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2 Ron Terry Thamesford

The Man Behind the Marathon of Hope: Ron Calhoun

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Terry Fox and Ron Calhoun, July 1980. Photo from Ron Calhoun’s collection, used with permission.

Well here we are 40 years after our Canadian hero, Terry Fox, started his Marathon of Hope across Canada with the behind-the-scenes help of Ron Calhoun. Ron was the Canadian Cancer Society Special Events Chair who worked out all the details to make Terry’s run successful. And he did a fabulous job.

From the starting date of April 12th, 1980 to the day Terry was forced to suspend his run in September of that same year, his story grew and grew. And so did the dollars raised. Today the Terry Fox Foundation counts the total at approximately $800,000,000.

Municipalities all across the part of the country where Terry ran treasure the memories. They are so delighted to have been part of this huge undertaking that they find many ways to salute that indomitable young man.

Last year my husband and I were in London walking along the Terry Fox Parkway near the Thames River.  We were there to take part in inducting a new park bench to celebrate Ron Calhoun(and his wife Fran) and his tremendous contributions to our area and to the whole country, if not the world.

Ron at 86 reliving the Marathon of Hope when he spoke at the dedication of the bench in London, Ontario.

Just this past week, Woodstock, Ontario added their own memorial to the hundreds across the country. Here is the story in the Woodstock Sentinel Review.   

John Versaevel, the chair of the Woodstock Terry Fox Run, and Woodstock Mayor Trevor Birtch watch the raising of the Terry Fox flag at Museum Square Wednesday July 15, 2020. The day celebrates the 40th anniversary since Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope travelled through Woodstock. Greg Colgan/Sentinel-Review/Postmedia Network jpg, WD

The appendix of The Man Behind the Marathons: How Ron Calhoun Helped Terry Fox and Other Heroes Make Millions for Charity lists many of the many awards and accomplishments of Ron Calhoun. He was a quiet, rather unassuming man who liked to ‘drive from the back seat’. In other words he liked to suggest ideas and then see how others would proceed with them.

He used this method in many instances as John Davidson, of Jesse’s Journey fame, experienced. Ron helped him in his quest to find a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. John is now the humble head of Jesse’s Journey which gives out to researchers around the world $1,000,000 every year to help eradicate that disease.

With Ron’s passing in February of 2020, an initiative to have him awarded the Order of Canada, along with all of his other awards came abruptly to an end. Unfortunately at this time the body in charge of awarding those medals only gives them to living recipients.

This seems unfair as Ron Calhoun’s services to this country and the world have not disappeared because of his death. His has been an exemplary life, much of it spent in service to others. He told this author that he hoped when he died that he would have left this world a better place. I think he has done that in spades. He deserves recognition.

 

 

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An Amazing Wooden Bridge and Two Great Contests!

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West Montrose Covered Bridge

Last Sunday my husband and I decided to drive to a favorite spot just to see if and how the St. Jacob’s Farmers’ Market might be open. We really just wanted a drive up through Mennonite country where some of my ancestors lived. After we checked out the market–yes, it was open but in a diminished sort of way–we drove further northeast to a place that is a remarkable piece of Ontario history–the West Montrose Covered Bridge.

It is a one-lane bridge spanning the Grand River and has signs on either end warning cars to yield; it’s the last remaining covered bridge in Ontario. You have to be polite and take your turn to get across as it’s just one lane.

A car going across

We had to ask the two couples who had settled for a chat in front of this sign to move so that we could read it (in this time of Covid, you see), but they were most cooperative.

Built by John Bear in 1880. About the same time the Donnellys were causing havoc on the Roman Road near Lucan, Ontario.
Wild phlox bloomed beautifully across the Grand River, so aptly named.
Here you can see the length of the gorgeous structure.
A boat downriver and more wild flowers in the distance. What a beautiful place!

For those who love historical romance I’ve put The Loyalist’s Wife into this Giveaway! (even though my book is really historical fiction.) You’ll love it! Check out all the books included at the link access icon below.

Contest is from June 8-June 17.

Another contest I’ve entered with The Man Behind the Marathons: How Ron Calhoun Helped Terry Fox and Other Heroes Make Millions for Charity is the Inspirational and Non-Fiction contest run by BookSweeps from

June 21-July 1.

There will be beautiful graphics coming soon but I wanted to give you an early heads-up. Watch my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages for more info on June 21. Meanwhile enjoy your reading!

 

Uncle Frank, Mom, group

Poppies, People and Potato Peels

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Fulfilling my dreams of becoming an author has made me notice Remembrance Day so much more keenly than ever before. I still remember marching in my cadet uniform, lining up in rows of black and white costumed girls followed by our khaki male classmates as we filled the halls facing our cenataph in the front hall of our large school. We listened to the Last Post, heard John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields, stood still for the minister’s message, and listened as our principal, Mr. Ferguson, talked of his paper boy who never came back from the war.

