Gower Street

Index

Preface

In Newfoundland, you don’t just come from the place where you first saw the light of day; you belong to it. Belonging means so much more than just happening to have been born there. It’s mutual ownership; the place owns you just as much as you own it. It’s home always, no matter how far afield your life may lead you. It’s in your very marrow.

George Story’s marvellous Dictionary of Newfoundland English got it right, defining the word belong as "to be a member of a family … a native or inhabitant of a place … one is never from or even born in a place, one always belongs to it."

Having lived more than half of my life on alien shores—if that’s what you can call the banks of the Ottawa River—I know that there is only one place to which I belong, and that is St. John’s, the mauzy rain, drizzle, and fog capital of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I marvelled frequently as I grew up at the fact that, of all the places in the world, the one I was born in had this unique location on the very edge of North America, the easternmost habitation on this vast continent. St. John’s juts out in bold pre-eminence on North American topography as though daring to be different with a history and culture and personality all of its own. And isn’t that the truth?

Looking back over a span of eight decades, I realize more and more each day how joyous and fulfilling it was to grow up in St. John’s when I did in the 1930s and 1940s. Perhaps I was luckier than most: others may have had fewer advantages and found life a lot harder then. Yet for me it was the best of times. My family life brought many blessings and only a few episodes of pain. Good friends, ample opportunities for healthy play and enjoyment, good schooling, and caring and trustworthy relatives and neighbours all combined to assure a happy, safe, and fruitful childhood, despite the threatening atmosphere of wartime on our very doorstep.

Those were interesting times with abundant dramatic events, remarkable personalities, fulfilling experiences, and, in retrospect, heartwarming memories that endure in tribute to something of a golden era for a truly special corner of the universe.

1

A Wartime Childhood

I was naive, no doubt, but a schoolboy’s thoughts when going to bed on those dark and nervous nights in St. John’s in the early 1940s were frequently scary. Unable to go to sleep in my third-floor bedroom, peering through the high dormer window toward the harbour just three streets below, I tensed timidly at every sound, convinced it might be the dull roar of attacking German aircraft. Screeching air-raid sirens were nightly reminders of the dangers that might befall us.

By day, such fears seemed silly enough to be embarrassing, so I seldom shared them with friends. Plain common sense in the cold light of day told me there was no way that Luftwaffe planes would swarm in from 2,000 miles away. Everyone knew they had no land bases or aircraft carriers anywhere near the Newfoundland coastline. But nightfall nudged far aside the calm of midday logic, and the fears lingered on.

For hadn’t the Germans battered the Narrows of St. John’s with torpedoes, caught thankfully in defensive nets strung across between the Battery and Fort Amherst? Didn’t we shudder with horror when fires that must have been lit by enemy agents destroyed the Knights of Columbus Hostel, killing ninety-nine people, some of whom we knew? Spies were probably all around us, and chances were there would be more horrors to come as this war got worse every day.

Family portrait circa 1931.

Front: Brian, Helen, Nix (Jr.). Rear: Nix Wadden (Sr.), Billy, Bridget, Mary.

Yes, the war was far too close for comfort for people, young and old, in Newfoundland, the closest part of North America to the rampaging forces of Hitler’s Germany. Substantial houses across the street blocked direct views of harbour activities, but enough sound and bustle persisted to ensure vivid realization of ship movements and harbourside activities throughout the night hours. No light broke through, however, as rigid restrictions forbade all but minimal lighting on land or water. Blackout enforcement was constant and vigilant. Homes were shrouded with window blinds. Car headlights were fitted with covering devices to project light downwards. Some residents even strove to keep cigarette lighting under close control.

Air-raid wardens patrolled neighbourhood streets, cautioning homeowners whenever chinks of light showed through. Armed with hard hats and batons, wardens were mostly older men, past military service age, but included younger people, usually those barred for medical reasons from active service. Air-raid drills were frequent and frightening, and even though we were pretty sure they were drills, it was always with great relief that we heard the all clear sounded at their conclusion.

My brother Brian was sixteen when war broke out in 1939, but when he tried to enlist, he was rejected, he learned, because of poor eyesight and flat feet. I think he was particularly slighted by them telling him he had flat feet. He had to settle for serving as an ARP man, performing air-raid warden duties. He wore a battered tin hat and was shyly proud it was battered, even though that was because of an accidental fall. They fitted him out with a standard kit, complete with arm band and baton and a stirrup pump and a big bucket of sand, supposedly for fighting fires. His nightly patrols left no doubt, in my mind at least, that the perils of air raids were real and not to be taken lightly.

Yet wartime security precautions had their lighter side. Tom Howley loved to tell of his father’s predicament one night during the blackout. An inveterate user of cigarette holders, he suffered the indignity, and momentary discomfort, of striding full force into a telephone pole while walking along the street near his home. His cigarette holder crunched with the impact, and he was lucky to escape without lasting injury. But it showed how well the blackout was working. Gower Street, where I grew up, was quiet and peaceful enough in those war years, although the strains of wartime worries were constantly in evidence.

