The weather

November 27th we had a rain storm. Pretty crazy for this time of year. It was 13 Celsius in Fredericton. The Weather Network said, "Rain at times heavy will give a total of 50 to 100 millimeters of rain to parts of New Brunswick by Thursday morning. ...Strong and gusty southeast winds is forecast with this system.  ...and wind gusts up to 90 km/h are possible over southern sections before diminishing overnight."


It is now December 20th and we are having another storm.  This is the third in the last couple of weeks, so it will definitely be a white Christmas. It is snow, rain and freezing rain. Norm Foster, when he was host of a local radio station, called it Snain. Connie and I still use that term!


I'm on one of the computers at the Media Lab on UNB, and I've got some scanned pictures. I've been using one of the scanners up here because it handles the little, itty-bitty, tiny, small slides. Here are a few:

This is Liz checking out the tomato plants. Notice that Uncle Karl has them tied up with panty hose!

I think this is Jamie playing with weights. Though it is hard to tell.

Windsong in a cute outfit.

More random photos

Just a selection of random pictures.

David is obviously fascinated by the gift he has just opened. We usually had that look on our faces when we got something from Uncle Karl. Often we would really not know what it was. This is a good picture of David with his long hair. Dad is having a laugh - he probably knows what it is!

Dave and Jim reading something very engrossing. That white globe lamp behind Jim? That was the lamp Uncle Karl gave me with the pink light bulb! Lorrie has it now. Don't know if I'll ever get it back!

This is a Christmas photo as well. Though it is either before the gifts were opened, or after everything was cleaned up. Mum loved her African violets. She told me once that she put them outside in the rain because she thought it would be better water for them, but they all got sick - apparently there was a fairly high amount of acid rain in that area of southern Quebec.

Liz having a birthday cake. Nancy on the left, one of Liz's best friends. Jim and Jamie helping to blow out the candles. Mum loved making fancy cakes. She got a booklet with different patterns in it. I remember one year David got a round one that was a lion's face. It was always fun to see what she would come up with.

 Windsong and Jamie in the kitchen in Hemmingford.

Jeanette in the Mickey Mouse shirt! I wore that thing until it wore out! I think this must have been taken at Park Safari in Hemmingford. I went a few times, but then went out west and when I came home for visits, there was too much else to do. It was interesting, but a zoo is a zoo. This one was a tourist attraction first. Not sure if they did much towards saving any at risk species. I seem to remember them having rhinos, and they are, and have been for many years, an at risk species. Although zoos can never really mirror nature, the animals are generally healthy and well fed, and at least they aren't being pounced on by predators!

Christmas in Hemmingford

Christmas was always a fun time, but after Uncle Karl immigrated to Canada, it became even more fun. He would wrap tiny presents in huge boxes, or disguise it in a weird shape if didn't fit in a box. He once gave me a pink lightbulb. I looked through the bit of clear glass near the end and tried to see if the bulb unscrewed from the fitting, trying to see if was a strange container for the real present. Nope. It was a pink light bulb. He laughed and brought out the "other half of the present," which was a short pole lamp that he had made himself. The base was an agitator out of a washing machine, the pole was a shower curtain rod cut down, and the top was a frosted white globe - the only part of the lamp that was really part of a lamp!

There were always so many presents under the tree that they didn't all fit, and spilled out into the living room.

I know this is hard to see, but you get the idea. Mum had some tiny slides - don't know why they are so small, but then I never took slides. I seldom had a camera because it was so expensive to get the photos printed. 

Liz had the job of handing out presents this year, I guess. It was usually the youngest who was given that job, but not always. If you gave out the presents, you got a big pile to open yourself at the end!

Windsong and Jamie playing with their gifts. This pictures are not in chronological order. 

 I love that tuque, Windsong!

Yes, you can see the number of gifts!

David is laughing about something he is holding. Windsong has the cutest slippers on.

I was not here for most Christmases after 1973. That is when I went out west to "spread my wings" and just couldn't afford to get home all the time. It was a lot of fun for me to find these. I missed a lot of the growing up years with Jamie and Windsong.