While I stood in the deathly silent halls at Woodstock Collegiate I thought of my Uncle Frank, my mother’s brother, who joined the Perth regiment but never came home from the war. I knew he was buried in Italy where a German bomb had hit his foxhole.

Uncle Frank is beside the dog and my mother, Alice, is next to Frank. August, 1939.

I remember thinking of Uncle Frank–who died before I was born–and I still feel the tears that slipped down my cheeks as I moved inside my young mind and imagined his life with his wife and baby daughter–cut off right as it was beginning–and the utter waste of it all.

Two of my Dad’s brothers also served but they came back and, at that time, I thought they were none the worse for it. I didn’t associate them with the horrors of World War II. Now I recognize the signs that both of them suffered PTSD although it was not named then.

My Dad never went to war. He served his country by milking Holsteins, raising crops and feeding Canada. He even worked in a munitions machine shop for one winter but decided he could do more by growing food at home. I wonder today if he was ostracized by people because he was not serving overseas but he never spoke of it. Another of the questions I’d like to ask him if he were here.

The past few days I’ve been reminded often of the sacrifices made by everyone who went through the war. I finished reading Extraordinary Women, Extraordinary Times: Canadian Women of WWII and, though it was a bit of a slog, I persevered because the stories of those  women and their contributions to the War came alive for me. (I  wrote a review on Goodreads.) My husband and I watched The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society on Monday and got another taste of the effects of the War on so many. (The link is to the trailer.)

A talented friend of mine, musician and recording artist Jack London, was invited to go to Vimy Ridge in 2017 for the famous battle’s 100th anniversary. He performed a number of songs including his own composition Highway of Heroes at the celebrations in France. This song is inspired by the strip of highway 401 from CFB Trenton where planes brought in fallen soldiers from the war in Afghanistan and along which those fallen soldiers traveled to Toronto before being released to families for burial.

On November 11th I was once again pleased to see the ceremony in Ottawa, our nation’s capital. I was delighted that not only the men who served in 1939-1945 but also the women and the First Nations peoples and the black people and those of all colours, races and backgrounds–all who served were recognized and represented. Canada is working on righting those old wrongs.

And so I return to my writing life and how it has made me notice more. I watch people’s faces. I listen to their unspoken words and I search behind their smiles and their frowns for the underpainting of their lives. We are all the products of what has gone before. For this Remembrance Day and for always, I hope that our memories can help shape our present and our future.

For Stories of More People Making a Difference, Click on Images

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The Loyalists in Ontario

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In the latter part of August, my husband and I took a trip to Gananoque, Ontario to see a performance at the theatre there. My sister was one of the actors; hence, our trip to that lovely part of Ontario. On the way, we detoured through Prince Edward County and boarded the Glenora ferry, pictured below.

The ferry goes about every 15 minutes in the summer so our wait was not too long, even though lots of cars were lined up. We filled in the time enjoying the waterfront.

Many sailboats and other craft used the waterway which we had to cross to get to Adolphustown on the road to Kingston, Ontario.

This is Loyalist country and I got to see a U.E.L. cemetery along the way. Here is the Loyalist flag flying above the cemetery which is enclosed by a beautiful metal fence. In the distance you can see the stones of many of the Loyalists buried there. The stones have been cemented into a long monument as a way of preserving this history.

A few of the stones stand on their own.

Here’s a closer view of the fence and of the stones.

I was intrigued by the wording on this sign telling of the coming of the Loyalists to the Kingston area. For my Loyalist trilogy I started the first book in 1778 during the American Revolutionary War that precipitated the flight to Canada of those loyal to Britain, from what had been the Thirteen Colonies and became the United States.

Here is another view of the monument and stones.

Many of the women in those times died early from childbirth and several of the stones showed how young these women were.

The stone below tells the story of a mother dying, presumably in birthing the child who died two months later.

This stone memorializes a “much loved wife”. She lived to be 51 so presumably either didn’t have children or survived that ordeal.

This stone reminds us that though a multitude of stones remain across our land, many markers made of wood have disappeared over the years.

The Frontenac, the first steamship on Lake Ontario, was built near Kingston in the early 1800’s. The sign below and the Canadian Encyclopedia shed light on the ship’s history. I was intrigued to learn that the population of Upper Canada was too small for the ship to make much money and it was about to be scrapped when an arsonist burned it.

This, too, is part of our early Ontario history and the plaque below is near the Loyalist cemetery.

