Sailing Uncharted Waters, Volume 1

SAILING UNCHARTED WATERS

A Mystical Voyage into the Unknown

By Nan Virginia Creaghan

Copyright ©2015 Nan Virginia Creaghan

Published by: MacKenzie Publishing

Halifax, Nova Scotia

March 2015

Contact the author at:

Email: ncrea@rogers.com

399 Bayview Dr

Burnt Church, N.B.

E9G 2G8

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All rights Reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of Nan Colwell Creaghan

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Smashwords License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, locations, and dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, real places, location, or situations is purely coincidental and unintended.

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Publisher’s Note

The publisher, MacKenzie Publishing, simply published this work and makes no representations as to the merits or non-merits of the writing or the story. The author assumes all responsibility for any errors or omissions.

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DEDICATION

To my Sons, Jonathan, Geoffrey, grandsons, granddaughter and my husband, Thomas, I dedicate this first volume of my Trilogy; for their patience and understanding with me; their long standing courage with some humour, I hope, as I sailed my little red sail boat only the Great Spirit knew where.

God Bless ‘em all

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Above Delano’s Store

Chapter 2 – The Farm

Chapter 3 – The Yellow House

Chapter 4 – Granddad’s House (1946-1952)

Chapter 5 – Hanson’s Castle

Chapter 6 – Granddad’s House Again

Chapter 7 – Y. M. Y. W. C. A.

Chapter 8 – Old Mill Road

Chapter 9 – Stavebank Road

Chapter 10 – Lynnwood Drive

Chapter 11 - Rue Terrebonne

Chapter 12 - The Kingsway

Chapter 13 - Brae Na Beith

Author’s note

About the author

CHAPTER ONE

ABOVE DELANO’S STORE

The hustle and bustle, the goings on of the clerks and the customers in the Delano’s hardware store beneath the small apartment could not know the emotional scenario of life that was playing out above them. As the January snowstorm raged, the temperature dropped well below –30 F., the winds ravaged and ripped through the small town, piling the snow higher and higher from the blizzard’s wrath. The store closes, the storm continues during the night with the emotional storm still raging in the apartment above.

Keep walking! Keep walking, coaxed and cajoled Nurse DeWolfe, the midwife. It was approximately 3:00 am, and Eliza’s birth pains had begun in earnest at 7:00 pm the evening before. She felt like screaming by this time, as the pains had become worse and worse, the weight of the little life within her almost unbearable. Her long, fair, damp hair seemed to crawl over her sweaty face and down her back as she walked. She was so tired. She headed for the living room to get away from the nurse’s persistent cackling, but, she just can’t, either from the nurse or the pain.

Walk, Eliza. This is no time to try and run away. Keep walking. Walk, walk, walk.

Nurse kept up the pressure as the baby pressures down. Eliza thought unkindly, This nurse, DeWolfe, she is well named.

When would it all end? Eliza cried, as tears streamed down her already streaked face, How, in heaven’s name, did my mother ever bring 10 children into the world? Oh, why could not Michael have stayed home this one time to be with me during this terribly grueling experience?

Please, Michael, don’t leave me! Can’t you stay with me tonight? I need you. I am so frightened. Over and over again she pleads and begs… 8:00 o’clock, 9:00 o’clock, 10:00 o’clock. Michael did not want to leave her, but he is now responsible for another mouth to feed and so every penny is needed. It’s too bad he is working the mill’s graveyard shift this week, but nothing can be done about it. He had taken his lunch from the icebox that the nurse had packed and gave Eliza a loving kiss goodbye. He then took off into the bitterly frigid night, bravely bucking the high blizzard winds blowing off the Bay. He headed out on foot, wearing the heavy, knee-high boots he had worn during his stay in the lumber camp, and pushing, head forward, a scarf wrapped around his face, through the snowdrifts he advanced toward the mill. Eliza isn’t the only one pushing this night," he thinks to himself, smiling.

The paper mill is situated a couple of miles up the street from Delano’s store; a ten minute walk for Michael on a nice day, but on a night like tonight, it seems never-ending especially at 11:30 pm, close to the midnight hour. If only he could talk his boss into letting him work days only. He has been working in the mill a couple of years; before now, in one of the mill’s northeast lumber camps as a cook, so he guesses that these things take time. He is only 23 with heavy responsibilities already in his young life.

So here is Eliza at 26, still pacing around the small apartment. Michael called home every half hour to find out if the baby has arrived yet, the new crank-style party-line phone, (where everyone and his grandmother listens in), fairly ringing off the wall. He did not get much work done that night. Neither did his buddies with whom he worked.