Young men from all around were rushing off to join the navy or the army or the air force—British forces, mainly, although some headed for Canada to sign up for one of the Canadian armed services. A home defence unit—the Newfoundland Militia—was formed to create some semblance of local military strength in case of need.

Joining up was a common topic for discussion among my schoolmates as the war years rolled on and we got closer to the age of eligibility for service. At war’s end in August 1945, I had just turned fifteen, so for me the need did not arise, but some of my friends went off to join the air force or other branches of the services anyway. My immediate family, as it turned out, was one of the few that I knew of in which none of its members served in the military in either of the World Wars. In the so-called Great War of 1914–18, my father, as yet unmarried, was obliged to stay at home to care for his parents while all three of his brothers went off to war service.

Nix as a teenager.

Typical of the zeal of young Newfoundlanders to go fighting for their country was my future brother-in-law, Wilf French, who at the outbreak of the Second World War was in Scotland, where his Scots-born mother had sent him to learn a trade. Heeding the call to action, he promptly boarded ship to return to Newfoundland and joined up in the 166th Newfoundland Field Regiment of the British Army. He put in six long years of service, spending time in North Africa and Italy before returning home after hostilities ceased.

Among the many and varied experiences of the war years in St. John’s, probably the most enjoyable were the encounters with servicemen thronging into our busy northwest Atlantic port. Thousands passed through over the years, either when stationed for armed services duties, or on shore leave from convoy craft, or, if they were lucky, when rescued from ships victimized by Nazi U-boats.

Living close to the harbour’s edge, we were ever mindful of the perils men from the sea endured in those troubled waters, and we endeavoured in whatever small ways were possible to lend support and welcome. The most active and constant avenue for helping out was by inviting service people for Sunday dinner with the family, and this became a matter of course. Families wanting to extend hospitality in this way were routinely contacted by organizations like the Caribou Hut with names of potential guests. Socializing by family members with visiting servicemen drew many recruits as well, so there never seemed to be any shortage of Sunday visitors.

Canadian navy and air force personnel stationed in and around the city were frequent guests, some becoming quite good family friends. One air force man, Carl Fuller, a fun-loving youngster from Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, even dropped by at our summer home in Kelligrews on occasion. His first time was memorable, as he told of hitching car rides along the Conception Bay highway until getting stuck for a long time at Long Pond, Manuels. Seeing a jaunty little man bending over his truck engine to make a repair, he asked him if he might be going to Kelligrews. Yes, the man replied without looking up to see who was asking, but you’re not coming. Fortunately, some kinder soul came by later and did give him a ride to his destination.

Other names I well remember include Leslie Crout from Montreal, Arky Dalton from Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and two brothers, Ted and Romeo Doucette from Moncton, New Brunswick. Everyone was intrigued to meet someone named Romeo.

Seamen from Atlantic convoys came and went without any word afterward about how they made out, though once in a while we learned that a ship with someone we had met on board had been sunk. One French seaman who had been to dinner was known to have died on his next trip.

One interesting visitor who entertained us greatly as he told us stories in a thick Irish accent said at first that his name was Paddy O’Sullivan. When he was leaving, however, he admitted that this wasn’t his real name. He couldn’t tell us what it was because he was a member of the IRA and could be thrown in jail if his real identity was discovered.

My sisters brought home any current beaus who were squiring them at the time. Mary, the eldest of the siblings, worked only briefly in the city before taking a job with the Americans in Argentia. Then Helen went to work at the Canadian naval dockyard, getting acquainted with a succession of admirers who often showed up at Sunday dinners.

We were less likely to see American servicemen since most of them were based at nearby Pepperrell, though Mary showed up with admirers on occasional visits from the American base at Argentia. An American navy ship would occasionally call into port, and one weekend we had a group of them crowding the dinner table. When they introduced themselves, one burly seaman named Murphy caught my mother’s attention. Well, she said, you’re a Murphy so you must be a Catholic.

Oh no, ma’am, he replied. That’s just what they call me because they can’t pronounce my name. I’m Polish. And I’m not a Catholic. But she fed him anyway.

The opening of military bases in the first rush to protect Newfoundland’s strategic location from the threat of Nazi Germany brought jobs for my three older siblings. Brian, not long out of school, started work in construction at Naval Station Argentia, but he did not stay there very long. He later joined other young men from the island in going to work for the American services who were establishing military bases in Greenland. Pictures of him sunning himself at the fledgling Narsarssuak base looked almost inviting, but he headed back to Newfoundland that same year to find less exciting but more comfortable working conditions while living at home.

My sister Mary first looked for work at Camp Alexander, the makeshift tent encampment where American troops sheltered in 1941, as workers built Fort Pepperrell beside Quidi Vidi Lake. No job being open yet at Pepperrell, she headed to Fort McAndrew in the former fishing village of Marquise, near Argentia. Sharing quarters with others destined to be lifelong friends, she was there for four years, working for a time as secretary to the base commander.

One memorable day in August 1941, her boss took her to the site where, the day before, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed on the historic Atlantic Charter. Expressing mutual goals for the conduct of the war and its aftermath, the two leaders met aboard warships berthed in a secure anchorage in Ship Harbour, near Argentia.