Preserving our Ontario history has become very important to me. Whenever I find efforts to do just that I am thrilled. Those who came before us would be pleased, too.

For my take on the Loyalists, try my Loyalist Trilogy, linked below.

 

 

 

Loyalist Until 93 Years of Age!

For those of us who love a good story, especially one of which we loyalists are a part, join me in reliving Part III of this story first printed in the Loyalist Trails magazine that lands in my InBox every Sunday. Thanks, Loyalist Trails and UELAC! 

 

The “Very Clever” Loyalist Wife: Part Three

Reprinted with the permission of author and copyright holder Stephen Davidson UE

At 46 years of age, Margaret Jefferson Hutchinson was a widow and a refugee. Her husband and three of their sons had died during the course of the American Revolution. Nine years after emigrating from Yorkshire, England to New Jersey, Margaret and her three surviving children were among the thousands of loyalists who fled the United States to seek sanctuary in Nova Scotia.
After arriving in Annapolis Royal in October of 1783, the four Hutchinsons made their home in nearby Cornwallis. It was here that the family began to attend St. John Anglican Church and it was here that Margaret met the newly arrived pastor, the Rev. John Wiswell.
Born in Boston, Wiswell had been sent to Cornwallis to succeed the Rev. Jacob Bailey, the Church of England missionary who became the clergyman for the Anglicans of Annapolis Royal. The 52 year-old Wiswell had only been in Cornwallis since August of 1783, arriving just two months ahead of Margaret and her children.
Accepting the position in Cornwallis would prove to be a turning point in the life of John Wiswell. The Anglican minister, a father of two sons, had been a widower for the past eight years. A man who had known better times and circumstances, Wiswell was now all alone in a refugee settlement in the wilds of Nova Scotia.
No one thought to record what drew Margaret Hutchinson and John Wiswell to one another. Was it the common experience of losing a spouse? Suffering as a loyalist refugee? Or was it the very practical need to provide a stable home for children traumatized by war? Whatever their reasons, Margaret and John were married less than five months after their first meeting. The Rev. Jacob Bailey, the man who had preceded Wiswell in serving the Anglicans of Cornwallis, married the couple on Monday, February 23rd.
It is Bailey who described Margaret as “very clever” and “sensible and . . . prudent in the management of family affairs…” — a woman with “the gleanings of a very ample estate“. The new Mrs. Wiswell brought a “dowry” to her marriage. She had the monies from the sale of a house in New York and the promised inheritance of her late husband’s personal estate.
In July of 1786, Margaret sought compensation for John Hutchinson’s wartime losses when the Royal Commission on the Losses and Services of American Loyalists (RCLSAL) convened in Halifax. In addition to the personal testimony of Thomas Millidge, New Jersey’s former surveyor general, Margaret had “certificates” verifying her late husband’s loyalty from Brook Watson the former British commissary general in New York City, General Courtlandt Skinner of the New Jersey Volunteers, Chief Justice William Smith of New York and David Ogden, a loyalist judge of New Jersey’s supreme court.
    Francis Hutchinson, now a young man of twenty-two, also testified on his mother’s behalf. What is puzzling about both the testimonies of Margaret and Francis is that they each only referred to the death of two Hutchinson brothers where other documents speak of the wartime deaths of three brothers: William, Major and Ralph. Why would Margaret and Francis fail to mention all three?
The RCLSAL commissioner did not immediately make a decision on Margaret’s appeal as he needed to see John Hutchinson’s will. Over a year later, when the compensation board met in Montreal, the RCLSAL finally obtained the loyalist’s will from his New York City lawyer and made its decision to compensate the loyalist widow.
With the completion of the last bit of unfinished business from the American Revolution, Margaret Wiswell could now focus on her new role as the wife of an Anglican minister and watch her children as they became contributing members of Nova Scotia society.
On December 9, 1789, Margaret attended the wedding of her only surviving son, Francis, and Bathsheba Ruggles. Like the groom, the bride was also the child of a loyalist– and the granddaughter of General Timothy Ruggles, one of Massachusetts’ most noteworthy loyalists. Over the next ten years the young Hutchinson couple would have six children. Bathsheba died in February of 1800. A year later Francis married a widow named Fanny Lowden Nixon. In 1815, Francis died in a drowning accident — the same cause of death as his father John and brother Major more than 35 years earlier.
Margaret Hutchinson, just 19 years old when her family sailed for Nova Scotia, married James Allison on November 8, 1792. The couple would have eight children over the next 19 years.
    Ann Hutchinson, Margaret’s youngest daughter, married Henry Burbidge in February of 1798 when she was 26. It is not known if this couple had children. Ann died sometime before 1831.
What is amazing to consider is that despite the difficult times she had endured as the wife of a loyalist, Margaret Hutchinson Wiswell lived to see all of her grandchildren. Sadly, she also attended the funerals of all of her children as well as her second husband, John Wiswell. The “very clever” loyalist wife took her last breath on Friday, August 6, 1830 in the refugee settlement that had been her home for the last forty-seven years. Margaret Jefferson Hutchinson Wiswell died at the age of 93.
But this is just half of a loyalist love story. Learn more about the Rev. John Wiswell, Margaret Hutchinson’s second husband, in next week’s Loyalist Trails.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at [email protected]

