Though nothing, of course, could fill the void left by little Jeff’s sudden death, in a world full of troubled children there is always another waiting to be helped, and Lydia and Jack are the kind of people who like to help. Enter Irvin, with his own special smile and his own special needs.

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Jeff died on February 18, 1977, and a short time later his school called to say that his class pictures were ready. Did I want them? The pictures were taken on February 16, and of course I wanted them.

I called Mother to tell her about the pictures, and she wanted a copy. She started remembering things about Jeff, and was very worried that, although baptised, Jeff hadn’t received his First Communion. That’s when I told her that I’d taken him to Midnight Mass and the priest did give him communion. This so pleased Mother that there was a major turn-around in her. She told me that now she could sleep more peacefully, knowing Jeff’s soul was truly with Jesus, and thanked me for looking after him. I thought she would blame me for the accident, but she just told me that I’d done more for Jeff in the four short times I had him than Sister and her husband had all the rest of the time.

We talked a lot about what would have happened to Jeff in the future if he’d remained in his parents’ care, and she told me this story:

A woman lost her child at a young age and railed against God for taking her boy, when one day a stranger met her at the village well, and they began talking.

The woman told the stranger about her boy’s death and her anger at God. The stranger told her to look into the well, and she saw images of her son from babyhood to the present. She cried and shook her fist heavenward, but the stranger told her to keep looking.

Now she saw the boy growing up and getting into trouble, each time more serious, until, as a young man, he got into a fight with another man and killed him. The stranger asked the woman, “Would you want to remember your son as he was when he died or as he was when he killed that man and was sentenced to death?” She didn’t want to even think about how her son would turn out when grown, and told the stranger she now accepted his early death, knowing that God spared her the future worry and grief.

Mother said she’d long been worried what Jeff’s life would be like living with his parents, and she knew it wasn’t going to be good. His father was abusing him and Jeff was terrified of him, hiding under the bed so he wouldn’t get a beating. Sister never provided any motherly love for him, and Jeff was beginning to show signs of withdrawal from human contact, something Mother had seen in children during the war years, and she was very afraid for his future. He had already lived in his own little world, shutting out the unpleasantness around him by sitting in a sort of trance and waving his hands in front of himself. He’d done this here, and when I didn’t stop him he asked me why, because his parents would get very angry with him, and he hid so he could perform this ritual. After a few weeks this behaviour lessened to almost non-existence.

Mother grieved, we grieved, Courtney and her family grieved and Ronnie grieved, but Sister and her husband went on with life as if nothing had happened. Mother told me they acted like it was a big relief that they no longer had Jeff to look after. I just couldn’t understand that, and my heart hardened against both of them.

A month before Jeff died, another neighbour got custody of her small nephew after the mother died. The father was her brother, and he didn’t want to take Irvin and neither could his maternal grandmother, so Carrie asked for and got him. The picture shows him at the fall fair.

Irvin had already had a traumatic life and was in foster care in Edmonton when he was brought to his Aunt Carrie. Things would have been fine if Carrie hadn’t met and got involved with an alcoholic. Irvin came from a loving foster home into a hell hole. Why the CAS didn’t check out the home more closely I never knew, but by the time Jeff died, Irvin was a terrified boy who had no one to help him. That’s when Courtney’s mother came in. Carrie often took Irvin to Courtney’s house while visiting, then went home without him. After a few times Irvin became wary, and although he didn’t want to live with his aunt, he loved her and she was family and he wanted to be with her.

As things got worse for Irvin in his home, he was left more and more at Courtney’s place, and her mother told me she’d met and talked to Irvin’s father when he visited his sister. The father was also an alcoholic, and that whole situation Irvin was in just wasn’t healthy, so she suggested that we try and adopt Irvin from his father. I had met Irvin and had bought him his medication when his aunt had no money, and I thought he would fit in perfectly in our family, so I talked to Jack about it. He didn’t think it was a good idea because the aunt lived so close, but I thought that would make it better for Irvin, to have a blood relative and three cousins so close.

Things came to a quick decision when Courtney’s mother told me that Carrie had called the CAS and told them to find Irvin another home. In the meantime Irvin was living with her. The CAS had asked her if Irvin could stay there until they had found a new home, and we had a few days to try and get Irvin ourselves.

By now it was summer, and with school out, Stephen, who had obtained his driving licence, did the mail for me, so I could really devote my time to getting Irvin. His father kept stalling, although he knew his sister had given him up, and we kept reassuring him he could see Irvin whenever he wanted, but we wouldn’t change his name. He still wouldn’t give us consent, so Courtney’s mother and I went to see a lawyer, who told us to put Irvin in my home and work from there.

It took another year, but finally Irvin was ours. Here he is with Jack on Jack’s birthday that year. Some people openly stated that we adopted Irvin to replace Jeff, but that just wasn’t true. Irvin happened to need a stable home, and we were in the right spot and at the right time to give him one. Even if Jeff hadn’t died, Irvin’s situation would still have been the same and we would have done exactly the same thing.

