Family

Letters from the past, final installment

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As I continue to read through the letters from my father’s university classmates, I feel as though I’m getting to know some of “the boys” personally. They’re becoming real to me through the words they wrote more than 60 years ago!

I especially love John’s wacky sense of humour. Like many of “the boys”, he obviously enjoyed teasing my Dad about his height. Shortly after my oldest brother’s birth, he wrote “Congratulations Old Man! (Dad was all of 27 at the time.) Please share these best wishes with your wife. The few minutes of thought I have had time for since receiving your announcement have made me realize what a brave girl your wife is – why the chance that she might be the mother of an almost infinite length of child – I can almost see her wondering if when he leaves her for his first day of school if the roles will not be in the somewhat reversed position of CHILD looking lovingly down on her and patting her on the head. Ah! Well! since I was not able to get to your wedding and warn her of these things I suppose I must carry my guilt with me these long years.”

A few months later, Oz, who was by that time living on the island of Curacao in what was then known as the Netherlands West Indies, wrote “Our congratulations on your recent expansion from partnership to company. I know without asking that Don Jr. is the best six-month old baby that you have ever seen. When he gets to the walking stage, may I suggest a small weight on his head lest he have any notions of growing taller than his ‘old man.'”

As time went by, wives, children and family vacations began to crop up more and more often in the letters. In August 1951, Gordon wrote “The only ‘big’ news, at least from my point of view, is that I am going to be married at Christmas to a girl I met at Oxford. From your letter, I see that you and most of our classmates are miles ahead of me in this sort of activity but better late than never.”

In 1955, shortly after the birth of my younger sister, we moved into a waterfront house in Powell River. The beach became our playground and I could hear the sound of the surf from my bedroom window at night. My father must have shared this news with his classmates as John comments “The new house sounds most intriguing – view, beach, swimming in April – even if it is salt water. When we visit you I will join you in a dip as long as you can provide a good garden sprinkler to wash away the crystals of NaCl.” (They were chemical engineers, after all!) John and his family did make that promised visit but not until the summer of 1959. A letter written in April of that year fills my father in on their holiday plans. I vaguely remember a family with two children visiting us but I was only six and I didn’t recall who they were until I read this letter.

I’ve learned more about my father through these letters too. In September 1950, John congratulated him on achieving “the status of professional engineer – the first of Chem ’46 and the second of Science ’46, I believe – very good.” Dad didn’t talk much about his work while we were growing up so I was completely unaware of the fact that he published research papers but in August 1951, Gordon wrote “Congratulations on your publication. I can see that you are thriving in this Engineering business.” and a short note from Norm in 1958 says “Many thanks for your gift of a copy of your paper on groundwood from sawdust.” That shows how little I really know about my father’s work; I had to look up the meaning of the word, groundwood!

The final letter in the packet was written in January 1963, almost 17 years after my father and “the boys” graduated from UBC. Though letters became fewer and further between as years went by, I’m sure that some of them continued to correspond for many more years but those letters have been forever lost. How thankful I am that, as I sorted through everything in my parents’ apartment, this little pile of correspondence caught my eye and I decided to set it aside for a closer look when the job was done!

More letters from the past

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Though I’m not sure if I ever met him, I remember the unusual name Oz from my childhood days. His Italian surname had a musical ring to it. His early letters to my Dad were fascinating. On July 20, 1947, he wrote “I’m just writing a short note to tell you that I’m on the move again, this time to jolly old England. The okay to hire me came over last week and before I knew it, they had reservations for me on the Empress of Canada, sailing this Saturday. In case Dorothy didn’t mention it in her letter, its Shell Oil that I’m to work for. I’ll train for a year in England and then go out to various refineries in the far corners of the world. I think that I’ll enjoy the work because the more I learn about oil, the better I like it. We certainly have not enjoyed our brief stay in the ‘fair’ city of Toronto. In fact, our opinion of it is quite unprintable. Vancouver has grown in our estimation by leaps and bounds. We have decided to retire in Sechelt as there is obviously nowhere on earth half as nice. Dorothy is returning there now, because Shell has a nasty rule that says wives cannot accompany newly-hired husbands for approximately 3 months. Therefore we must part till about October. However, we decided that the job was worth a little inconvenience, so Dorothy leaves for home on Thursday.”