Click on the Loyalist Trilogy books below for great historical stories with satisfying endings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ron-Calhoun

Biography is My Marathon of Hope

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Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope. Painting by Cliff Kearns, used with permission.

Here are some points that might both explain how I’m writing the biography of Ron Calhoun (Behind the Marathon of Hope: How Ron Calhoun Helped Terry Fox Raise Millions for Cancer) and give some guidance to others contemplating writing a biography themselves.

This book is about a living person rather than an iconic figure from the past which fact presents me with a huge advantage. I have been able to get the story directly from the star’s mouth; in fact, I’ve been interviewing Ron over the course of the last year, sneaking out time whenever our busy schedules have permitted. We’ve talked about Terry Fox, the most famous of those Ron has assisted; John and Jesse Davidson of Jesse’s Journey; Steve Fonyo, a Cancer survivor whose run presented huge challenges; and blind Ken McColm who ran across Canada to aid Diabetes research.

Ron received his honorary doctorate.

Either at my home or his I set up the tiny recorder and push record. Ron and I have about a two-hour discussion as he explains documents in front of us, tells stories from the past and answers my questions along the way. I have a sheet of topics and questions for him to explain and that leads to many interesting conversations. I’ve discovered that my interviewing style is more like a conversation where I even share salient points from my history which fit in with what he’s saying. Ron first worked with my mother in the Cancer Society and our families have a long history, making this conversational style most appropriate.

The question I am having to ask myself is whether to use or how to use all the information Ron gives me. Ron has many unique documents some of which I’ll put into an appendix at the back of the book but I’ll try to keep the narrative of Ron’s life a flowing story. Footnotes are useful here as well.

I like the third suggestion in the following very simple list from the web particularly as these questions start my own brain thinking about what might be good for my particular project.

To write a biography you should:    (Click link for more information.)

  1. Select a person you are interested in.
  2. Find out the basic facts of the person’s life. Start with the encyclopedia and almanac.
  3. Think about what else you would like to know about the person, and what parts of the life you want to write most about. Some questions you might want to think about include:
    • What makes this person special or interesting?
    • What kind of effect did he or she have on the world? other people?
    • What are the adjectives you would most use to describe the person?
    • What examples from their life illustrate those qualities?
    • What events shaped or changed this person’s life?
    • Did he or she overcome obstacles? Take risks? Get lucky?
    • Would the world be better or worse if this person hadn’t lived? How and why?
  4. Do additional research at your library or on the Internet to find information that helps you answer these questions and tell an interesting story.
  5. Write your biography.

One of the surprises I’ve had is the amount and the variety of information available to me for this project. Just now I’ve had to resort to putting everything into the chapters as I’ve laid them out in my chapter list at the beginning of the book and not worrying too much about writing perfectly integrated information. That narrative quality will be more important in editing but just now I really want to see the shape of the story. I need to get control of the process and this is how I’ve chosen to do it.

I have sixteen chapters and am planning a prologue. Some of the chapters are very long, some short, and others almost empty as I haven’t got to them. Once I organize the information in this way, I’ll revamp the whole thing with a view to evening out the chapters, making sure I end each one so the reader will have to turn the page, and giving the book a rising action quality, as much as is possible with a biography.

This book is a different kind of history for me, whose historical fiction books started my writing career. There I could use the actual historical facts as a framework upon which I imposed the fiction part. A lot of the book came out of my imagination. I’m pretty sure Ron Calhoun, his family, friends and the rest of the world actually want me to make this whole book factual, so my approach to it has to be quite different.

I’ve contemplated using sidebar boxes with related information but have decided to go the appendix route. That will give the biography a narrative quality. I’m telling a story. Yes, it’s a real person’s story but it’s a story and I want it to read like one and not like a list of facts. With Calhoun’s exceptional stories this format is working well. The appendices will be substantial with Ron’s documents. Pictures will be included as well.