That Christmas, we went all out to make it a special one for Irvin. He played with Courtney’s dollhouse and told me he wanted a house too, but he called it a farmhouse, so I made a five-room house for him at the post office, bought little furniture and he had his farmhouse under the tree onChristmas morning. He was so excited with all the gifts he received and didn’t know what to play with first. The boys took him outside on the snowmobile and I was so thankful to have been able to find Irvin when I did.

Louise and Ross had adopted a little girl around the same time that Irvin came to us, and the two children became close friends. Irvin also remained friends with Courtney and continued going to her house, but now he knew he lived with us and was loved here. His aunt didn’t like the idea of us having him and would have rather seen him adopted by strangers, and she caused us some uneasy moments, but although she was close, Irvin didn’t want to go there, and I didn’t make him. He saw his cousins on the bus and they sometimes came here, but he wouldn’t go there.

Next summer, with Stephen delivering the mail, Louise and I began camping by a lake with the kids, first in tents and then we each purchased old school buses that Jack and Ross converted into campers. Tony and Stephen didn’t want to camp overnight but did come out during the day sometimes to fish or just enjoy the campfire.

Those camping days were some of the nicest times I spent with my family and with my friends. The kids played in the water while we relaxed or just talked. The men were working during the day but they’d come out for supper and spent the night. Louise had more foster children by now and we often had her relatives visiting us for the day. The campfires were lit each night, and rain or shine we all had a great time.

But with the end of August, we all packed up and returned home. The first year we had Irvin he attended the public school, but as soon as his father signed the papers, I made arrangements to transfer him to Holy Family School, where he didn’t know any of the children. I again returned to delivering the mail and drove Irvin to school that first morning, registered him and left for work. That afternoon when I got home, I received a call from his teacher, who wanted to talk to me the next day.

I met her at noon and she informed me that she caught Irvin handing out money to kids in line, which she intercepted and returned to me. We asked Irvin where he got the money, and were told it was mine, taken from my purse before school the previous morning. I couldn’t believe that Irvin would steal my money and I wanted to know why. He felt scared at coming to a new school and was just trying to “be nice” by buying new friends. We had a long talk that night. And we had long talks several times after that about the same thing — taking money. It wasn’t as if Irvin didn’t get an allowance. He did, just like the other boys, for jobs he could handle, and he did everything on his chart, but for some reason he just wanted more money, which had no value to him other than to give away or impress someone.

Irvin had a problem with fluid in his ears that wasn’t looked after when he was with his aunt, so when we got him some damage had already been done to his hearing, and I had to take him to North Bay twice a year to have tubes inserted. I also had to get special eardrops to ease the pain if it got too bad, and found out from him that while at his aunt’s, his ears had hurt so much they bled, yet nothing was done for him. I shudder to think what the child went through because of neglect.

After some time passed, Carrie cleaned up her act, got rid of the boyfriend and tried to re-establish her relationship with Irvin. I never denied her access, nor did I deny phone calls from Irvin’s father. He would call while drunk and talk to Irvin, not making much sense, until Irvin would tell me he either wasn’t saying anything or slurring his words so badly that he couldn’t be understood. This went on for about a year, and then the phone calls ceased.

Carrie now wanted to be part of Irvin’s life, so she offered to help me with housework and start supper so I didn’t have too much to do when I got home. This worked out for a few weeks, until Jack told me that Carrie had suggested to him that Jack put me out of the house and let her move in with him and they could all be a family. Without letting Carrie know that Jack told me of her plan, I told her that I wouldn’t be needing her anymore and got her out of the house. She might have just been joking, but I didn’t need her upsetting my family and just preferred her to be Irvin’s aunt living near us. Irvin still didn’t want to visit her and never went there by himself.

Tony was turning into a handsome young man, and the girls at school all had their eyes on him. He was quite the ladies’ man, joking and laughing with both young and older women, and everyone liked him. Whenever there was a wedding dance we took the kids, and Tony always had a good time, while Stephen preferred to sit and talk. Jack, still being shy and not liking to dance too much, did his duty and kept Stephen company. I danced with whoever asked me.

One day Jack came running into the house to tell me that Tony had had an accident while helping him in the garage. My heart dropped, thinking he too had died, but jack said we had to get him to the hospital because he thought a piece of machinery had broken his leg. Jack was hoisting a snowplow wing when the chain block broke, and as the wing fell it brushed against Tony, who fell backwards against a five-gallon pail, and the impact broke his leg. We rushed to the hospital, where the leg was set and To,ny enjoyed a few days of pampering by the nurses as well as visitors from school. He had some bones chipped at the back of his knee and they had to put pins in there to hold everything in place before a cast was put on. Tony loved all the attention and milked it for all it was worth.

Courtney’s mother painted a portrait of Jeff for me in watercolours and did a small one for Sister. I love the one I have, and it hangs in my living room, reminding me what a beautiful little boy Jeff was and what he meant to me. I also had a portrait of Irvin done by Courtney’s mother that hung beside Jeff’s until recently.

