Morningside, AB
September 21, 1980
Dear Jean and Ron,
I’ve been meaning to write for several weeks now, but somehow the days seem to slip by quickly. It’s a month already since Mom passed away; that hardly seems possible. I’ve done very little about settling up her affairs, except to check with my lawyer here to confirm that the will need not be probated. There's a bit of a snag at the Credit Union, in that I opened the account in Mom’s name years ago, with myself as the signing authority by virtue of the general power of attorney that I held. That power of attorney lapsed on August 22nd, and the people at the CU are a little unsure about my signing authority now. They will have that resolved this week, after which I should be able to make a full accounting and settling up fairly quickly.
As for the special mattress and the grey arm chair at the Grandview, I gave them both to the hospital. They were pleased. The grey chair is in the main lounge area and gives it a little more homey, less institutional appearance.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Mom over the past couple of years, especially driving back and forth from Edmonton. I guess I had already been through her passing and her funeral a few dozen times before it really happened. I often wondered how I would remember her -- certainly not as the frail and disabled person I was visiting. I often wonder, too, if you would remember her the same way, Jean. I think we tend to look at things differently because of our different experiences, and I suppose that we each saw Mom in our own special way which may or may not be similar.
Mr. Mayfield’s reference to the Biblical Dorcas was an appropriate one. Grandma Thom (Mary Jane Bennett, only daughter of Dorcas Fee and Edward Bennett) could not have known in advance that Mom would be clever with her hands and have therefore chosen the name to describe her appropriately. Maybe instead it was more of a self-fulfilling prophecy, with her daughter gradually growing to fulfil the expectation of a Dorcas, skillful with her hands and selfless in her service to others. However it happened, there was a good match between the two Dorcases. That’s one way I’ll remember Mom -- always busy with her hands, always creative and imaginative, and always with someone else’s benefit in mind.
Dorcas is not a common name anymore, of course, but it used to be common in the Bennett’s. I’ve been sorting through all kinds of old clippings and pictures and things -- a process you and I began at the cedar chest a month ago -- and have come across lots of interesting things about Bennetts, Thoms, Hepburns and other old family names. I’ll be sending you a parcel of odds and ends one day soon, and will share the others when they’re organized a little more. One thing I’ve found, in the little book “The Bennetts of Lanark County” by Carol Austin Bennett, is that Dorcas is one of the very common names in the Bennett connection. It comes from Dorcas Fee, Mom’s “Grandma Bennett”, who was born in County Antrim in Ireland and was transplanted at an early age to the Ottawa Valley when her mother moved there.
I sometimes wonder about the transmission of characteristics from one generation to another. I’ll remember Mom for her endurance. She was tough. So also, it seems, were her Fee ancestors. Mary Harris Fee came to this country as a widow, with four young children to care for -- Dorcas, Elizabeth, Margaret, and James. She must have been made of tough stuff to have managed as she did in the 1840s, to survive a potato famine and then make a new life in a new world, on her own.
I try to imagine Dorcas Fee growing up in Upper Canada Village, or something like it, and meeting Edward Bennett and marrying him. Then, with six children and a seventh coming, being widowed and having to manage on her own, just as her mother had done. I have some hazy recollections of things Mom told me about her Grandma Bennett, but not much. She must have had some of her mother’s toughness, though, because she raised her seven children without benefit of social allowance or widow’s pension. Raised them well, too, giving each son a homesite close to her own home. I remember Mom talking about Grandma Bennett’s garden, and about work days when children and grandchildren helped put up the winter’s wood supply for Grandma Bennett. I found the newspaper obituary marking her death -- a copy is attached. It’s interesting to note how she is describe -- “of a kind and generous disposition, a true friend and neighbour in time of sickness and trouble, Mrs. Bennett was most highly esteemed by a very wide circle of friends...” Besides toughness and durability, these are the other characteristics that Mom had in ample quantity.