Another narrative quality here is my use of direct quotations, possible because my subject, though eighty-four and having outlived every other person on that Cancer Society team back in 1980, is still very much alive. Ron was the chair of that committee. He gets to tell the story. A weird thing that has been happening as I write the story is that I often find myself using Ron’s own phraseology. He’s a wordsmith himself. That means I can hear his voice in the writing making this a biography that is almost alive with his very personality. That may diminish somewhat in revisions but I hope to retain that flavor.

Photo by http://www.charlestonfootprints.com/charleston-blog/calhouns-moving-grave/2014/01/07/

Now if you happen to be American and are not quite so conversant with Terry Fox’s name I must tell you that Ron Calhoun is related to a Vice President which John F. Kennedy included in his list of five most important vice presidents of the United States: John C. Calhoun. Like John C., Ron can trace his Calhoun lineage back to the twelve hundreds. And Ron even engineered help from a local historical society in Charleston, South Carolina, to get his famous ancestor’s gravestone repaired. The man takes on any cause he possibly can!

The last point necessary to address today is the question of what to do with all the information you find about your biography subject that doesn’t make it into the book. I have two thoughts. Come up with a guideline for choosing what will make it into the book, either in the main biography or in the appendix. Then take those items which are just too far away from the main topic of the book and use them for marketing tidbits, blog posts, Twitter bits, Facebook articles, or any other similar venues. They can lead nicely into your main subject matter for a speaking engagement. They might link your subject matter to a newspaper article. Do not simply discard any of the research you’ve done.

My deadline for completing this rough draft is the end of August. Then I’m setting it aside for a month and living my life outside of writing. When I get back to it, I’ll be looking at the whole project with fresh eyes and the revisions will begin. Publication is sometime in mid 2019. Meanwhile, here are my beloved historical novels to tide you over.

 

Click on the Loyalist Trilogy books below for great historical stories with satisfying endings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elsie PW

Elsie Perrin Williams and Windermere

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Elsie Perrin Williams Estate in London, Ontario.

In November of 2017 I was lucky enough to notice that the Elsie Perrin Williams estate called Windermere in northwest London was going to be open to the public and many of the rooms furnished temporarily as they would have been in her time. Immediately I put it on my calendar and my husband and I had a lovely tour there shortly afterwards.

We first noticed this unusual name when we attended university in London. Both of us wondered if this woman’s name meant she was related to my husband’s mother whose name was Jane Perrin Williams. By the time we made the connection Jane had passed away; we were not able to ask her about the similarities. We do know, however, that Jane was related to an owner of the Grand Trunk Railway and the Williams Fly Spray people but we’ve never delved into those intriguing fragments of knowledge. I suppose it is conceivable that the two were related just because of the circles those business owners would have traveled in.

On our visit to the estate we learned more about Elsie and her husband, Hadley, and the person who stayed with Elsie until she, too, died, and to whom Elsie gave a sizable bequest. The website gives a clear account of some of the history. The property was left to the city of London along with enough money to maintain it but some shenanigans on the part of London politicians meant that the money was siphoned off for the building of the new public library in downtown London. The Williams estate fell into disrepair after the death of its caretaker.

The large room where wedding receptions today are held.
Here is a shot of me in the kitchen where the preparation of food was well displayed.

My husband’s family history has another chapter to it which I learned when he received a small inheritance from his mother’s grandfather. The family owned apartment buildings in New York City which gradually fell into disrepair as over the years crooked lawyers sucked as much money out of the estate as they could. My husband’s uncle was high up in Chesebrough-Ponds and took frequent trips to New York where he succeeded in wresting the properties away from the unscrupulous lawyers and the small inheritance was divided up. The family story is that these buildings were tenement dwellings by the time the lawyers were ousted but I don’t know details.

And still today we wonder if Elsie Perrin Williams was any relation. Perhaps one day when we find a few hours of leisure time we’ll look into this. Meanwhile Elsie’s estate is there to look at and to book for occasions. If you want to read more about the estate and the people here is a link to an article about the book, Elsie’s Estate, written by Susan Bentley.

Click on the Loyalist Trilogy books below for great historical stories with satisfying endings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Yesterday was Remembrance Day here in Canada or Memorial Day in the U.S. and I got to thinking again about my Uncle Frank who died in Italy in WWII. This past summer my husband and I had a special experience related to that. I’ve linked to that post here. Please click to see our family’s story about war and remembrance in photos and words.

I Came, I Saw, I Cried.

And, of course, you can always read about other wars, families, and remembrances in my Loyalist Trilogy. Links are below.

 

Click on the books below for the Loyalist trilogy:

 

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This Writer’s Decisions

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On my website you will see a few quotes from various readers about my Loyalist trilogy and I’d like to talk about one of those today. A friend of mine knows a lot about history in general and much more about the Rebellion history of Norwich; she and I spent time bicycling around that area many years ago with our young mothers’ group. No matter where we went this friend would point out places and tell the history. It was all fascinating.

