Putting History Into The Photo Albums That Represent Our Past; Stanley and Blanche Jackson

My Grandparents, Blanche and Stanley Jackson and daughter Marj

Stanley Jackson at work but mostly play.

The Jackson Family farmstead in Trenton, Ontario

Stanley was a concert violinist in Toronto

Stanley and Blanche in the backyard of their Toronto home

GOD BLESS STANLEY AND BLANCHE JACKSON FOR GIVING THEIR GRANDSON A STUBBORN DISPOSITION

TO ANSWER THE QUESTION, "CURRIE, WHERE THE HELL DID YOU COME FROM?"

     As far back as the 1600's, our combined family history, compiled over the past decade, and undertaken with unfaltering intensity, by my partner Suzanne, has not revealed a single embezzler, heretic, witch, warlock, grave robber, Frankenstein monster-builder, vampire, king, queen, duke or earl, and thankfully, not a single writer or historian. I like the idea of being "the first in the family to break trail in these professions!" We did find a few "tinkers" a "sock maker," and an importer-exporter, on a sailing ship, with a business connection in Jamaica, who may have been involved in rum-running at one point; but not a single candlestick maker. Apparently though, no matter what we were up to, in order to make a living, all were "live wires" and "interveners," but no hatchet murderers, or nudists. Not a single nudist going all the way back to the first nudist colony. We like our clothing on our bodies. I don't want to mislead anyone reading this blog, because we did have rogues, and a few of them were jailed in and around the events of the American Revolution, but the kind of actions that made them revered by the British Crown. Instead of being hung as traitors, which would have been the most likely outcome, if they had been caught by the other side. Fun stuff. Neat to recall their adventures on land and sea, without fear of getting shot or being forced to walk the plank into a water grave. Where did we come from? It's a long story.
     Suzanne's family, representing the Sheas of Ufford, in the present Township of Muskoka Lakes, were known in their heyday of the late 1800's through the turn of the century, as the "Three Mile Lake Wolves," a story for another day.
     Last week, while I was working on the photo collection we had just purchased, documenting the days of the Mavety's "Circle M Ranch," (circa 1930 to 1950), in Kleinburg, I added a little extra to the story, as I usually do! What I was overviewing, was the fact we have, in our possession, (and also find thousands of wonderful old photographs every year at flea markets), that unfortunately are not labelled by their former owners. I have to thank my mother Merle, for identifying a lot of our own family photos, before her demise. Although not entirely complete, she didn't leave us without written material to cross reference and eventually finish the task. Suzanne and I won't leave these photographs, or ours, as the boys' inheritance, without proper captioning for them, and their eventual families to appreciate. I'm assuming of course, they will have an interest in these at some point down the line.
     One day, not so long ago, a person I was conversing with at the shop, undoubtedly about something political, or municipal (my favor topic) stopped in the middle of the discussion, looked me in the eye, and asked rather bluntly, "Currie, where the hell did you come from?" I wasn't offended because in my profession, as a history-chaser, I get asked this more than you might think. People want to know if I practice what I preach, and "do I have a thorough understanding of my own family history"; because if I didn't, I suppose it would make me a giant hypocrite. I get it! For much of my life, even working as a regional historian, it's quite true, as a contradiction, that I only knew about a tiny portion of what should have been the full family tree, in all its ancestral foliage.
     The person I had been chatting with, wasn't being adversarial, (quite the contrary) when he asked this question, but rather curious about how I caught the history bug, in the first place; and if there was anything in my past, that would explain my compulsive interest in ferreting through historical records. When I was asked this question, it just so happened, at that point in research, I could answer with considerable evidence, clustered in my corner; indicating my mortal fibre, "my genes," were the result of kin folk, whose gene-legacies were still deeply rooted in Germany, the Netherlands, England, Ireland, and the United States (long before the Revolutionary War). Of course, my family, on my grandmother's side, has been in the present colony since the days following the Revolutionary War. Now this isn't the case, I'm trying to prove that my ancestry is better than yours. (How much do you actually know, or want to know about your past?) In large part, I knew only a fraction of this legacy, before Suzanne began subscribing to Ancestry.ca, five or so years ago, and was able to, with many hours of work, find the characters of my past, who yes, "made me what I am today." So I'm basking a little bit, knowing that I can go to the countries mentioned above, and feel somewhat at home. Suzanne and I have made plans, for the future, to visit these places, as a sort of sewing together of the public record she has gathered, with the actuality of our contemporary lives. I don't want to think of it as a notation on our bucket list, because that suggests we're only a few steps ahead of the grim reaper. As we both plan to live forever, the trip is really the "dotting of the i's" sort of follow through, for all the research we've (mostly Suzanne's work) done thus far.