Her second youngest, Mary Jane Bennett, our grandma, grew up in the Ottawa Valley and at some point met George Nielson Thom. Mom told me that he was born at Paisley, Ontario to Scottish-born parents, Katie Sinclair of Edinborough and William Thom of Glasgow. Paisley seems an awfully long way from Carleton Place, and I don’t have any idea how Geroge came to be there. Perhaps he found someone there who would teach him the grocery and dry goods trade which I think he followed until he got his heart’s desire -- his poultry farm -- in Burnaby. Anyway, in Almonte and Carleton Place and Smith’s Falls, and later in Regina (the house on Athol Street) Mary Jane and George Thom raised five children, the middle one being Dorcas Elizabeth, named after her Grandma and an aunt.
I don’t remember much about our Grandma Thom. I was eight, I think, when she died, and the only occasion when I really remember seeing much of her was at the golden wedding celebrations in Burnaby, in 1936, I believe, when I was only five. But from those hazy memories, from things Mom said, and from some remaining poems and pictures and scrapbooks, I have a mental image of her.She, too, was clever with her hands. I think that arthritis kept her from sewing very much, but it didn’t keep her from crocheting and tatting. Probably my strongest memory is of her doing handwork. She was troubled for years with diabetes, and was particularly cautious therefore during her third pregnancy about her diet -- probably one of her own design, for she was a great self-medicator. It may have got her safely through her pregnancy, but it could well have been protein-deficient enough to have adversely affected her baby. Certainly, Mom had her share of neurological and developmental problems. Apparently the pregnancy also miraculously cured the diabetes, so that Grandma and Grampa must have been doubly pleased at Mom’s arrival - a new daughter, and the end of a diabetic affliction.
What I remember about Grandma Thom’s illnesses is that they never stopped her. When her hands were too crippled to sew, she could crochet. When she was bed-ridden or severely restricted in her activities, she would help her children by making picture books for them. You have one or two of her scrapbooks, I think. She kept up regular correspondence with her children, followed the progress of each grandchild, and wrote poems to mark each special occasion. She lived her life for her children. She was stoic: she might know suffering, but she would bear it quietly. It seems to me that Mom had all these qualities, too.
Mom didn’t have a very promising beginning. She wasn’t robust, and had nervous problems all her life. I remember being embarrassed by her facial tics when I was an adolescent. It’s amazing, isn't it, how preoccupied you can be with physical normality at that age. It takes a while to learn just how little of a person that really matters rests in the body. When she was still little, she was threatened with a spinal deformity which the physicians could not cure. She underwent chiropractic treatment then, and for the rest of her life, and the curvature was corrected. Because of her frailty, and because she could be helpful at home, her school career was terminated early, after three years, I think. But although as Mr. Mayfield said, she was not well-school, she was nevertheless well-educated. I remember on more than one occasion being impressed by her problem-solving skills. My years of schooling outnumber hers by six times or so, but she would be able to compute in her head and see solutions to problems while I was still trying to formulate the question.
In spite of her inauspicioius beginning, she grew up and married, raised three children, and in her 83 years knew ten grandchildren. In those 83 years she showed the same qualities of strength, determination, helpfulness, selflessness, and concern and caring that her mother and grandmother must have had. She also showed their ability to withstand stress and suffering.
I think she had other characteristics that I’ll remember, too. Maybe some of the are from the Thom side of the family, too. For instance, she was a talker. Maybe “visitor” is a better word for it. Tony Poulton, who married one of Gordon Thom’s girls, I think, remarked to us once, after he had visited with Mom for an evening, that she certainly was a Thoms and the Thom’s loved to visit. Great talkers. Perhaps Mom knew, as I have discovered perhaps too late, that frequent recounting of events strengthens our memory of them and helps to retain an accurate oral history. Failure to recount them hastens their disappearance. My recollection of events is often poor, but Mom remembered. She knew her family history and her family ties well. When Carol Bennett was compiling her family history about the Bennetts of Lanrka County, it was Mom - removed from there by fifty years and 3000 miles - who could provide missing details.