A second letter written from London two months later told of an upcoming move to a refinery near Liverpool and gave a fascinating glimpse into life in post war England. “One of the poor features was that Dorothy couldn’t come with me when I came over, but the company will bring her to me as soon as I get settled at the refinery, i.e. about the end of November if all goes smoothly. Actually, it’s just as well because it will give us a chance to get fully prepared for what will probably be a very tough winter. I keep Dorothy posted on all shortages here so that when she comes, she can bring along whatever can’t be obtained here, and believe me it makes a good-sized list. The clothing ration is pitifully small, and what one can get is poor quality and high priced. No doubt you’ve been reading about our crisis. It’s been going on for some time now without any noticeable improvement and from what I can see, the people here are in for a hell of a tough time for years to come.” All was not woe, however. He went on to say “In the meantime, I’m enjoying myself and making full use of my opportunity to be in a huge place like London, although so far its the country around L that has impressed me most. You just can’t imagine the orderly beauty of it.”

Comments about my father’s love life continued to crop up in the letters from his classmates. In December 1947, Gordon wrote “You probably also know that the Dowdings now have a son. This sort of thing will probably become more frequent now.” and a little later in the letter, “Furthermore, how deep are your roots in Powell River now? Nobody is supposed to be able to stay single there that long you know.”

The letters provide other glimpses into my father’s life before I knew him. In February 1948, Rhys wrote “You really seem to be enjoying things. I can just see Skip Stewart at the helm putting up and down the coast – god it sounds interesting.” Some of my earliest memories are of being out on my father’s boat. In the early days of their marriage, my parents spent lots of time touring the coast on it but they sold it when I was about six. By that time, the family had grown to include four children and there wasn’t time or money to keep it up.

I laughed out loud when I read the opening of John’s letter to my father written on October 25, 1948, less than a month before my parents’ wedding. You may remember that it was John who threatened to sue my father if he left his bachelor state behind. “Goodbye forever! Donald Stewart, Bachelor of Applied Science. Welcome! Donald Stewart, married and in Enforced Silence. Seriously – Congratulations old man. I am very happy for you.” He went on to express his regret that he would not be able to get time off work to attend the wedding and act as my father’s best man. Another classmate, who was also working in Powell River at the time, took his place.

Over a year went by before the next letter arrived. “The boys” were obviously settling into their careers. Some were marrying and starting families. Regular contact with their university buddies began to dwindle but I do know that Dad kept in touch with a few of them for many, many years and that he attended a reunion of his few remaining classmates last year.

This seems like a good place to take a break as there are other things I must attend to around here but there are still more than a dozen letters to be read so you can expect a final installment sometime soon!

Letters from the past

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Among the many interesting and strange things that we found as we cleaned out my parents’ apartment in Vancouver was a little pile of handwritten letters addressed to my father. The earliest ones dated back to 1946, the year he graduated from the University of British Columbia as a chemical engineer and moved to Powell River to begin his career working in the research lab at the local pulp and paper mill.

stampI first decided to keep the letters because I knew that the postage stamps would interest my brother, an avid stamp collector. Many of them are 4 cent stamps bearing the image of King George VI. Later letters, written in the 1950s, bear 5 cent stamps with the picture of a very young Queen Elizabeth II on them. A few, written on thin air mail paper, have foreign stamps.stamp 2

After looking at the stamps and the postmarked dates, I began to wonder about the letters themselves. Who wrote them? What did they say and what glimpses might they give of life in a different time? Some people might not approve of me reading my father’s mail but I couldn’t help myself!

This evening, I opened the first letter. “Dear Lofty,” it began. I hadn’t heard my father’s university nickname for years! As a six foot six inch bean pole, it suited him well. The letters started shortly after his college graduation and came from his classmates who had scattered across the country in search of employment. They were obviously a close knit group who referred to one another as “the boys”. They contain lots of job talk that only a fellow engineer would understand but in between there are fascinating glimpses into life in the late 1940s. Come along and snoop with me!

On June 2, 1946, George, who went to work at B.C. Plywoods in Vancouver, wrote “My salary will be $175 to start. ” On August 20, he wrote that the men in the plant were receiving raises as the result of a strike and his monthly salary was going up to $190. Others reported similar incomes. Of course, the cost of living was similarly low compared to today’s prices. On July 3, Rhys wrote from Hamilton, Ontario saying that he hoped to move to a cheaper boarding house soon. “At present I am paying $1.50 per day for room alone,” he complained.

