother wrote to her mother-in-law:

Dear Mother:
The children are at Sunday School now, 
so I thought I’d get some letters are written.  

I made Don’s Christmas cake yesterday.  
It made a lovely big cake.  
I hope he gets it all right.  
I put a couple of boxes of icing sugar in with it.  

I will get the rest of his parcels off before the end of this week.  
I will return the receipt with this. 
I have made several copies and included your changes.

The children are writing exams this coming week.  
Here they are now, home from Sunday School.  

We planted daffodils yesterday.  
There isn’t any new news.  

I hope you write soon and tell me 
what you and Aunt Maude would like for Christmas.  
I am going to get Louise to add a few lines to this.
With love,
Sara

P.S.  Could you send the animals from Red Rose Tea 
        for Barbie and Donnie?


Dear Nana and Aunt Maude,
Yesterday I sold $16.00 of Christmas cards.  
We also planted daffodil bulbs, baked a cake, 
and I did the dishes for Mom.
 
At school I have an average of 96.7, 
and I haven’t gone below ninety yet.  
I am also the smartest in music.  
Hardly anyone knows their notes.  

The teacher bought me a special book all about music.  
It’s called “Fun with Music.”
Love,
Louise

How many times have I washed dishes
in the little pantry off Grammie's kitchen?
Many, many times over a lifetime,
carefully rationing the hot water from 
a five gallon tank heated by her oil stove.
That memory is bittersweet, because 
Grammie's house is coming down in 2016.

Looking Out Grammie's Kitchen Window

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

The Christmas cake ~ a fruit cake! 
Does anyone bake them anymore?
I haven't made one in years.
For the sake of family peace,
we usually made two.

My Nana MacBeath and her sister Maude Cox,
squabbled for decades over whose fruitcake was best,
Nana's light fruitcake or Aunt Maude's dark one.

I loved both, but in my mind, 
Aunt Maude's edged Nana's out.  
It was stuffed with dark raisins, tiny currants, 
fat sticky muscats, and exotic dates and figs
mixed into a rich batter with strawberry jam and molasses
and fragrant with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Guaranteed Mom sent Dad Nana's light fruitcake
loaded with golden sultanas, lemon and orange citron,
and jewellike red and green glace cherries, 
and flavored with sweet-smelling almond extract.

Dad loved his mother's fruitcake, 
but he was very close to his Aunt Maude,
so Mom was up to her elbows in fruit and batter
for a good two days each Christmas season.

Nana and Her Siblings

Maude (back), Belle, Myrtle, and Chester

St. Peter's Bay, P.E.I.

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Selling those Christmas cards was my first paying job!
At ten, I longed to buy Christmas presents for my family,
and if I wanted to do that, I had to earn money.

I don't remember how I found the Christmas card company,
but I sold enough of its cards in Smith's Cove
to make a little over $5.00.
I spent every cent of it in Kinsman's General Store, located
halfway between my grandmother's and great-grandmother's homes.

I remember searching the shelves of that tiny rural store
looking for gifts I could afford, and I found them:
Yardley English Lavender Bath Salts for Nana,
a book of lifesavers for Roy, barley candy toys for my sisters,
a small box of chocolate Turtles for my mom, 
several Cherry Blossoms for my dad,  
and best of all, a tiny baby doll for little Bertie.

I learned then that there is nothing better
on Christmas morning than watching loved ones
unwrapping presents that you've gotten for them.

Flickr:  wackystuff   license

Cherry Blossoms
Wikipedia

As for that path not taken?
I can't sing.  
I can't dance.
I can't play an instrument.
And yet time and time again,
I was encouraged to study music.

From my fifth grade teacher giving me a music book
to a placement advisor at Cal State Fullerton
calling me to come in and talk.
"Why on Earth are you enrolled in geology courses?
You have the highest scores I've ever seen for music?"

Too bad the tests measured aptitude 
and not talent or skills.

I often wonder, though. 
I had had a similar meeting at Acadia,
eleven years earlier, in a different country,
on the other side of the continent.

That was our November so long ago,
as we waited for the ice to thicken in the North
so a bush plane could land in Lansdowne House
and start letters from Dad on their long journey to us.

And how about you, kind reader?
Did you have fruitcake battles in your family?
Do you remember your first paying job?
Did you have a path you didn't take, 
that you often wonder about?
I'd love to hear!

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue



Beautiful Cove on Long island,
in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

Links to Earlier Posts:

TLL: Hints of a Troubled Future

TLL:The Howling of Dogs 


Notes:
1.  My Grandmother's House nearly passed out of our family's hands
     some twenty years ago.  My sister Bertie and her husband Peter managed to save it,
     and because of them we all got to enjoy it many more years.
     But the day we all knew would come has arrived.
     Thanks Bertie and Peter for never once giving me a hard time over
     of calling it "Grammie's house" when, in fact, it was yours!
     And thanks for all the extra years of memories.

The Back of My Grandmother's House,
aka Peter and Bertie's House 

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Lansdowne House, Ontario, Canada

Wikimedia

Location of Nova Scotia in Canada
Wikimedia

Location of Digby in Nova Scotia
Wikimedia

Location of Smith's Cove
on the Annapolis Basin between Digby (left) and Annapolis Royal (right)
It was about 6 miles or 9.7 kilometers from the Cove to Digby.
Birch Villa Cottages  Smith's Cove