I will post more when I come across them.

Mum and Dad in Dar-es-Salaam, 1944-45

Mum and Dad met in Dar-es-Salaam in 1944.

Mum had been born in Kenya, gone to Scotland to get her higher education and took nurses training at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow. When she returned to Africa after WW II, she was nursing in Dar-es-Salaam.

Dad had been in the British Merchant Navy that he apprenticed into at age 15. By the time WW II ended, he was a Master Mariner (Captain), but he decided to leave the Merchant Navy. He got a job as a pilot in the Dar-es-Salaam harbour.

The nurses residence was close to the Port Officers residence (called the Pilot House, I think), so the single nurses and the single port officers spent off-times together. I guess more than one romance bloomed.

Many of these pictures are in an album that is falling apart. Fortunately, most of them were still stuck to the pages, and in most cases, I could figure out which photos went where if they had fallen out. Sometimes from the notes Mum wrote, and sometimes from memory because I remember going through the old albums many times growing up. I loved to listen to the stories Mum told about her childhood and days in Africa with Dad.

In some of these pictures, you will notice a yellow stain in the centre of the photo. This is from the glue on the little folded paper mount holding it onto the page. It's funny, but not all of them show a stain, so it must be different types of glue.

Mum told me lots of stories about sailing the Vixen, a small sailboat. I'm not sure who it belonged to, but apparently Mum & Dad's circle of friends spent a lot of time on it, and on the beaches around about.

I guess Dad was called Robbie there. I never knew him to be called anything other than Jim.

Mum looks so young here! She would have been about 24.

Doesn't he look debonnaire!

Engagement

There were only these two photos labeled engagement. Now, onto the wedding photos!

Wedding Nairobi, Kenya, 11 August, 1945

Maid of Honour is labeled Issie. I think this is Isabella, Mum's cousin (parents are Uncle George Silver, and Aunt Agnes Silver (née McKinnon).

Then it is Mum's mum, Catherine (Katie) Johansen, Dad, Mum, Dick Halstead as Best Man, and Uncle Olaf Johansen, Mum's eldest half-brother who gave her away, I think. Uncle Olaf was just a bit younger than Grandmother when she married Granddad, and Olaf's children were like brothers and sisters to Mum. Big extended family!

Love the little smiles on their faces. But I'm sure Dad was ready for this part to be over! He was not one for a lot of fuss.

This is one of my favourites. There is just something about the dreamy look on Mum's face.

Honeymoon

Uncle Karl crashed the honeymoon. Uncle Karl was Mum's brother who I knew the best because he came to Canada, lived in Ottawa, so we saw a lot of him. He and Mum were close, and Dad really like him too. He was hard working, but when he had fun, everyone had fun - he had a wicked sense of humour, and loved to play practical jokes. But his practical jokes were never hurtful, they were always loads of fun. And he was the best story teller I ever met! I might add some more to this post, because I know Mum wrote about the honeymoon in the family history. I'll add when I find it.

Thinking of snow

Seeing as we had the first snow of the year yesterday, it put me in mind to post some of the winter photos from Mum's slides. It wasn't much snow, and it melted as soon as it hit the ground, but it was a reminder of winter.

I remember huge snow falls and huge mounds of snow pushed up by the snow plow along the country roads when I was a child. I'm not sure if the size in my memory is really correct, but here is one of a mound pushed up by the plow in front of our house and one of Dad standing in front of another pile of snow.

This picture is backwards. It is hard to tell sometimes in the little scanner that I have! But the scanner is a lot better than holding the slides up to my monitor!

Our house was right on the "old road" which then became part of our property when the new road was built. The new road (Route 619) was a lot straighter, whereas the old road wound and wandered all over the place. The opinion from the oldtimers in the area was that it originally followed an old trail or cow path. When the Quebec government was changing road numbers (sometime in the late 70's I think - I was out west at the time) and putting up French road signs, they had a problem with one curve of road a couple of miles long just up the way from us. There were quite a few house and farms along the road, but there was no official name on record. In the area, it had always just been known as "the old road" and that is what the people living along it insisted it be called, so that is what is on the sign. Our piece of "old road" had just become part of the driveway. Dad kept it plowed in the winter. It is great because it was easy to turn a car so you could drive onto the road rather than try to back into the driveway, or back out. Although Rte. 619 is a secondary highway, it can be quite busy.