In early August of that same year, Steve described the butyl (synthetic rubber) plant in Sarnia, Ontario where he landed a job doing research. “The plant is the real McCoy. It’s a 50 million dollar, 185 acre affair. It turns out about 1 000 000 pounds a month of various types of G.R.S. and is one of the 3 butyl plants in existence. It’s design and construction is the best, and you can get any equipment you want for research. The boys taking their Masters would be green with envy if they could see some of it. Control of temperature to 1/50 of a degree is commonplace, and absolutely essential in this field.”

John, who went to Trail, BC wrote, “I am in the Zinc Plant research lab on steady day shift with Saturday afternoon and Sundays off – the hours are 8 to 4:30 with lunch from 12 to 1.” In a later letter, he complained about “some guy from the Central Research who got his job by marrying the right person’s daughter.”

I chuckled when Rhys asked in his second letter, “How is your love life progressing? I hear Powell River is quite the place for an old wolf like you.” My father was 23 years old at the time and if I’m not mistaken, the letter was written the week he met my mother as it was dated October 30 and they met at a Halloween party!

Less than three months later another letter from John said, “Your statement about finding PR not so entirely devoid of young women as at first you thought has me worried – steady old man – who will be left in our bachelor league if you fail me now? You can’t do this to me, Stewart! I’ll sue you for breach of promise – that’s what I’ll do.” I wish John’s letters included his last name. I wonder if this is the same John who later built a cabin on the shore just north of Powell River; a cabin where we stayed several times and made many wonderful memories.

Not all of “the boys” wrote as intimately as John did. Though Norm wrote three pages all about his job at the Development Lab of the Paint and Varnish Division of CIL in Toronto, he slipped in just one sentence of a more personal nature. “About myself, I suppose you know that I was married on June 1st.” No details; not even her name!

Jim wrote a long and interesting letter shortly after the New Year. He was at the University of Toronto “instructing in Chemistry, first year general and second year organic.” He was working 19 hours a week for $180 a month and though he didn’t plan to stay there permanently, he clearly enjoyed what he was doing. “The organic lab is Home Ec – 60 girls!” he reported. I was surprised to learn that there were that many girls studying science in the 1940s.

In the same letter, writing about a visit to Princeton University, Jim says, “I also had the great pleasure of seeing (at very close quarters) our good friend Albert Einstein of Relativity fame. He looks just like his pictures. I recognized him first about two blocks away by the terrific halo of white hair.”

Jim clearly got around as he also wrote about a visit to New York, a city that obviously didn’t impress him. “What a complete nuthouse,” he wrote. “There’s no real life there, just pure existence if the taxis don’t hit you, and just pure existentialism if they do hit you. The civil engineers certainly had a heyday in putting New York together. What a city! Nothing but city! It cost me $1.20 to go to the top of the Empire State Building. Reminded me of being on Crown Mountain back home. The subways are an engineer’s nightmare, but still very efficient; you can disappear from sunlight all day for just 5 cents!”

There are 35 letters in all, carefully numbered in my father’s hand. Most of them were written in the late 1940s and early 1950s but the last one was postmarked January 4, 1963. It’s clearly going to take me more than one evening to sift through them all and more than one post to share their secrets. I hope you’ll come back for more!

What about Halloween?

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We went to church with a dinosaur this morning; a bright orange Tyrannosaurus Rex named Sam! To the left of us, there were two little pumpkins and to the right, a ladybug and a monkey. A spotted leopard sat in front of us and as I looked around the sanctuary I spotted a ballet dancer, a fireman, a pirate, and a clown. R2-D2 and Princess Leia were there too but there were no witches, ghosts or ghouls. “Let’s be more creative than that,” parents at Cap Church were told last Sunday when it was announced that the Cap kids could wear their Halloween costumes to church today.

Whether or not we should participate in Halloween has become a great debate within the Christian church. There is no doubt that the celebration has its roots in ancient pagan rites and superstitions and it’s also a holy day for those who practice Wicca, a modern religious cult that engages in witchcraft. For most people, however, Halloween is simply a secular day of fun. It has religious significance only to those who give it religious significance. To my mind, if some people feel uncomfortable participating in Halloween activities, then they should refrain from doing so but the rest of us should simply be discerning and avoid those activities that might detract from our Christian witness. It also behooves us to avoid judging those who make decisions different from our own.