With The Loyalist Legacy, I brought the Garners into my part of Ontario. I was very careful about my facts. When my friend wrote me the comment below I was so pleased I just had to put it up on my website:

“I was delighted with the way you handled the Norwich Rebellion in the last Loyalist book, Elaine, and have heard many positive comments about it.” Marie A.

I feel historical fiction can have lots of fiction in it but the details of actual history just have to be correct. Marie checked my facts as I’d written them and I checked over and over with reference books as well.

The fiction comes with adding fictional characters, places, details, and events. I remembered my daughter talking about a house where she cleaned for an old lady. One day the lady moved the kitchen table and pulled back a rug to reveal a door in the floor. She pulled it up and asked my daughter to go down and retrieve something for her. Beth took one look at the deep, dark hole with a rickety ladder leading down into the abyss and visions of that door slamming down over her flashed through her mind. My normally very compliant daughter just was not going down there. That scene was still in my mind when I wrote the story of two black former slaves at the time of the Rebellion of 1837. You’ll find that story near the end of The Loyalist Legacy.

The Garner family in the Loyalist trilogy are fictional even though they are based on and often named for my ancestors. I’ve had to decide what they might have looked like but draw on things I know about my father’s family to flesh them out. Someone has a widow’s peak and someone else has a prominent chin dimple. These family traits helped me give character to the fictional family. I’m not sure anyone in my family has ever said anything about the resemblance to my dad but it’s been fun for me.

I know my father told a story of a native woman coming to visit one of my ancestors, leaving her papoose on the porch while the two talked inside, and the child being carried off by a wild animal–bear or lynx, I’m not sure, as my cousin told me two different versions of the story. I decided to use the lynx because of the sly nature of cats and, believe it or not, the appeal of a lynx’s strange pointed tufts on its ear tips.

In the second book of the trilogy, The Loyalist’s Luck, I brought in the historical fact of the burning of Newark (present-day Niagara-on-the-Lake) but I also added a wonderfully sad story I discovered in my research. The residents had been given one hour to retrieve what they could from their homes before the Americans burned the town. This was in December, 1813, a very cold and snowy time of year in the Niagara peninsula. I found a story of an old lady, sick and unable to leave her bed, who was carried out into the street to watch as the Canadian Volunteers (siding with the Americans) burned her house to the ground. Through that old lady I was able to make my readers feel the absolute pain of war.

Another decision that just seemed to push itself into my mind was having Robert Garner, fictional brother of William, decide to sever off small sections of his land right where the present-day village of Thorndale is located, north of London, Ontario. Interestingly a relative of mine named Robert Garner did donate that land in the second part of the nineteenth century for municipal purposes and today there are playing fields and community buildings there. My niece’s house is actually located on the land donated by our relative. This has little to do with the plot of the book or even with the characters but it helped me add a layer of feeling that otherwise might not have been there as Robert suffered through his wife’s illness. I hope it helps my readers empathize with these characters who could very well have been real.

We never really know what facts or nuances from our own past will pop up in our writing. For me they are most pleasing. They make the story really my own. No one else could have written what I’ve written. There is an extra layer of richness that I feel each and every time I read from my work for audiences near and far. And there’s a connection to my family and my memories. If only history in school could have been taught from the point of view of the people involved instead of the memorize-the-six-reasons-for-whatever method.

 

Click on the books below for great historical stories:

 

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Subplots Enrich the Main Plot: The Use of Native Peoples in The Loyalist Trilogy

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In the writing of my Loyalist trilogy, close to one thousand pages of fiction which delves into the history of Upper Canada, now called Ontario, one of the first Natives I named was Black Bear Claw. Part of a subplot, I called him an Indian as that was the term used at that time of little understanding between those of European descent and the Natives. Black Bear Claw comes to represent some of the things that happened to our first Nations’ People throughout the first and second book.

A severely wounded man, he is dropped off at Lucy’s cabin where she nurses him back to health. In The Loyalist’s Luck, she encounters him again in the forest about four years later, and further on in the book he comes to live with her and John at their mill near the Fort which at present-day Fort Erie across the river from Buffalo. I had the chance to tell some of the horrific history of the Mohawks who were abandoned by both the British and the Americans in their treaty making after the American Revolutionary War.

Here Lucy asks the wounded man lying on her floor what has happened since she saw him last.

“I will tell you,” he said. “But only you.” He tried to sit up but settled for leaning on one elbow, looking at her, his face more animated than she had seen it in a great while.

“I went back. To my old lands.”

“Do you mean to the United States?”