     "I don't mean to suggest, you must have crashed upwards from the gates of hell, or any place hot like that," my friend interrupted. "I mean, the way you argue and debate as if it's normal conversation, you must have had a politician in your past, or someone with evangelistic fervor." I did have a minister in the family, at a church in Warrington, a community near Liverpool, in England, and on my grandmother Blanche's side, being the Vandervoorts, I had a number of ancestors who were major agitators (sh_t disturbers), siding with the British during the American Revolution. The fact that they came to Canada at this time, (running northward through the bush) means that I am part of a United Empire Loyalist legacy. In fact, one of those Loyalists kin, was a member of a volunteer regiment, during the War of 1812. This side of our family settled in the Bay of Quinte region of Ontario. I think, though, if I have any particular vim and vinegar, that may have inched up the branch of the family tree, it would have come from Stanley and Blanche Jackson (of the Vandervoorts ilk). My grandfather, on my father Ed's side, was a horse's ass with a human face. He was a heavy drinking man, who had emigrated from Ireland, who had a bad attitude, an anger he took out on his family, a penchant for fighting, and the ability to disappear for long periods of time, forcing my poor (and I mean that in so many ways) grandmother, to send her young sons to foster care, which was a whole other bag of horrors. My grandmother, Doris Currie, who arrived in this country, an orphaned child herself, by the name of Doris Harding, was one of Dr. Bernardo's offerings to the colony; where she worked as child labour for a minister in Southern Ontario. Her name is now etched on a special memorial, with other Bernardo girls (from the Bernardo Homes for orphans in England) from that period of the late 1800's and early 1900's), who where sent to Canada, which has been erected in the City of Peterborough, Ontario, which was a stopping place for the children prior to placement. She was a very elegant woman, who was very soft spoken, and who had come from a considerably well-off family in England. The problem, of course, was that her parents died when she was very young, and her grandfather, who had to look after her, became too ill to offer her care any longer. She was a determined woman, who managed to survive through the great Depression, and keep a roof over her family's head, in the Cabbagetown community in Toronto. She may have contributed to my stubbornness, and my unwillingness to abandon projects just because there are a few roadblocks in the way. If she could support a family of four boys, for a majority of the time they were in her care, (they did have to go to foster care at times), and survive physically and emotionally through terrible personal situations, and an absentee husband who left her penniless, I could certainly then, muster the stamina to clear a few little obstacles to find a clear path, in something as non combative as archive's research. Maybe this is what has made me so dogged about research. As for argument's sake, well, me thinks I am more like Stanley and Blanche, because they were the most stalwart, determined, never-say-never people I have ever known. The only reality that ever stopped them from what they wanted to accomplish, was a combination of illness due to age, and their own respective deaths.
      "Well, that sounds more like you Ted, honestly," remarked my friend, at the end of our happenstance get-together, as he turned and walked away. That same night, I sat down with a photo album my mother Merle had been working on, before she developed the early stages of dimentia, and the stroke that would destroy her ability to recall the details of her early days. The old photographs published above, show some of my favorite family relics. The photograph of Stanley, as a young man, playing the violin, is my favorite, (he had been a concert master at one time), and may have given my side the performance gene, that appears to have been passed on to my own sons, Andrew and Robert. Specifically the one showing him standing on his head, is also one I love to show-off, as it most certainly profiles my willingness to create a spectacle of myself. The family photograph was taken at their farmhouse in Trenton, Ontario, and was flashed onto a negative, before my mother Merle was born. In the frame are baby Jean, and her sisters Phylis, Doris, and Marjory, with son Carmen sitting on the steps. The Collie in my grandfather's arms, was named "Lad". My mother told me how once, "Lad" had knocked her over, when she was playing around the wood pile in the yard. He then went to the other side of the pile and began barking, as if there was another dog on the property. When Stanley went to see what all the fuss was about, he witnessed Lad killing a rattlesnake, that surely would have stung Merle, if she had passed around the corner of the pile. Lad had been bitten but somehow survived. Another photograph shows Stan and Blanche, probably with young daughter Marjory, but it is not identified as such. We're still working on this one with other family members.
     Both Stanley and Blanche disliked farm life, (Blanche more so, because of the work-load for little income) and not too long after my mother was born, they moved to Toronto, where my grandfather began working as a carpenter. He eventually became a well established and respected house builder, and Jackson Avenue in Toronto, not far from the intersection of Bloor and Jane Streets, was named after him, because of the many houses his company constructed along its length. My father eventually went to work with Stanley, and they then, with my uncle Carmen, worked for Paul Hellyer, former Minister of National Defence (not sure of the exact title), who was then developing residential property in Toronto. I had a letter exchange with Mr. Hellyer some years ago, about our connection. He and his family at this time, were operating Arundel Lodge on Highway 169, between Gravenhurst and Bala.