Personally, I applaud the approach taken by Cap Church. In an article published in recent church bulletins, Pastor Emeritus, Paddy Ducklow, wrote about what he called “the issue of how our faith impacts our culture and neighbourhood, or how surrounding values harm our kids.” He wrote first of safety, urging parents to teach their children how to be safe in an unsafe world. He also advised them to show the closeness and care of God by being with their children. He encouraged Christian men to exhibit a “father’s heart” during a potentially scary time by going door to door with their children as they trick-or-treat. He recommended that parents use Halloween as an opportunity to help their children make righteous choices, staying away from images of witchcraft, death and violence. I especially appreciated his recommendation that parents make Halloween an opportunity to know and enjoy their neighbours. Rather than being aloof, avoiding contact with our neighbourhood on a night when many are out and about having fun, Halloween is a great opportunity to engage with them.

I would love to know where you stand on this contentious topic. If you do choose to comment, however, please show respect for those who express an opinion different from your own. I’d love to see a lively conversation develop but no personal attacks.

Taking a break

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After a mostly sleepless night worrying about how to deal with everything in my parents’ apartment, we decided to take a break today and go on an adventure with our grandsons, Sam and Nate.

Vancouver is enjoying a fabulous October so the drive up the Sea to Sky Highway to Britannia Beach was spectacular. The mine, which operated there from 1904 to 1974, was once the largest producer of copper in the British Empire and is now home to the fascinating Britannia Mine Museum. There the boys enjoyed panning for gold, riding a train into the depths of the mine and inspecting old machinery.

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Ready for the underground tour!

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IMG_3176_2   IMG_3179_2Sam was dwarfed by the wheel of the gigantic haul truck.

After exploring the museum, we stopped for a picnic lunch at Porteau Cove on our way back to the city. The sunshine sparkling on the ocean and the smell of the sea were good for my soul and probably good for my blood pressure too!

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Feeling somewhat rejuvenated, we’ll head back over to the apartment this evening to continue the work that still needs to be done there. Hopefully, I’ll have a better sleep tonight!

Why in the world did they keep THAT?

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This is without a doubt the funniest thing we’ve found while cleaning out my parents’ apartment! Do you have any idea what it is?

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In the winter of 1975-76, my father fell on the ice and broke his hip resulting in a partial hip replacement. The surgery wasn’t entirely successful and he endured many years of chronic pain before it was redone. This was his first prosthetic implant! I have absolutely no idea why he kept it but like many people of his generation, he had a hard time throwing things away. When my sister and brother were here a couple of weeks ago, they found income tax receipts dating back to 1948, the year my parents were married!

Needless to say, sorting through everything our parents accumulated over nine decades of life and 65 years of marriage has been somewhat overwhelming. It’s difficult not to get sidetracked as we sift through the memories. Dad’s extensive collection of Inuit art, purchased directly from the artists in the various northern communities that he traveled to during his years of working for the government of the Northwest Territories, already went back to Alberta with my siblings but we’ve found other bits of art that they obviously treasured too; cards and drawings made for them by now grown grandchildren and carefully kept all these years!

Reminders of their world travels are scattered throughout the apartment. Today I came across a list of the 66 countries that they visited written on the back of an envelope. I also found the itinerary for their tour of China taken almost 30 years ago, so similar to the trip we took just 3 months ago. The old slide projector and boxes full of slides also went home with my sister. I look forward to looking at their pictures and comparing their experience to our own.

Yes, it’s easy to become nostalgic and to get caught up in reminiscing but we’re working against a deadline here and I’m beginning to panic! The apartment has to be completely cleaned out by the end of the month and I have to be back in Alberta for a medical appointment on November 1. I also have a huge urge to clean out my own stuff when I get there! Otherwise, someday our children will be doing exactly what we’re doing now and asking the very same question:

Why in the world did they keep THAT?

What comes next?

