Now well into her late teens, Lydia is learning the skills of adulthood, as well as its pitfalls. The family struggles to cope with bereavement, but soon a world of music beckons, and she enjoys her first true romance. And then, at last, the time arrives to become a teacher.

Brother met a boy who loved riding bikes on long trips and now, when he wasn’t working, the two of them would pack overnight gear and take off for the weekend. They travelled all over southern Ontario visiting interesting places, and we used to love hearing of their experiences. The bike, an English-model Raleigh, was kept on our verandah, and one day someone stole it. Brother was heartbroken at not being able to go riding with his friend, but some friends of Mother’s managed to replace it for him and he was off again. That bike opened a world not known to Brother or us before these trips began, and later, when I heard about some of the places he visited, I was reminded of his stories.

Mother allowed me to use her treadle sewing machine, and one day I decided to sew matching pink blouses for Lynne and myself. I cut, sewed and finally had two blouses, of which I was very proud. Little did I know what a poor job I made of them! I didn’t use a pattern, used white instead of pink thread, and put the pieces together crooked. But I didn’t see the imperfections and, when done, got on my bike and rode to Lynne’s house to show them to her.

Luckily Lynne wasn’t home, but her mother was very kind to me, praising my work and telling me she would see that Lynne received my gift. Something in the look she gave me made me take another good look at my handiwork, and that’s when I saw how badly the blouses were put together. I could have cried, but didn’t, and rode home, threw my own blouse in the garbage and then cried. That night I asked Mother to show me how to sew properly, and I never regretted learning the right way.

Previous chapters: Part 1 @ Part 2 @ Part 3 @ Part 4 @ Part 5

In Grade 8 we all entered a public speaking contest by writing about something that interested us. My friend Larry wrote about the cross-Canada train system, and I really enjoyed listening to his descriptive narrative of the trains snaking across the country. My speech was about potatoes, because we grew a large patch at home. Mr Lunney helped me look up information, and both Larry and I were chosen to represent our school in the bigger competition in Hamilton. This was all new to me and I wasn’t very good before crowds of people I didn’t know, but I had to go. Father drove us down, and as I listened to the other speeches, mine sounded so poor that I didn’t want to give it, but Mr Lunney encouraged me, and up I went. I started out all right, but then saw all those faces, lost my place and stumbled for words. My teacher tried to get me back on track but I was too lost and just quit. I don’t even remember if Larry won.

Soon we were ending our grade-school education and we were being prepared for graduation. There were 10 of us, five girls and five boys, and the girls were all talking about the new dresses they were going to get. With Father sick and money scarce I knew I couldn’t hope for a new dress, but Mother took me to Hamilton and we went from store to store, looking for a fancy dress that was cheap enough. We found a lovely yellow, lacy gown in one store and were told we could have it very cheap because it had been ordered as a bridesmaid’s dress and not picked up.

The dress was too large for me, but Mother said she could take it in, so we got it. Looking at the picture of us girls in our graduation gowns, I can see how out of place I looked. The dress was meant for someone with a bust, which I didn’t have, and looked much too old for me, but at the time I thought I looked beautiful and had a great time.

Carolyn and I now spent a lot of time listening to records, learning how to dance and talking about boys. I wanted some modern records, but that old wind-up player wasn’t very good for new records, so my parents had given me an electric three-speed player for graduation. Now I could buy a record when I earned some money babysitting. As soon as I had enough, Brother took me to Kresge’s and I bought my first record – Eddie Fisher singing “Oh My Papa”. I loved that song and played it over and over, all the while trying to sound just like him. I had seen Eddie on TV singing the song, so I wanted to be like him. Carolyn liked other singers, and her sister would buy her all the latest releases, so I got to go there to hear hers or sometimes, much to our neighbour’s disgust, we listened to records over the telephone. We were still on a party line, so our neighbour objected to not being able to use the phone.

Carolyn and I still went to the Jamboree shows, but now Brother got interested, so many times I went with him. My cabinet radio was able to tune is WSM Nashville Tennessee, and I would listen to the Grand Ole Opry, fading in and out, and fell in love with the song “Cattle Call”. Two performers sang it and I couldn’t decide who I liked better, Eddy Arnold or Slim Whitman, and I struggled for days deciding whose record to buy. I finally settled on Slim Whitman, and soon had that record as well. Although Carolyn went to the Jamboree shows, she only liked their music and not all country-and-western, so her collection consisted of the popular teen singers. I didn’t care for their music. Brother liked the songs “Ivory Tower” and “Autumn Leaves”, so they were added to our collection. But Brother was also getting into singing, and Hank Williams was one of his favourites, so I didn’t object to those being in my collection.