Might as well have stayed home, Eliza crossly complained. However, inwardly she is pleased that he cares.

Everything is ready for the baby’s arrival. The nurse, Eliza’s father’s choice, of course, living with them during the confinement, helped her prepare for the birthing. After buying all the necessary items, Eliza, grandma Lizzie and friends sewed and knitted diligently and joyfully all the necessary nursery and baby clothing that will be needed. All has to be sterilized in the portable oven that is attached to the small stove which is heated with coal. Everything is in order; now Eliza has nothing to do but walk, walk, walk and wait. The pains are coming closer and closer, but the nurse will not let her lie down on the bed prepared for the birthing. How inviting it looked to Eliza as she longingly gazed at it. She was so tired.

Five o’clock on this cold blustery morning; the doctor arrived through the storm, and again the tears flooded Eliza’s eyes. This time with relief, as he tells her it is time for the baby’s arrival.

Now the hard work begins, as the nurse inundates her with, Push, Eliza, push, push, keep pushing, push down, push down! Eliza grips, with amazing strength, the towel that was threaded around the bedposts behind her as she tries her best to control the screams without much success. The nurse places a cloth laced with chloroform to Eliza’s nose and she is off to never-never land.

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The little red sailboat, sails its way from the warm waters of the womb, through the rough waters of the birth canal into only heaven knows where or what might be ahead.

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On a Sunday morning, January 13/35, Victoria was born. She arrives into this howling, frigid and stormy world in the same way, with loud cries of indignation. Who wouldn’t howl after having been whacked by the hand of the doctor on her small delicate bottom after having just leaving a warm and protective womb? Surely there must be a better way to begin life than with such violence.

Mike, arriving home from work at 8:30 am, walked into a new love and a new experience which he expressed with a mixture of tears and jovial good humour. He goes to Eliza and gives her a warm hug and kiss. Then taking his daughter from her, he holds this fair and active piece of humanity in his arms for the first time, and jokingly commented, If she grows up to be anything like this weather, she will be a holy terror, eh Everyone in the room laughed.

The doctor quips, as Michael gives Victoria back to her mother for a breast-feeding, Yes, she will be a real coquette. A very prophetic observation, indeed.

A friend, Mel Kings, who had arrived with Michael, laughingly jokes, in the accent of the northern New Brunswicker. Ya’ll get a big Newfie dog now to keep the fellas away, eh, Mick. A big smile lights up his roughly bearded face. They all laugh joyfully, but little did they know what lies ahead for this new baby’s life, with the storm raging outside, as it was a happy time in the warm bedroom in the apartment above Delano’s Hardware Store. They dream dreams with visions brought into focus as the day progresses with the inevitable beer. Life looks pretty good from this angle, Michael thinks, as he shares these happy hours with family and friends.

Baptized Michael Diamond, Victoria’s father is the eldest of five children from an English, Anglican heritage and upbringing. He asks for little out of life. He is a happy-go-lucky guy with the unformed ideas of a 23 year old as to what he wants for his new family, except the necessities of survival; food, a warm place to come to after his long shift-work hours, a bed to sleep and love in, and enough money to provide these basic needs. Oh, and a bottle of Moosehead with his buddies after a day’s hard work. His father did not seem to see the need to provide more for his family. If more was needed, they did not miss it, did not know it or cared to know it.

Eliza’s needs are secondary; Michael thinks, "she just must go along with the flow. After all, I’m working hard to provide a home for her and the baby. She has no right to complain. That is the woman’s role in life. At any rate, what is good enough for his father and mother is good enough for us. Our life is nice and simple, is it not? Why rock the boat? They are warm and comfortable in this cramped apartment, even though the baby is in a closet in their bedroom. He is proud that he is able to provide a home, however small, with his $35.00 a week take-home pay.

Sure, Eliza, things will be different, he promises, as he goes to the icebox for his third bottle of beer. Someday, I will go to the boss and ask him if I can work days. Sure is pretty tough, anyhow, trying to sleep during the day with a crying baby keeping me awake. Anyway, Eliza, you know, this paper business will go far here, lots of money to be made in this company, he exclaims with the confidence of the young. So why worry, Eliza, everything will work out fine, you wait and see. He smiles his carefree and charming smile, does his two-step to make her laugh, dons his fedora hat, a cigarette dangling from his mouth and heads out to meet the boys.

That charming smile did nothing more than lead Eliza into his happy mood, as she pushes aside her own convictions and needs for peace. She, however, has her own ideas about life. She is, at 26, three years older than Michael. She knows that there is more to living than sleeping, eating, loving, and working through this sometimes-difficult existence.