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We finally have a respite, a break between medical appointments, and we’re going to be able to make the trip to Vancouver that was aborted six weeks ago when my doctor called to deliver the news that I have cancer! The nature of the trip will be a little different than it would have been back then though. There will be time for adventures with our grandsons, Sam and Nate, of course, but while I was undergoing all sorts of tests at the Cross Cancer Institute, my sister and brother were in Vancouver helping our 90 year old father move into an assisted living facility. They weren’t able to stay long enough to deal with everything in the apartment that had been my parents’ home for more than 25 years though so we will be sorting, packing, storing, selling and giving away; doing whatever needs to be done to have the place empty by the end of the month.

It will be very nice to have this break from all things related to cancer! This week has been about dealing with symptoms. Neuroendocrine tumours produce excess hormones that can have a variety of effects. In my case, these include painful stomach cramps, diarrhea, and high blood pressure. The hormones may also be responsible for the fact that my heart races occasionally. In addition, I’ve recently developed another common symptom known as flushing. If you’re talking to me and my face suddenly turns red, you haven’t embarrassed me or made me angry and no, I’m not menopausal. I’m too old for that! That’s just me flushing!

I had my first Sandostatin injection on Tuesday. It’s a slow release medication that’s supposed to suppress the production of these hormones and thus alleviate the symptoms. I pray that it’s effective and that I begin to see changes soon! In addition, my family doctor prescribed high blood pressure medication this morning and I’m walking around with a Holter Monitor dangling from my neck. The tiny battery operated monitor is attached to five electrodes that are stuck to my chest and it’s keeping track of my heart’s rhythm for a 24 hour period. Once I turn it in at the hospital tomorrow morning, I expect to be free of all things medical until Nov. 1!

Shortly after that, life is going to get crazy for awhile! I have my first radioisotope treatment on Nov. 8 and I will be so highly radioactive afterward that I will be isolated in a lead lined room until the following day! Once I’m home, I will have to live like a hermit until 14 days have passed but more about that in a future post. For now, I just want to enjoy my freedom!

First day at the Cross

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After finding our way from the parkade to the registration desk and being issued the red and white Cross Cancer Institute ID card that I’m supposed to show each time I enter the facility, we started our first day there with a new patient orientation session. In my mind’s eye, I had visualized us sitting in a classroom with several other brand new shocked and bewildered patients listening to someone give us an overview of how things work at the Cross. Instead, the two of us sat on a comfy couch in a cozy corner of the patient library and chatted with a volunteer, a colon cancer survivor who was treated at the Cross about 15 years ago. He shared a little of his own experience, told us about the services and resources that are available to patients and their families, gave us excellent suggestions about dealing with the practical and emotional challenges of living with cancer and encouraged us to take an active role in my care.

Of all the many volunteers who perform this service, God sent us Gar! About mid way through his presentation, while telling us about the psychosocial and spiritual resources that are available, he made this comment, “People have many different ways of dealing with cancer but I just put mine in the hands of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!” I replied with a resounding “Amen!” Gar was one of us and God had put him right where we needed him when we needed him there.

Following our chat, Gar took us on a tour of the facility making sure that he clearly pointed out the various places that I’d need to return to later. By the time we hugged and said good-bye, we felt much more at ease.

After a quick bite to eat, it was time for our first visit to the Nuclear Medicine department where I received my mIBG injection. This was the first of two injections of radioactive drugs that will aid in determining the extent to which my cancer has spread. Tomorrow, I’ll return for a full body scan, which will involve lying perfectly still for up to an hour, followed by the injection of the second drug.

A visit to the lab, where blood was taken, brought today’s appointments to an end. Over the four weeks since this journey started, I’ve been poked numerous times including three tries to get an IV started the day I had my colonoscopy. I must say that the gals at the Cross have been the gentlest so far. I hardly felt the two needles that entered my arms today!

Before we left the Cross this afternoon, we visited the gift shop where we stocked up on used books for $1.00 apiece and then headed out into the sunshine to find the geocache that’s hidden on the hospital property! It was placed there in April 2010 by a young geocacher who wanted to honour his twin sister, a breast cancer patient at the Cross.

I was pretty tired this afternoon, probably just a response to the emotional overload of getting this far, but after resting a bit and enjoying the first meal our youngest son has ever cooked for us, I’m recharged and ready to go back again tomorrow.

Two questions

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Whenever we arrive home from one of our overseas adventures, we face the same two questions and this time has been no exception.