Dad seemed to like snow blowing. Never could quite understand that! He had a lot of it to do to keep the driveways in the shape he liked. I offered once to do some when I was home on a Christmas visit, but he politely declined, saying that I was there to visit. I think it was because he just felt it was one of the things he liked to do. Or because he didn't think I could keep the lines straight.

Between the "old road" and the road, was a wide, shallow ditch, which he mowed in the summers. In the above picture, he is "neatening up" the approach to the driveway, because the big road plows just went sailing past and filled in the driveway. 

Here, he is plowing out the access to the mailbox. On rural routes, if that is not done, you don't get your mail.

Whenever Dad had finished the snow blowing, he would look like a snowman from all the blow back.

The other winter activity Dad loved was watching the birds at the feeding stations outside of the kitchen windows. I remember one winter Mum wrote to me and told me that they had been visited by a flock of arctic sparrows, which they found very exciting. There were always the normal birds found in the winter, but depending on the conditions, the feeders were visited by other more rare birds. One winter quite recently that had especially high snow fall, Mum had a flock of wild turkeys on the property. They cleaned up whatever seed fell onto the ground from the bird feeders. Mum said that if she was at the window when they approached, she could not make a movement, because they would see her through the glass and take off. They are very shy.

In this picture the birds are Evening Grosbeaks, of the finch family. Quite a good sized bird, about Robin sized, but more chunky. The snow is quite deep here, probably a good three feet deep. Here is a link to a cool video of them, thanks to Wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Hesperiphona_vespertina_CT2.ogv

I caught the birdwatching habit, though I didn't put up bird feeders until after I bought my house. Apartment dwelling doesn't lend itself to bird feeders. I don't get many of the bigger woodland birds, even though Fredericton has a lot of trees and I'm only 3 blocks from Odell Park. I have the odd sighting of non-city birds, but mostly I have several varieties of sparrows and finches - Gold Finches nest in my yard, red polls, robins, mourning doves, rock doves (pigeons), 3 or 4 types of sparrows, etc. Occasionally I'm visited by a lovely male downy woodpecker. He was digging a grub out of my deck railing a couple of weeks ago and I said, "Go Downy, go - get all the grubs!"  A few years ago, I had a young red tailed hawk catch a pigeon on my driveway. That was exciting!

Here is my little Downy, enjoying the sunflower seeds.

Ian, my brother.

Ian joined the U.S. army - the MPs. He ended up in Vietnam. I have to admit that when he was there, I did not realize the seriousness of what was going on, what war is like. I was young and involved with my own life, with the typical youthful attitudes and no real knowledge of mortality. I have grown up a bit, and now realize how easy it is to be hurt or killed in civilian life - and how much easier it is to be hurt or killed in a war zone.

Ian died in December, 2011. Living on opposite sides of the continent - Alaska/New Brunswick - for many years meant that we really didn't know each other that well. But Ian was always very connected to family, to Mum and Dad especially. But as his favourite sister (the one and only!) he did keep in touch with me and I him. Bless Kathleen, my sister-in-law, for even more connection.

Chris Robertson, Ian & Kathy's son, my oldest nephew, has also served as a medic in recent conflicts.

So Ian and Chris will also be in my thoughts tomorrow, Remembrance Day, as I stand at the Cenotaph to honour them and Dad for their service to democracy and freedom.

Kathy, Ian's wife, says that Ian told her he was writing to her in this picture!

Remembering Dad on Remembrance Day.

Dad spent the war in the British Merchant Navy, and a great deal of that time going from New York, USA to Murmansk, Russia. The North Atlantic is known for its storms and high seas; the Merchant ships spent the crossing bobbing around without any defense but the corvettes that accompanied them.