Eliza Anne is the eldest girl of 10 children from a Viking, Irish, Acadian, Catholic background with a rural upbringing in a little village in Northern N.B. Her ancestor, James Connell, was the first settler in this small coastal village in 1790. She, with her strong ancestral roots, being the oldest girl had worked hard at home helping to raise brothers and sisters. She was then given a higher education living in a Catholic Convent under the strict, watchful eyes of the Sisters. Her father, who owned a lumber mill, did provide her with some semblance of wealth, culture, and stimulation into the finer things in life. However, she says nothing to Michael about her thoughts and fears. She is happy with wee Victoria in her arms and, after all, Mike is so good to her. He is handsome and he makes her laugh. He will change with time, she is sure. It was good of him to let her have the help she needed while she is laid up having the baby, even though her father had paid for it. Things will get better, she believes, pushing aside the ungrateful thoughts.

Maybe, she thinks, being a good Catholic, I had better go to confession. However, the thoughts again play havoc as she lies there each day waiting for her strength to come back.

Should she have waited to marry? Would Jim have come back to her if she had? On and on go the unhappy thoughts. Oh well, at least I’m not an old maid, she rationalizes.

She began to think of the first time she noticed Michael on the post office steps one day in the beautiful Indian summer of October, 19/33, a few weeks after Jim had jilted her.

While she was living in Montreal, where she was hired to care for children, she had met her fiancé, Jim, who had literally left her at the altar. Jim was everything a girl could want. Very much like her father, really. This pip-squeak of a boy staring at her with his stupid Cheshire cat grin could not compare to either of her men.

Why doesn’t he leave me alone? she remembers remarking to herself. I don’t want him bothering me. He and his friends, in their brown and black felt fedora hats tilted slightly to the right of the forehead, cigarettes dangling from the corners of their mouths, stood around grinning and staring at her. Her heart gave a leap in spite of her feelings of annoyance. She inwardly smiled to herself, being quite flattered at their attentions.

However, this pip-squeak of a boy had other ideas. Michael went to work on the 4:00 pm to 12 midnight shift, bragging to all the men he worked with about this beautiful blond he had seen that afternoon, stating emphatically he was going to marry her. Although Eliza was not exactly very responsive, he persisted until she finally gave in and agreed to go on a date. Who could resist his smile?! They dated for three months when she decided to go back to Montreal. Michael followed her and finally persuaded her to marry him.

February 2nd, 1934, the wedding day, a cold, wintry day. The Catholic Church also revealed its frosty and cold attitude toward mixed marriages. Because Eliza was baptized Catholic and Michael, Anglican, the Catholic Church would not recognize their marriage. Michael had to promise to have children, if any, baptized in the Catholic Church. They were not allowed to be married at the altar, but Father Godbout was willing to marry them in the vestry, with two witnesses, Annie and Mel Kings, two loyal and good friends. The Connell’s,’ Eliza’s family, staunch Catholics, who were also against mixed marriages, did not attend the ceremony.

How could Eliza do such a thing? The family were very angry with her; the conversation around the kitchen table reflecting their feelings. "

After all, the Church was against mixed marriages. She could be excommunicated from her church. And in this small town, what would people think? She surely could not know what she was doing! Couldn’t she have waited awhile? She must be reacting to the jilting that Jim laid upon her. Well, it’s too late now. She’s made her bed, so she must sleep in it! No sympathy here!" said her family members.

After a short honeymoon in the new apartment above Delano’s Hardware Store that Michael rented, he then took Eliza on a three-hour train ride to Saint John to meet his family. The train is cold and drafty. She sits rigid in her seat, her convent upbringing very obvious to all, watching through the frosty windows the snow-covered fields, the small villages and towns at each stop of the cow-train. The mournful whistle of the train at each station-stop sounds ominous to her, as if it were a sign of things to come. She grips Michael’s comforting hand. He continues to hold her hand as they walk from the station to the shabby and run-down Prince Street rented, family home. In that initial few minutes, all the illusions and hopes that Eliza had about Michael are shattered. She knows that she would not have married him if she had known his family background. Poverty is not to her liking.

Oh! What have I gotten myself into? she cries inwardly, as she sees Michael’s mother in a tattered, but clean, printed housedress and well-worn slippers, her plump figure not so neatly filling the dress, or the constantly moving rocking chair. His father, an older replica of Michael, clearly had been drinking," his bulbous nose seeming to hide his narrow, reddened features.