“Yes. My woman was there. And my sons.” His voice echoed his pride and she thought of the man she had known. Black Bear Claw’s words came out softly, at first, as he told Lucy things she already knew about the revolution but soon the voice took on a bereft and barren sound. He told of the savagely reduced numbers of Indians. Their rights and lands had been devastated. The war over, a whole new wave of land-hungry settlers had pushed toward the western reaches of the former colonies, this time with the support of the new states, many of whom could not see beyond their own need for land to the rights of those who had lived there for centuries.

The British were no better. Many of the Five Nations tribes had fought for the British in hopes of being on the winning side and keeping their lands but they were forsaken in the treaty negotiations. Their lands were ceded to the Americans. When Black Bear Claw finally found his people there was no peace for him in that land. He and his brothers and sisters tried to keep their traditions and their ways but instead were bribed with trinkets and alcohol until their old ways were no more.

Black Bear Claw stared beyond Lucy to some imaginary window into the past. She had no words. Presently, under the unbroken glare of the slanting sun and perhaps the kindness in her eyes, he stretched up to sit as tall as he could. “My sons are dead,” he said. “And all of my people.”

“But you came back here,” she whispered.

“I remembered a time…when a white woman,” he looked at her and continued, “when a white woman was kind.” His voice broke. Immediately he lay down again and looked away.

Near the end of The Loyalist’s Luck Black Bear Claw’s story is concluded as the denouement of this novel unfolds.

Another Native I included in my books is Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant as he was known to the white people at the time. Brant easily came to mind as he had been the topic of my Grade Eight speech which I researched, wrote and recited by memory to my class. I loved that assignment and immediately respected Joseph Brant. Somehow he was still in my subconscious when I wrote the first book in the Loyalist trilogy.

Joseph_Brant_painting_by_George_Romney_1776_2.jpg

Brant was a war chief entrusted with fighting for their Confederacy and well versed in dealing with the British and warfare in general. His pact with the British made a relationship between him and my character, John, possible. John is rescued by Brant’s warriors and brought to the Mohawk camp in New York state where the women care for his wounded friend, Frank, and John wrestles with whether to rejoin Butler’s Rangers or go back home to Lucy for the winter. I used these scenes to again look into Native ways such as the different clans within a tribe and their javelin game. Here John meets Brant for the first time.

The boy ahead of him stopped so quickly John almost ran into him. He stepped aside and John met the dark eyes of a chief staring at him. The eyes were set in a broad, determined face with a full nose, thick lips and a dark cleft in the chin. He wore a feathered head­dress, a mark of his rank, but his clothes were not Indian. Rather he wore a tan, collared shirt, and breeches of the white people.

“Who are you?” the chief barked.

“John Garner, sir. I have a farm in New York.”

The Indian stared at him.

“What is your name?” John thought he knew.

Still the Indian was silent.

“Are you Joseph Brant?”

“I am Thayendanegea, chief of the Mohawks.”

“I am honored, sir.” John dipped his head respectfully. “Are you known as Joseph Brant?”

“How do you know the horse in the pen?”

“I beg your pardon?” The topic change had jolted John. He stood tall and swallowed, breathing in the fumes of the fire. “That is my horse. It was stolen from me a few weeks ago a long way from here.” He stopped as the Indian stiffened and glared at him.

“Are you a fighter? A militia man?” The chief looked aside and his voice was soft.

John thought quickly. He didn’t know what the right answer was but he had to take a chance. “Are you Joseph Brant?”

The Indian chuckled. “I am Thayendanegea to all the Mohawk people but, yes, I am also known as Joseph Brant, friend to the great King George in England.” Suddenly his eyes bored right into John and he barked. “Who are you?”

John smiled. “I am John Garner, a cavalry man with Butler’s Rangers. I, too, am a friend to the British.”

“Sit.”

John sat cross-legged by the fire. Its warmth cast a ruddy glow over his face as he stretched his hands to the heat. “Do you know where Butler’s Rangers are now?”

Brant did know and wasted no time sharing with John, who began to trust him.

“But how did you get my horse?” John finally asked.

Brant’s eyes were patient. “We did not steal your horse. One of our hunting parties met a band of the Tuscarora, those that are fighting against the British. Our braves relieved them of the burden of their horses and brought them back here. You may have your animal back.” He nodded at John.

“Thank you, sir. My friend, also with the Rangers, is here wounded. His horse was stolen, too. May I have it back as well?”

“Certainly, if it is here. I trust your friend will soon be well.” Brant made to stand up and John hurried to do the same.

“Thank you, sir.”