Whenever we had some sort of crisis going on (often a disagreement between me and Mum, or some sort of emotional issue), once the kerfuffle had quietened down, he was wont to say, "It is not as bad as the North Atlantic in winter." That definitely put things in perspective.

Though Dad was not overly religious, one of his favourite songs was Amazing Grace. I will listen that that played on the pipes at the Cenotaph Monday and think of Dad and all of the other unsung heroes of war.

Rest in Peace, Dad.

Finding these pictures fascinating

The photos I'm posting are not in any order other than as I come across them in the pile and think they are interesting, or have a personal story. 

As I go through the slides and peer through them held up against the light of my monitor, I have to reflect (not a pun) on the changes in technology. From the very earliest camera photographs in the 1800's to the digital process now, the changes are amazing. I use a digital camera, and have become much more into photography since then. I never liked the expense and wait time of the printed photos, I'm much more into the immediacy of digital! Plus, you can delete the bad ones right away. I don't think I would have gotten into photography if I'd lived in the 1800's.

I am, however, having a marvelous time going through the family photos. It seems that Mum took pictures of everything. She had a favourite maple tree on the other side of the village that she took pictures of every year. Dad would just shake his head when she showed the latest photo, but I understand it completely. I take pictures of my flowers every year, despite not having planted much of anything new in the last several summers. Each flower is unique, even if it is on the same plant.

The slides that Mum took show the history of our family. They are a way of keeping in memory the far-flung members of the tribe, showing in microcosm the growth of the members. The inter-connectivity of family.

Here we have three generations. On the right is Uncle Willie Silver and on the left is Uncle Karl. In the middle is me (in the tied-dyed pants) and Liz, Uncle Karl's wife. Uncle Willie is Uncle Karl's uncle on the Scottish side of the family - my grandmother's brother.

Uncle Willie lived near or in Winnipeg at this time. He came the Canada many years before the rest of us, and actually helped build the Erie Canal, putting him first here between 1817-1825. We have lost track of his descendants. I know Uncle Karl has info on him in the genealogical charts (I can't find mine right now, but will have to search it out to have handy as I do these posts), but once Uncle Willie died, I don't think there was any more contact that Mum could maintain with his descendents. Not sure though, since we don't have any of the letters (see first post). I remember this visit. One of the things we did was go up Covey Hill and hiked into the gorge on the top. I'm not sure if people can still do that because we had to cross private land to get there. Uncle Willie out-walked us all.

Getting ready to have a picnic.

This picture of Dad at the kitchen table is a typical pose. He doesn't look happy, but he is not really unhappy or upset, it is just because he had just taken a bite of something when Mum snapped the shot! There is that blue sweater again - or one just like it.

Something of Dad

My father: James Robertson, born 1914, died 1998. He was a great guy and I miss him a lot. He didn't say a lot, but his brain was always engaged. He had to be dragged to a party, but once he got there, he enjoyed himself. He didn't like being around argumentative people - Mum and I must have driven him bonkers because we went through a few years when we didn't agree on anything!

He loved his family, but he wasn't openly demonstrative. I think he felt deeply, but because he was brought up in an era where men didn't show emotions, he held a lot inside. He was a great mentor to me, but unfortunately, I didn't realize the extent of his mentoring until after he had died. He was always there for me, even when he didn't really understand or agree with my course of action. He was so darn pleased when I passed my 5 year working anniversary at UNB! He would have been so pleased when I bought my house - that would have proven finally that I'd grown up and settled down.

This is just so much him. This was taken on a beach somewhere in Florida. Not sure when since I was living out west at the time. That hat. His plaid shirts. His brown pants!

This was taken when Mum, Dad and David took a trip out to Alberta and BC. Dad did not like to tent so they stayed in Motels along the way, as far as I know. But he liked to picnic. That camp stove got a workout. I loved that navy sweater of his.