Social life was active and exciting in a base filled with lonely young servicemen, and Mary had a string of ardent boyfriends, many of whom she showed off on occasional weekend visits home in St. John’s. One dating opportunity she did not find appealing came from a celebrity visitor. Hollywood hunk Victor Mature, serving in the US Coast Guard after appearing in several pre-war movies, wanted to date her, but Mary politely demurred. I didn’t like the look of him, she recalled.

Mary’s twenty-fourth birthday in July 1945 became her wedding day as she married a sergeant from Georgia. She departed for his home state for what proved to be a short-lived marriage. By 1949 she was back in St. John’s, raising three young children on her own while living with our parents.

My sister Helen went to work for the Canadian Naval Service, which was set up on the waterfront off Water Street, dedicated to support the convoy escort service performed by what came to be called the corvette navy. These small but highly manoeuvrable warships, designed along the lines of a commercial whaler, played a predominant role in protecting merchant ships bound with essential supplies for Britain by attacking the marauding U-boats. Base operations were directed by an unidentified Captain D, a code name for the senior officer.

2

34 Gower Street

War or no war, life went on for the children of St. John’s. I broke many a window in Jake Doyle’s father’s house, though CBC TV’s Republic of Doyle family didn’t live there at the time. But you know the house I mean. It’s that big colourful bay-windowed dwelling with a two-door attached garage that flashes up regularly on the TV screen when the scene shifts to Malachy Doyle’s dysfunctional family’s residence.

There was nothing fictional about that striking facade in the 1930s when I was growing up a few doors away at 34 Gower Street. The big house at number 28—one of the few detached homes in the neighbourhood—was owned and occupied by prominent businessman W. A. Munn and family.

My problem with Munn’s house was not because of the prominence of its owners, but because of its handsome bay windows overlooking the sidewalk on which we boys liked to play ball or hockey. My best friend Tom Howley lived at number 26, and I played on this level stretch of sidewalk almost every day. Our favourite pastime was a sort of road hockey, using hockey sticks to shoot back and forth a tennis ball or puck, depending on the season. It was lots of fun, most times, though there was always a niggling worry about the hazardous proximity of those big bay windows.

And then one day it happened. Winding up for a rocket wrist shot, I coolly let loose, only to send the tennis ball hurtling wildly into Munn’s window, shattering the glass with a resounding crash. Tempting as it was to run and hide somewhere, owning up to the deed had to be faced. Fortunately for me, Mrs. Ethel Munn, to whom I abjectly confessed at her door, was a most understanding lady and took it all very kindly, seeming to accept such mishaps as only to be expected in a city neighbourhood. That evening my father insisted on paying for the window repairs and added his apologies, but I wasn’t too popular around my house for some time.

34 Gower Street.

Not surprisingly, the same thing happened quite a few times as Tom and I continued to use the sidewalk as a playing field, and those unlucky bay windowpanes took further punishment from errant balls and pucks. The worst part of it was that I was always the one who dealt the fatal blow. Tom somehow managed to keep the windows out of play. I guess because he lived right next door, he had a tad more incentive to prove himself a good neighbour. Or else he just had a much better shot than me. Small wonder, then, that when I got into playing hockey on a real ice rink in later years, I ended up on the receiving end as a goalie.

The Munn property was unusual in that it was L-shaped, with a sizable garden extending behind their two-car garage as well as the two lots on which stood my family home and that of our immediate neighbours in number 32. Both 32 and 34 were owned by my father and were, like most other Gower Street homes, fully attached to one another. Row housing was the norm throughout St. John’s in that era, having been hurriedly constructed to shelter so much of the populace left homeless by the disastrous Great Fire of 1892. Munn’s was fully detached on one side, separated by a laneway from Howley’s next door, but its double garage on the other side would have burned as quickly as ours.

Former Munn house with garage.

It used to bother me at times to see the long and spacious gardens reaching out back from most other homes on our block while we had the tiniest of backyards. Rightly or wrongly, and undoubtedly it is the latter, I used to blame the Munns for us being so shortchanged.

Yet the Munns were an interesting family. The head of the household, William Azariah Munn, was a successful businessman. He founded W. A. Munn and Company, a merchant enterprise based originally in Harbour Grace, with wide experience in the fish trades and other pursuits, branching also into marine insurance. One of its pioneering endeavours was in the production of cod-liver oil. The 28 Gower Street home was built for him in 1896.

I knew Mr. Munn only as the elderly, mutton chop whiskered man I saw there occasionally before he died in 1939, when I was nine years old. A man of learning with a keen interest in the past, he spent many years researching the history of the Vikings, reaching the conclusion that those tenth-century explorers had settled in northern Newfoundland. He published a pamphlet in 1914 outlining this theory. Norwegian Viking experts Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad acted on these ideas when they discovered evidence of Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in the 1960s.

W. A. Munn’s younger brother, Arch Munn, lived with him and his wife on Gower Street and, after the older sibling died, he married his sister-in-law. A businessman himself, he had been noted as an athlete in his younger days, playing on a Newfoundland hockey team which competed in a 1901–2 series against a team from Truro, Nova Scotia.

In a serendipitous twist of fate,