Chippewa Indians Genealogy: FamilySearch Wiki

In the third book of the trilogy Chippewas by the name of Migisi and Kiwidinok have a wee child who is left on the porch as his mother sips tea inside the cabin with Catherine Garner. Here is a segment of a story my father used to tell about his ancestors and which works well in The Loyalist Legacy.

Catherine was just about to answer when a terrible cry broke their peace. She and Kiwidinok raced to the porch. A huge yellow cat of an animal crouched beside the wailing baby. It rested a giant paw on the tiny laced-in infant as though not at all sure what it had discovered. Kiwidinok howled and threw herself toward her wailing child but Catherine grabbed her and together they stared at the spiked ears with the telltale black tufts pointing straight up and the long mustard fur darkly spotted. The lynx looked toward the women but didn’t move its paw.

She thought of her rifle, as the animal’s eyes bore into her own in a staring contest the like of which she’d never before experienced. Her fingers tightened on Kiwidinok’s arm, pulling her back ever so slowly. “Shh,” she whispered, thinking to remove the threat and mollify the big cat.

But even though Kiwidinok retreated with her, the screaming went on, both hers and the child’s. Catherine willed calm into those cream and black eyes and forced deep breaths up from her own churning insides. That cat could be on them in the blink of an eye and then how could they help the child? She forced a smile.

And slipped inside. She grabbed the rifle, jerked it down, and shoved Kiwidinok aside. As she sighted along the barrel, the lynx’s eyes narrowed; it turned back to the whimpering baby. Her finger pulled the cold metal trigger but just as the shot fired a crushing blow smashed her left shoulder. She missed. Kiwidinok’s hand rested in mid air. “I thought…the baby.” The woman had destroyed her aim.

The lynx tore the child off its board and leaped off the end of the porch into the long grass around the corner of the cabin. Catherine grabbed up her rifle that had fallen and again pushed past Kiwidinok as she darted inside for bullets, knowing full well she couldn’t stop the lynx now. Outside, she raced after Kiwidinok who was already staggering around the corner.

At the front of the house they stopped and listened. Silence. They crept to the roadway. Nothing. Across the dusty strip. Still listening. Still nothing. Kiwidinok straggled along beside her, quiet at last, as she edged into the woods across the road. An eerie feeling gnawed at her innards. Was someone watching her? Or something?

Kiwidinok caught up to her. Gone was the calm and composed person who had sat across from her sipping tea just moments ago. Her hair tumbled about her face, frowsy and frazzled, her arms criss-crossed her breast, and her hands beat a soft tattoo on her arms. The worst was her eyes. Always beautiful, black, and brimming with joy, they exuded terror. Catherine pushed ahead.

She could see where the animal had dragged its find in the long grass. She dropped to study the ground. Was that blood? She stepped over it quickly, blocking Kiwidinok’s view. Not much farther along, she raised her arm and stopped. A soft crunching sound came from just up ahead in the trees. Her companion heard it, too, but this time kept quiet. They stepped closer, listening and looking.

Catherine checked the rifle but looked up when Kiwidinok strangled a sound. Ahead, partially hidden by the dead bottom branches of a tall pine, the lynx lay on the ground eating. She moved closer. The animal’s wide jaws opened to reveal for a second its terrible bloodied teeth before red paws stuffed the gaping maw once more. Kiwidinok slumped against her and she eased her to the ground.

The gun on her shoulder, she sighted once more, forced concentration, thought of Lucy’s instructive words, didn’t even breathe. This time she’d kill the beast. The trigger moved with a deadly silence until the sound erupted and the head of the lynx split into red bits flying up and floating down to the ground to settle on the already bloodied blanket of the tiny baby.

Kiwidinok groaned. She knelt down and sat on the ground, cushioned by the coppery pine needles, and cradled the woman in her arms.

Of course this is a very sad tale but I wanted to use it to accentuate the plight of this Chippewa couple and all of those First Nations people who had to find a way to live once Europeans settled in North America. My characters, Migisi and Kiwidinok, do not want to stay on the reservation set aside for them after having lived most of their lives with no such restrictions.

Today we have to be aware of all of our North American first Nations people as we celebrate Canada 150 and the beginnings of European settlement in the whole of North America. Many of us are caught in between the horrors of the residential school history which has come to light and the reality of just what constitutes a status Indian and what does not. For some of the history which has led us to this point in Canada, please take a look at Flint and Feather: The Life and Times of Pauline Johnson by Charlotte Gray. Your eyes may be opened as mine were.

These, then, are some of the sub plot themes that interested me as I told the story of the Garner family throughout the American Revolutionary War and afterwards. Of course the main story is that of John and Lucy Garner and their extended family. The books are available on Amazon and many other places. Click on cover for information below. Enjoy!

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