In the summer of 1979 my mail contract was up and I didn’t want to renew it. That spring Tony was graduating from high school, as was Stephen, except that the Army had sent a recruiter to talk to the students about an military career. I wanted Stephen to go on to university, and since Tony had no plans for the immediate future, I asked Stephen to drive him to North Bay to see if army life would suit him. The Army put them up overnight, and when they returned the next day Stephen had enlisted, but Tony had been rejected because of that pin in his knee.

Stephen decided to quit school then and there, but Tony went on to finish his Grade 12. I couldn’t even talk Stephen into finishing high school, so I told him that if he wasn’t going to school, he could finish my mail contract for me, which he did, driving the route until the end of July.

Tony decided to go back to Hamilton, but he was going to live with his sister and her new husband. They came up to get him, and we now had only two boys left. Summer was spent camping and visiting Mother and Carolyn, as well as going to see Irvin’s maternal grandmother outside Renfrew. I got more information about his early life as well as pictures of him and his mother. I also contacted his foster parents in Edmonton and they filled in more gaps about what had happened to his mother.

Irvin’s mother met a man who was on parole, and they moved to Edmonton, except that the man wasn’t supposed to leave Ontario and was arrested and brought back. With no money and no place to stay, the mother left Irvin in a hotel lobby, knowing someone would look after him. That’s when he was placed with the family to whom I’d written. The mother eventually contacted the authorities, and after some time got the right to visit on weekends.

During one such weekend she must have mixed alcohol and pills, because she went to sleep and Irvin couldn’t wake her. He was between four and five at the time and didn’t know she was dead. When he wasn’t returned, the authorities came looking for him, found her dead and began trying to locate his next of kin. It took over a year before he finally came to his aunt’s, and he was just over six then. By the time we finally had him at our house he was nearly seven and didn’t know who to trust or where he belonged. No wonder we had so many problems with him. I, of course, didn’t know of all this for quite a while, or we could have had some counselling for him then. By the time we did, it was too late and he wouldn’t co-operate.

But outwardly Irvin was a pleasant boy who got along with everyone. He was kind-hearted and everyone thought he was so nice. Inwardly, there was a troubled boy who struggled for years, trying to find himself and his place in our family, as well as trying to make sense of what had happened in his short life. We hadn’t, at this point, even seen the tip of the iceberg of Irvin’s inner turmoil.

In October of that year we drove Stephen to Ottawa, where he entered his first stage of basic training. Once all the young men and women had gathered in Ottawa, they were flown to Nova Scotia, where the basic training was held.

It was strange to just have the three of us at home, but we made the necessary adjustments. I had Irvin’s friends over often and we held his birthday party that November with a full house. Irvin belonged to Cubs, took piano lessons and played with Courtney.
In January of ’80 Stephen was graduating, so we made the trip to Nova Scotia for the ceremony, staying with Jack’s niece. It was bitterly cold that year and the wind from the ocean was turning the water in the Bay of Fundy into high waves when we took the ferry across to Digby. Jack enjoyed watching the water crash into and over the ferry, I took a Gravol pill and fell asleep, and Irvin worried that if the ferry sank, he didn’t think he could swim in those waves. We couldn’t go straight across because of the storm, so the trip took twice as long as we hugged the coast, finally getting to dry land.

The soldiers were splendid during the drill exercises, and we were among many proud parents watching their children receiving their certificates at becoming full-fledged soldiers.

Stephen was allowed to come home later that January, and then he was sent to Camp Borden for more training. We saw him sometimes that year when he got leave, but I knew that I finally lost my “baby” and he would never be coming back to live with me again. I had a hard time with that fact, but realised that he was grown up and no longer under my care, and I wished him happiness because Army life seemed to agree with him and he loved it.

Tony’s uncle in Hamilton helped him get a job at Dofasco, and he now had his own apartment and seemed to be doing all right. Things weren’t much better with his family, and he didn’t have much contact with them. Debbie, now married and the mother of Laura, was out of the house because she too had problems with the parents, and now Tommy, who was 16, was also turned out to shift for himself. Tony and Debbie, although having gone through so much, remained cheerful, but Tommy became very bitter and sulky, giving his both grandmothers a lot of worry, and no one was able to help him.

At first I didn’t know about Tom’s problems, and by the time I did, no one knew where he was. One time while I was visiting Mother, Tom was there, but he wouldn’t let anyone get close to him and was an angry young man, just staying with Mother until he found another place to move on to. After that, it was years before we heard from him again.

Jack was getting into the new electronic marvel, satellite television. He installed a 10-foot dish in our yard and we could finally get more than the two stations our antenna could pick up. It was heaven to be able to see all those channels, and soon more and more people were installing dishes in their yards. Jack had all the work he could handle, so we sold all our cows and he became a satellite installer.

Englehart started a Little Theatre group and I joined. Louise’s husband Ross also joined, as did Andreé, a woman who became one of my dear friends. The first play we put on was “Move Over, Mrs Markham”, a British comedy in which I was to strip onstage! It was all done tastefully, under a sheet, and I didn’t really strip, but it had to look like I did. The play was a huge success, and people still talk about it as the best play ever put on by our group.

Continue to Part 14.

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