Eliza tries her best to hide her feelings, but inwardly, she knows she would never again live the kind of life her father had given her mother and their family. Michael’s mother, Victoria Rose greeted her with a warm, affectionate moon-faced smile and hug, enveloping and almost smothering Eliza in her ample breasts. This open display of acceptance helps to alleviate the negative thoughts crowding Eliza’s mind for the time being.

Make yourself at home, Eliza, as Michael’s brothers and sisters greet her with much joy and laughter, crowding around the kitchen table, the old black and white dog lying at their feet. The bubbling, singing teakettle on the black wood stove is constantly being emptied and filled. They are so happy for Michael. They don’t care about the religious differences. They are only too pleased to have him married. Now he would settle down. Michael’s younger brother, Chester’s new bride, Deirdre, is also a new addition to the growing family. Eliza begins to relax, although she is not able to join in as yet to the happy chatter. One could not help but feel the warmth and love in that crowded room. She begins to feel better.

Returning home, Mike and Eliza find themselves facing the wrath of the family as they all gather for Sunday dinner at the Connell home.

How did you get away with this marriage? Why didn’t Father Jean put a stop to it or even allow it? How did you manage to get the dispensation for the marriage in the first place? On and on went the angry questions.

Michael and Eliza leave the Connell house in frustration, unhappiness and disappointment; the blast of cold, arctic wind adding to their inner chill. They did not even bother to tell Joe and Lizzie the Priest had agreed to the marriage if the children would be baptized Catholic.

So, here she is, still recuperating after the birth of wee baby, Victoria in her arms, feeling quite confused and unhappy as the mice in her head kept racing and scurrying around; the vision of Jim’s face never seeming to leave her.

The baby girl, given the name Victoria Rose after Michael’s Mother, is baptized a month later in the Catholic Church, St. Jean les Croix, with again, Mel and Annie, the Godparents. Lizzie did not attend the baptism, but Joe, Eliza’s father, is there. So are her sisters and a couple of brothers. She is sick about her mother’s absence, but knows her father would not let her down.

Winter seems to drag on; never-ending it seems, month after freezing month. Jack Frost paints strange designs on the windowpanes, the bitter north wind whistling around and through the cracks. Eliza must be continually covering them with towels to keep the drafts out.

Finally, the first signs of spring make themselves known. One day after the 8 to 4 shift is over at the mill, Mike arrives home all excited.

Eliza, guess what? The ice on the bay is beginning to break up! We’ll have to take a jaunt down to the river to watch the icebergs move out. Soon the ferry will be chugging across the bay again and the logs will be moving down-river from the valley to the mill. His eyes are sparkling in anticipation.

Yes, the warming sun is, indeed, melting the winter snows, breaking up the ice on the Bay outside their window now that the long, bitter New Brunswick winter is over. Life is surely worth living after all.

Victoria is three months old when the spring phenomenon of the break-up of the ice on the Bay occurs. Just old enough to bundle her up in baby finery, place in a huge English pram with winter rails (which Granddad Joe had provided and expected to push from time to time), to take this most important jaunt to the Bay’s edge. Oh! The beauty of the snow-covered forests and hills, the exhilarating roar of the crashing ice and the sun-sparkled rising waters rushing to escape the deluge. The children are allowed to escape from the confines of their winter prisons to jump from iceberg to iceberg, getting as far away from the worrisome looks and cries of their mothers as they get soaking wet. They stay as close to shore as they dare, however, without seemingly too cowardly in the eyes of their friends.

Young parents with babies and the more adventurous grown-up also take in Nature’s release from a confined winter with more controlled enthusiasm, but enthusiasm, nonetheless. Just as important as the breaking up of the ice and its flow, was the flow of chatter that spread like wild-fire through these friends and neighbours as they stood around still wrapped up in winter woolens, colorful Acadian toques, winter and rubber boots and galoshes, drinking hot drinks of all varieties. Many a back pocket held a miki to pass around. Colour, release of energy, bedlam, friendship and beauty everywhere; all in a couple of hours of a Sunday afternoon in April. Of course, the many kind comments and compliments about their wee daughter, Victoria, was most pleasant to receive, without a doubt.

Some of the smelt fishermen were not so happy. The dozen shacks, used for winter smelt fishing, are now adrift as the fishermen were not able to move them inland fast enough; the spring melt of the ice came about much sooner than expected.

With the breakup of the ice, the tugboats can now make the trip up the river to bring the logs down to the mill.

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The little red sailboat sails dangerously but skillfully in and out of the way of the tugboats and logs. Tides are high.