     Pondering my friend's earlier question, I started to think back to what my mother had characterized about my grandmother, Blanche, in our many conversations about the old family tree. When we used to visit them in Toronto, I just remember how tiny she was, compared to my grandfather. She was very soft spoken, but Merle used to tell me, that as a mother, with six wild children, she had no choice but to be tough and seemingly resistant to emotional reaction, to anything that happened to prevail upon her, or the household. She nursed my mother through rheumatic fever, and an appendix attack, that had come precariously close to a rupture, which could have been fatal at that time. She also had Scarlet fever, and Blanche was the home nurse who seldom slept. I believe the family physician who visited, and who was usually paid with a hot meal (when cash was in short supply), was "Dr. Graydon," but I stand to be corrected on the spelling. There were five others to tend to, and help her husband Stan, keep up at his own demanding sunrise to sunset work, including the harder than usual year of construction, on a church structure, for a congregation, that would, upon completion, with keys in their hand, neither name a stained glass window in his honor, nor give him the funds he was due. My mother told me that this, during the height of the Depression, nearly bankrupted him, and came precariously close to repossession of the family home. It was then that my grandfather refused to attend church evermore. He was true to his word for many decades, until he remarried, after the death of Blanche, and started to attend church in Florida, where he wintered. He would die on the same church's outside stairs, after collapsing, with his new wife, Edna, at his side, following a Sunday morning service. One of the many ironies in our family history.
     The recollection of my mother's, that I always liked best, was when she would tell me, even as a youngster, how their house in Toronto, was "identified" as being "hospitable" by the hobos, and other homeless, penniless men, out of work, and travelling city to city, by rail or by thumb, during the Depression years. When I suggest "identified," I mean that their house was marked in some fashion, possibly by a symbol or string attached to a fence post, indicating that the homeowner would provide temporary shelter and hot food for those who were hungry. Merle told me that there were daily arrivals at the back door, of homeless fellows, who looked as if they were starving to death, who were never turned away by Blanche, who always had a pot of "everything stew," on the stove, and fresh bread to serve for sopping up the savoury liquid. They would even be invited inside to dine with family, and Merle told me, it was just part of being a Jackson, in those years, to have a kitchen full of strangers, down on their luck, but temporarily, at least, finding kindred spirits in the big room with the long table, and the permeating aroma of strong coffee, and simmering stew. I used to sit in those same chairs when I was a kid, and spent many Sunday afternoons at their Toronto home. Blanche was still serving up her famous lunches and dinners, and no one left the Jackson house, without feeling full and contented.
     My own parents, as much as I loved them, were both quite standoffish, socially, which I expect was more the influence of my father, who preferred a quiet household, and get-togethers that suited his interests at a particular time. You didn't just drop into our residence, and expect a warm welcome. My mother loved her apartment, and for whatever reason, hated the idea of owning her own home. She felt her mother had worked herself to sickness, and didn't feel it was her calling, to devote oneself to assist social causes. She was generous and kind like her mother, but she was very selective about friends and social situations, possibly, at times, feeling self conscious about what we didn't have, in the way of clothing, big car, and long driveway to park it! Seeing as I was okay with our modest lifestyle, it only ever bothered me, when someone, a fellow student for example, pointed out that the sole of my running shoes, had disassociated itself with the rotting fabric of the toe. Or when they really did call me "patches" (no fooling), when Merle had to patch over patches, to make my pants and sweaters last just a little bit longer. I figured that if I wasn't completely naked, had mitts and a toque in the winter, and acceptable footwear, I was doing pretty well in the apparel department. No matter how they called me that "poor Currie kid," there were dozens poorer than me, and dressed such that the cold and wet would penetrate their garments. I never considered it a disadvantage, being of a lesser income family, because there were so many of us, especially in my home neighborhood, who lived pretty much the same way, and got used to the same shortfalls in cash to buy better quality clothing and footwear. I am more aware of it today than I was then, because those who kidded me, were considered a--holes by all my other friends. There was strength and good humour in the company I kept.
     "Where the hell did I come from?" Well, I came from a family of survivors I guess you might say. I'm proud of this legacy and I will do anything to uphold tradition. I'm just not very good at making Blanche's "everything stew."