Mother made me a cowboy shirt with embroidery on the yoke and Brother bought me a cowboy hat and let me learn some chords on his guitar. I tried and tried to play the chords but my fingers hurt too much, so after a while I gave up. I did learn one song all the way through, though. Web Pierce had one out that was easy to play, so I learned “Slowly”, which I played very slowly!

Brother was very talented and could play the piano, guitar, harmonica and mandolin all by ear. We had singsongs at home, with Mother on a guitar, Father on a mandolin and Brother on the piano, with a big harmonica held in a holder around his neck. Sister and I joined in with the singing. Mother had sent me to the Sisters to learn to play piano, but although I can read the notes and find my way around the keys, the ability to play smoothly and fluently just escaped me. Sister didn’t do any better when she got older.
Brother inherited all the musical and artistic talent from our parents. Without ever having any lessons, he can play anything and does beautiful paintings. Sigh!

Every Wednesday evening the fire department held a practice and the siren would go off to call all the volunteers. Brother joined them, and when there was a fire on a horse farm, he went to put it out but the animals were trapped and died. The next day, Brother took Father’s camera and took pictures of the carcasses, so upset that he quit the fire department. Every time we looked at those pictures, we became so upset ourselves that Mother hid them for years.

Carolyn and I had each got a little Kodak Brownie camera on our last birthdays and we were snapping pictures around us. Some of mine still remain, and others I gave away or sent to my pen pal. May Hamada and I wrote to each other for a few years. I don’t recall how we exchanged names, but she lived in Hawaii and I loved going to the post office to see if there was a letter from her. Letter writing introduced me to movie stars and singers when Carolyn and I wrote to them requesting a picture. My album still has several autographed pictures of some of my favourite stars. I also started a stamp collection because my parents friends and relatives wrote to them from Europe and the stamps looked so nice to me.

The Summer of ’55 was the last carefree summer for me. I entered Mount Mary Immaculate Academy in the fall, one of many girls there. Some were from town, but the majority were boarders from towns around southern Ontario and from Central and South America. I knew several of the girls, both from St Ann’s and Ancaster Memorial, so I wasn’t completely alone. As well, I knew all of the Sisters who taught us, so it was like a homecoming. At Mount Mary we wore navy jumpers with white blouses, white socks and saddle shoes. A white tam was worn when we went into the chapel, and a navy blazer completed the uniform. We were given crests to sew on the jumpers and on the pocket of the blazer.

In Grade 9 we were introduced to Latin, French and algebra besides the regular subjects. The school was only in its third year, so everything was still new inside, and I loved the cleanliness of the place. Being the home of the boarders and supervising nuns, the school was more like a real home than a school. Potted plants were in each room, as well as in the hallways, and the atmosphere was totally different from the other schools I had attended. We ate lunch in the big dining room, but the day students brought their own or paid for the school’s lunch. Because I lived so close, I went home for lunch and missed out on a lot of fun the other girls had. But Father was now sick most of the time so I was expected to get his lunch as well as my own, so I didn’t mind. Father and I grew closer during my ninth year at school, and we would take walks around town when he was able, and talk. I treasure that year as it was the last with Father.

Some of the girls in my Grade 9 class came from Montreal, and one was new to the country as well. Laryssa had just come from Ukraine and didn’t speak much English, so Sister Joan put her under my care. We sat together and I had to help her with her lessons. Laryssa was smart and caught on quickly but had trouble understanding when the conversation went too fast or if too many girls were speaking at once. That’s where I came in. Before the end of the year she was well on her way and didn’t need my help at all. She didn’t return the following year because her parents had wanted her to learn English before enrolling her in a school in Montreal.

One girl in our class had been with me at Memorial and St Ann’s, so I knew her well. She was the eldest child in a family of five, and her father worked for the Carnation milk company. We were studying the properties of milk when Jean asked Sister Joan, “Do all brown cows give chocolate milk?” Well, the class just erupted into laughter, including the teacher, while poor Jean just stood there red-faced, not knowing why we were all laughing. When order was restored, Sister Joan explained the milk facts to Jean and asked her where she had gotten that idea from. It turned out that for years, Jean’s father had told each child this story of brown cows and chocolate milk and no one ever doubted him. Poor Jean. I bet that night the father and the rest of the family were straightened out about telling tales to the children.

All the girls had to do home economics, and the first project was sewing a white uniform blouse for ourselves. Well, I felt a bit superior because of that pink blouse fiasco and proper lessons from Mother, but I was soon brought down to earth. We had to follow precise directions that were very intricate, and I spent a lot of time ripping seams and starting over. But finally we each completed the blouse and moved on to a pair of pyjamas. Not just ordinary pyjamas either. These had piping around the collar, the pocket and on each side of the opening down the front. I wasn’t the only one having trouble with this project, but by springtime we all had our pyjamas made. Next came crocheting. In this I needed no help, so I turned out pot holders faster that the other girls could get their balls of thread wound. Sister Dominic had me help the other girls when I finished my second or third set, and so ended Grade 9.