Besides being a talker, she was a listener. So many people -- your friends, Joyce’s friends, my friends -- found help and strength in talking to her. She knew how to listen creatively. Even when she was bedridden and not really able to communicate very well, friends would come to visit and go away feeling better for it. Even hospital staff would ask for permission to look after her.
She was patient. I have tried to remember a time when she was hostile, but I can’t. I can remember times when she would “put her foot down”, firmly, and lay down the law in clear and unequivocal terms. When babysitting Gordon and Bruce, for instance, when they were about 4 and 3 -- they got into a bit of a squabble and wouldn’t get along. She plunked one of them onto the kitchen steps and one onto a chair, in neutral corners, and explained clearly the requirements for even getting down again. But with determination, not anger. I remember her telling me about the time she had to spank Joyce outside the Hudon’s Bay Store, or maybe only threatened to spank her. The event was rare enough to be noteworthy. A few times in more recent years she has expressed anger at Marshall Wells for treating Dad so shabbily, and even confided some anger at Dad for putting up with it, but I don’t remember her ever being in a rage. I can’t even really remember her shouting. Perhaps she couldn’t. The nearest I remember to shouting was her “hoo0hoo” to Mrs. McIntosh or someone a yard or two away down the lane.
I remember her as being strong, too, when Joyce died in 1944. Mom provided the strength for the rest of us. I remember her doing the ironing and other routine things, partly because they need to be done, but partly because she knew the importance of anchor points which familiar routines can provide when the whole world is coming apart. When Dad died in 1953, she took control of managing her life with the same quiet determination. When strokes took away her independence, she remained a strong personality. Even though she was dependent on others for almost everything, there was never any doubt that she was a person of great personal strength.
I don’t think that complaining was in her make-up. Even though she had plenty of reason to complain, it was a rare occasion when she would admit to pain or discomfort, or succumb even to the extent of taking a 222. She kept her emotional hurts to herself, too. She told me once about being in church, as a little girl, and overhearing some other child in another pew asking “What's the matter with that girl?” She was deeply hurt, and learned early what it felt like to be pointed at and criticized. Years later her unfortunate experience at the Eastern Star meeting must have brought back some unhappy memories. She could empathize with frailty, and would never knowling have hurt or belittled anyone, and to my knowledge never did.
That all sounds a bit too serious. I also remember Mom as being happy. Her fun was quiet fun. I don’t think she was a singer, and not much for games. But she was witty and conversational and enjoyed company. And she was good at arranging things so that other people could enjoy themselves. I guess I see her more as a facilitator of other people’s enjoyment than an active participant. Her enjoyment came from seeing others enjoying themselves, and of course from the planning and the organizing. Is that how you saw things too?
I suppose the list could go on. The more I think about things I remember, the more things I remember. I know that the Mom we knew over the last few months was not the only Mom I’ll remember. Most of all I’ll remember her as a warm and supportive and loving person, which is probably just the way you will, too. I’m enclosing a little poem which I have from a friend. My first reaction to it was a little negative, but on reflection I realized how appropriate it was. I hope you like it, too.
One other thing that Mom did was to keep us in touch with each other. Your visits and your letters to her were visits and letters to us as well. I hope that doesn’t stop. The Hepburn side of our family was very poor at keeping in touch. I hope we can be more like the Thoms in that respect.
Hope you are all well. Keep in touch.
Love,
Don
The Stump Is Not The Tombstone
The stump is not the tombstone for the tree.
It marks the birth, and celebrates the living.
Rather than points to where life used to be,
Providing now another kind of giving.
What once held root to timber, earth to sky,
Has now become the summer beetle’s grotto,
The chipmunk’s hide-and-seek. The butterfly
Brings signature to this old woodland’s motto:
“There is no waste in nature, every cell
Recycles to produce another treasure.”
May we, like this aged tree stump, do as well
When our diminished height the flowers measure
Someone may live in deeds we leave behind,
However unrecorded and unsigned.