Dad kept two hives of bees for years. He loved the honey, and we ate it on toast and he used it to sweeten his mead. He also strongly believed in the healing powers of honey. He had a paperback written by a doctor who practiced in Vermont who wrote about the remedies used by the local people. Honey was used in many ways beyond soothing a sore throat. One of the stories was about a man who cut himself quite badly when he was chopping wood out in the forest and an elderly woman slathered the wound with honey, wrapped it up, and sent him off to the hospital. He had to walk for 3 days to get there (this was back in the olden days). When he did, the doctors told him he was already healed enough that they couldn't stitch the wound. To contain the healing enzymes apparently, the honey should be unpasteurized.

Here, they are smoking the bees to make them dozy and less likely to sting while they remove the supers in preparation for extracting the honey from the frames. This is at the end of the summer, so the hives will die out after this. It was not worthwhile keeping the 2 hives over the winter, so Dad would buy two new swarms each spring. One year, the queen of one of the hives died, and to keep the hive from dying out, Dad ordered a new queen. It had to be put in with the workers within a few days. The queen was delivered by a man driving a big semi, but she came in a little box with wire screen sides, wooden ends, and with a honey plug in one end. The little box is put in with the workers in the hive, and normally they would kill a strange queen. But to get to her, they had to eat out the honey plug and by they time they got into her little box, her smell and theirs was mixed, and she was accepted. I loved the first honey of the season - came from apple blossom and dandelion!

Randomly posting

The Family Johansen-Robertson: We are legion!

My mother, Anne Freeman Robertson née Johansen, was the communicator in our immediate family. She wrote to relatives and friends all over the world, keeping the lines open. She passed away in 2011, at the age of 91 and 9 months. So the lines are starting to close now because my generation doesn't know those people, and we have nothing to say to them. Mum had her memories of them from her younger years, and the continuity of a shared history. She shredded all of her correspondence in the last few years of her life. I'm not sure why, but she got it into her head that this was private and should not "get out." Out where, I'm not sure. I could understand her shredding addresses, but she also did the letters themselves.

My brother, Jim, also likes to write letters rather than sending emails. It is becoming a lost art. I type faster than I write, so email is much easier for me.

Anyway, I inherited all of the family photos and all of the hundreds of slides she took over the years. I actually asked for them with the idea of scanning everything and sharing with the rest of the family on DVD. It has taken 2 years, but I'm finally starting the process. It is daunting, to say the least.

Here is a picture of the stack of photographs and slides I'm going through:

Photographs go back to my mother's childhood from the 1900's. I will not be posting in order, but as I find them, and if I think they are interesting. The slides started after we came to Canada in the early 1950's. There are many that I will not even be keeping, either because they are fuzzy, duplicates, or places and people I can't identify.

Mum was very much involved with the community of the village we lived in, Hemmingford, being part of the Women's Institute, the Church, played bridge once a week, belonged to a quilting group, etc. When we first moved to H'ford, she also was called upon to help because of her nursing background. Sitting with someone over night, for instance. She was also part of a volunteer group for a while that kept a watch on the seniors in the community who were living alone. Someone would call the people on their list and a pre-determined time, and if they didn't answer, someone would be sent out to their house to see if they were okay.  This was before "Life Line" and similar companies had electronic systems in place for seniors on their own. In a rural community, unless you have family close by who can check on an elderly relative, a person who falls, or has any kind of medical issue where they can't call for help, can be very serious.

Mum fell in love with quilting in the 70's and it really became a passion with her. She was quilting right up until she fell, broke her hip, and ended up in the hospital in 2010. 

I think this is a picture of the first quilt she ever worked on, but I'm not sure. She gave me it to me years later, when I had finally gotten a permanent job and a nice apartment, and had stopped flitting around the country.

The quilt is an appliquéd style, not pieced. The patterned blocks are the LeMoyne Star I think. It has a real cotton batting in it, not the more modern polyester one, so it is a real pain to wash. It weighs a ton when wet and takes forever to dry. It can't be put in the dryer because the centrifugal force in the dryer would make the batting ball up in between the stitching. I don't use it often because of that.