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The Mill. This papermaking industry of the early thirties is the salvation, the backbone, the curse, the blood, sweat and tears for every man, woman, and child in this literally back-woods town of two thousand people. The smoke-spewing monster sat on the shores of the small town situated on the waters of the Bay, between the Appellation Mountains of the northern New Brunswick and Quebec shores, waiting patiently through the long winter months for this ritual of the spring ice break-up in April to begin it’s rush down the River to the Bay. For then the mill is fed by the tons of logs that had been cut all through the winter months; to follow the pathway of the river, from the richly forested and fertile valley above.

The north and south-east camps owned by the mill, which paid the wages, came an influx of men hired as loggers. In 1929, Michael and his buddies, between the ages of 18 to 20, and just out of school, decided they would join the many men from all over the province to answer the call for workers in this growing industry. Michael was hired on as one of the cooks in the camps to feed the ravenous appetites of the loggers. Mike, however, soon realized, after the first year, that he did not have the appetite for such impossibly degrading work. He just didn’t have the stomach for it. Anyway, he was having too difficult a time dealing with the rough, tough, cruel tongues and uncouth habits of the crude men around him. He decided he would rather be hired on in the mill working shift work.

The hardy, tough loggers began their work in the autumn, amid the variety of the dazzling, fiery colors of the green evergreens, deciduous trees and foliage. The cooler nights and days will get colder, the hardy loggers will see nothing but the fallen leaves of the bare trees, now much easier to cut, as they trekked and drove through the badly rutted logging roads. They will spend the long, grueling winter in very poorly built camps, as they soon find out. Although it is difficult, it is their way of life. They would not have or want it any other way. The colorful, crude language of the different ethnic groups of the province seemed to set them on fire and keep their interest alive, giving them the incentive to continue this grueling hardship no matter the poor camp dwellings and cold surroundings.

These tough men endured the northern climate all winter long near the edge of the River, taking on the arduous task of cutting the logs with the most primitive of buck-saws, axes, and equipment reminiscent of the stone age, (or so it seemed to them). They then waited until the spring thaw to pile the logs on wagons hauled to the waters’ edge by huge work-horses, called draft horse. The logs were then released into the river. The small tugboats, darting here and there and around, with the help of the loggers jumping from log to log, corralled the floating logs much like cowboys corralling cattle, to keep the logs from straying every-which- way. The logs were then floated down river to the mill’s edge until they were brought on land and piled high to be stored all summer long for the mill’s use in the making of paper.

The strong, pungent odour and taste of the sickening and choking smell of sulfur from the mill’s smokestacks, permeated the air year after year, if the wind blew the wrong way. It was even worse if there was no wind. For the town, which was enclosed in a valley between the mountain range, no way was the right way. Even those living on the Quebec side, across the river, suffered the onslaught of the dirty, smelly smoke filling the air. The sulfur was used in the preparation of the paper once the wood was crushed and emulsified into a kind of paste or pulp. The paper was then rolled around huge spools, made ready for the arrival of many ships from all over the world which would come to the port of this small town to pick up their orders.

Many of the men arriving on these ships, saw the beauty of the town and the surrounding area and, feeling the hope that showed on the faces of the people, decided to make it their permanent home. The area had already been settled by three different cultures and nationalities; the First Nations, the first peoples, already established, the French and British battling their way in, the Acadians, after the Expulsion, the Scottish, Irish, and other races arriving to make up the mosaic of personalities all gave the town its charm and character. Eliza’s family, the Connells, who had owned and operated a sawmill on the Gaspe in Quebec and lost all during the Great Depression in 1929, had deep ancestral roots going back to 1790, in the little village where they grew up in N.B. which overlooked the Gaspe, Quebec hills. They arrived, as well, to join the influx of workers to the town.

Not to be forgotten were the Mi’kMaque, the First Nations peoples who were on these shores long before the white man, who made his presence known, and brought about the demise of many of these beautiful people; their traditional culture and language. Hundreds of years ago , they were literally corralled like the logs steered to the Mill’s edge, only to be Penned in an area known as a Reservation situated on the outskirts of the many maritime towns, on the Bays, overlooking the rivers, the Atlantic, in the Province of Quebec and the United States.

Those natives living on the two surrounding Reserves of this mill town, were supposedly better off than those living in some of the other Reserves around the provinces, with the Mill hiring them on. They, as well, maintained their traditional way of life through hunting and fishing.

The presence of these men, sailing on ships from across the Atlantic, were also aggressively responsible for the expulsion of