July should have been a holiday for me, but Mother and the Sisters had other plans. With Father now very ill and in hospital, it had been decided that I was to attend summer school at the Sisters’ and begin my Grade 10 subjects, with the idea that instead of three more years of school, I could get done in two. In a way I was pleased that I could get through school earlier, but then my summer was spent studying and doing homework while everyone else was free. I began my lessons and did well enough so by fall I could enter a combined Grade 10 and 11.

In August of 1956, Father took a turn for the worse, and before the end of the month, he died. Brother and I were in to visit him late that afternoon, and we left when Mother entered the room. We had just got home when the lady next door came in to tell us to get back to the hospital right away, so we turned around and returned. By the time we got there, Father was already gone, the curtains were drawn around his bed and a candle was burning on the bedside table. Mother was being consoled by a white-clad nun, and soon a priest appeared to give Father the last rites.

Mother told us later that when she got there, Father seemed weak but fine, and she was chatting with him when he asked her to buy him a new box of tissues. When she got back, Father was sleeping, or so she thought, but when she couldn’t wake him, she called a nurse. The man across the room told Mother that as soon as Mother left, Father had closed his eyes and he too thought Father fell asleep. Mother told us he probably sent her out of the room because there was a full box of tissues in the drawer of his table.
The Mount Mary Sisters were notified and they helped Mother arrange the funeral and burial. Sister and I had to wear our school uniforms to the funeral and Mother had someone take pictures by the coffin, a tradition brought over from Europe. Once home, Mother was depressed and cried all the time. Eventually she went back to work and Sister and I went back to school. Brother had met his future wife that summer and had someone to share his sorrow with, but Mother only had us. Sister moved into Mother’s room to be with her, while I had so much school work each night I needed to be alone to study.
Brother’s girlfriend didn’t get along at her home, so she moved into Sister’s room while Brother slept downstairs.

At first I got along with this new addition to our family, but she soon started running the house, in Mother’s depressed state, and I resented that, even though I wasn’t doing much to help. However, we declared a truce and she took over the household while I concentrated on my schoolwork. Mother returned to work but had terrible crying bouts whenever she saw anything that Father repaired around the house, and when she looked in the closet where his clothes still hung. Without telling Mother, we took all of Father’s clothes away and gave them to a neighbour, which started Mother on a new crying bout. We didn’t know what to do, and Brother talked to a lady who Mother worked for, wanting some advice. This lady and her family were in the process of moving to the States and they were willing to let Mother buy their house fairly cheaply if we could sell ours. So both households were now packing, and although I hated leaving Academy Avenue and Carolyn, I could see the move might be a good one for Mother.

As we settled in our new home on Highway 2, near Spring Valley, Sister didn’t have as far to go to school but I had nearly two miles to walk to the Academy. Brother still took me and his girlfriend to the Jamboree shows, and he even got himself invited to perform a few times on live radio. I was so proud! Because I went with them during rehearsals, I met another performer who used to sing with his sister on the program, and we started seeing each other. I was nearly 17 and Lonnie was Brother’s age. I was in love!

At first we just saw each other during rehearsals and during the live shows, but soon he asked me out to see a show and Mother, reluctantly, agreed. The new house did wonders for Mother. She learned to drive and, with Brother’s help, bought a used car. By now Brother had got a job at the Oakville Ford plant and through them was able to buy a ’56 Ford Fairlane, which he looked after like a new baby. (Shortly before we moved I was learning to drive, and as I turned into our driveway ran over the fence dividing our property from our neighbour’s, and would have kept going until a huge tree would have stopped me if Brother hadn’t stepped on the brake. I never drove again until after I was married.)

Mother got a job at St Joseph’s Hospital as an assistant nurse because she wasn’t able to take the qualifying course required to become registered, but she was happy with this. Now she could work at what she was trained in and the pay was much better than cleaning houses. She still kept some of her old customers and went there on her days off or on weekends, which helped our income. Brother told Mother he wanted to get married, but not yet, so his pay went mainly into the bank for his new life.

I was very involved with my schoolwork, going from class to class all day without a spare just to try and keep up with the load the nuns had given me. I took Grade 11 math in the morning and Grade 10 math in the afternoon.