  • Are you happy to be home?

My stock answer is “It’s always nice to come home!”

As much as I enjoyed China, I am happy to be back in Canada. We are so blessed and we take so much for granted here. I’m happy to be back where the air is clean. China burns roughly as much coal as the rest of the world combined and one of those smokestacks was practically outside our window. According to a recent study, pollution from burning coal has reduced the life expectancy of the 500 million people living in northern China by five years!

I’m very happy to have my kitchen back. Cooking on a single burner got old fast! I’m even happy to have extra people to cook for. We have a young family staying with us for a little while until their house is ready to move into.

Shopping at the street market was exciting at first but the novelty soon wore off and I’m happy to be wheeling my grocery cart through the aisles of my local grocery store again. I can read all the labels and I know where to find the things I want. Heck, I even know what everything is and I don’t have to look past the pig feet and the chicken feet to find the ground beef!

Of course, the best thing about any place is the people and we’re definitely happy to be closer to family and friends again. In fact, we already spent several days in Calgary with our daughter and her growing family last week. It was especially exciting for me to be able to accompany her to an ultrasound appointment where I got my first glimpse of our next grandchild! “Baby Pea”, so called because at just six week’s gestation he/she looked like a little pea with a heartbeat, is due in mid March.

And then there’s the other question…

  • What’s next?

People started asking this one before our suitcases were unpacked and we’d fully emerged from the fog of jet lag! The answer is simple… we have no idea!

We do have a couple of feelers out concerning possible short term mission opportunities but it’s far too soon to know if either of those will pan out. There’s a great big world out there and far too much of it that we haven’t seen yet so I’m sure we’ll figure it out. In the meantime, we’re off to Family Camp at Camp Harmattan next week where we’ll park the trailer beside the Little Red Deer River and enjoy a week of fun and fellowship. Then, toward the end of August, we’ll head for the BC coast where we’ll spend some time with my parents, our oldest son and our other set of grandchildren.

Home is a good place to come back to but as everyone in our small community knows, those DeBocks don’t stay home very long!

Shingles… but not the roofing kind!

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The itch came first followed by intense pain that had me pacing the floor at night. A quick online search confirmed what I was beginning to suspect; I had shingles! I was almost relieved last Sunday afternoon when the telltale rash finally appeared. Without it, there was nothing to show a doctor; no way to get a definite diagnosis and the medication I needed.

Within minutes of Wendy, one of our helpful office gals, typing the word shingles into her trusty translator on Monday morning, she and I were in a taxi and on our way to the Second Hospital of the Dalian Medical University. One glance at my rash was all the doctor needed to confirm my self diagnosis. He prescribed an anti viral medication as well as a vile smelling lotion to help with the itch and an antibiotic cream to use at night to prevent infection from setting in.

Shingles, or herpes zoster as it’s more formally known, is a reactivation of the virus that originally causes chicken pox. It had been lying dormant in my body for more than five decades waiting to spring into action again! Fortunately, unlike chicken pox, shingles usually affects only one area of the body, in my case a band extending around the left side of my torso at shoulder blade level.

I don’t actually remember having chicken pox. I was very young at the time but I do recall my mother talking about having three children sick with it at once; my older brother, my sister and I. My younger brother missed the first round of all the childhood diseases to hit our home and instead, made a habit of coming down with them when we were on holiday! I remember him having whooping cough in Dawson City, Yukon and mumps at our grandmother’s house. I believe that it was chicken pox that he had while we were camping on Galiano, one of BC’s beautiful gulf islands. I guess I must be following his example by coming down with shingles in China of all places!

Fortunately, I seem to have had a fairly mild case and I think I’m the mend. The blisters have burst and the rash is beginning to heal. The pain, now worst in the morning, eases off after awhile and is easily managed with Ibuprofen.

Though uncomfortable at times, I’ve been able to continue doing everything I needed to do. The blog’s silence this week has had more to do with the fact that I’ve been busy giving and marking final exams than with the fact that I’ve been suffering from shingles. My university classes came to an end this week and for the remainder of the month I’ll have only my students who are preparing to study abroad; just seven hours of teaching a week! No more classes at 8 o’clock on Saturday mornings and no more climbing the stairs to the sixth storey classroom! Even with shingles, life is good!