Mornings were very hard because I didn’t have the Grade 10 knowledge to help me along, but I breezed through my Grade 10 math, getting nearly perfect scores on all my papers. Some subjects I had to study at home with help from the nuns after school, and I just couldn’t do it all so I dropped Latin and French. By being in two different grades in one year, I didn’t belong to either entirely and, as a result, wasn’t part of either. But it didn’t bother me too much because by now I was seeing Lonnie more often, usually Saturday nights and had now met his family.

Lonnie and I began spending a lot of time together toward the end of June, and by summer were seeing each other every weekend, mostly at his parents’, where I stayed overnight with his sister. Because they were very musical, each Saturday there was a gang of relatives putting on a show for the rest of us in their basement, and I was included as one of the family. We went on family picnics as well and did a lot of family-oriented things, but I was spending less and less time with my own family. Brother and Susan now took over running the new house and I didn’t mind at all. Between school and going to Lonnie’s, I was hardly ever at home.

One day Lonnie’s sister got tickets for the Tommy Hunter show in Toronto, but because Lonnie had to work, she asked me to go with her. I was so excited because Tommy Hunter had been one of my favourite singers for years. I couldn’t wait to see the live show. We took a bus to Toronto and, thanks to her connections in show business, we spent the time before the actual airtime watching the goings-on in the studio. I loved that experience and wished I could have had nerve enough to ask Tommy for his autograph, but he’d signed a picture for me once before.

The Jamboree played in a lot of places around Hamilton, and now I would go with the family to hear Lonnie and his sister perform. At one place a girl tried to catch Lonnie’s attention, and that made me both angry at her and proud because he had chosen me. But I kept my eye on her during all the breaks and stayed near him. Lonnie was my steady boyfriend and with my heavy school load, I didn’t have much time with Carolyn. We talked on the phone, but our hours didn’t coincide because she was going to high school in Hamilton and came home with her sister after five. She met new friends in her school and, because we now lived so far apart, we hardly ever got together.

My 17th birthday came and went and the end of the school year was close. I passed my subjects with marks from one end of the scale to the other. My Grade 10 marks were all in the 90s and my Grade 11 marks were just passing, but at least I made the year. I didn’t need to make up anything that summer, so I had time for my own family.

Sister, who loved dogs, got a German shepherd that had a pen in the backyard where she stayed when not in the house. One day Mother went out to feed the dog and a big Boxer was in the pen with her. How it got in we don’t know because the pen was very high and there were no holes. Mother chased the Boxer out and brought our dog inside, but it was too late. A few weeks later we had pups.

There was a veterinary clinic a few doors down from us and when the dog had trouble during labour, Mother and Sister carried it there for help. Five pups survived, and I loved smelling the new pups’ breath. It reminded me of toast! Three pups looked like boxers and two like the mother, and we were able to sell all five, then find a home for the mother before we had another disaster. The money from the pups managed to pay the medical bill, but we couldn’t afford more costs the next year. During this time we also had cats, but we didn’t have much trouble with them.

In September I began Grade 12 with a couple of Grade 11 subjects, and I only took the courses I needed to enter teacher’s college, leaving me with spares, so I enjoyed this last year of school. I didn’t get very involved with school activities and didn’t go to any extracurricular activities because I wanted to spend my time with Lonnie. We were talking about marriagebut nothing was settled, and he was needed at home to help his family financially.

Meanwhile the Sisters were preparing me for a six-week summer course at a Toronto school that offered a crash course in training teachers. I turned 18 in April and felt quite grown up. Graduation was approaching, and all the girls were to wear the same kind of dresses, made by a seamstress in Hamilton. After we were measured the dresses were put together, and when we tried them on, we looked like a group of brides.

Lonnie and I were having some problems so he wouldn’t come to see me graduate, but my family all were there and I now was free of my own education and ready to begin a teacher’s career. There wasn’t much time or a holiday because I had to move to Toronto to begin my course. Again the Sisters helped me out by letting me board with them while I attended the school. I was lucky to be there since the nuns who were teachers were willing to help me. I went home on weekends and my relationship with Lonnie improved somewhat.

Toward the end of the course I received a phone call from a board member in Georgetown who’d been given my name and marks by the master in Toronto, and he wanted to talk to me about a job teaching in the newly built Holy Cross School there. A few days later two men came with a contract, which I signed, and I had a job before I even finished my final exams, which I passed with flying colours. Mother and I discussed me living in Georgetown but we didn’t know anyone there and didn’t know how to find a boarding place. I only had a few days before school started, and the school board wanted me there on the day the children were registered, so Mother, who worked nights at the hospital, drove me there when she came home from work, and slept in her car while I spent the day in the old church basement, meeting my new charges and their parents.

The day school opened, Mother slept in her car at the town park where it was shady and quiet, and I began my official teaching career.

Continue to Part 7.