Memoirs & Memories

One of the first things that I recall distinctly was a day in late August or early September of 1881, when I was three years old. That was long remembered in the Crown Hill community, outside Barrie in southern Ontario, as Red Monday. There were bush fires all about: though the pioneer days were long past, farmers were still clearning land. There was fire in the swamp at the back of our place that had come over the line from a neighbour's, and the men were all back there fighting it. We could see the flames as occasionally an evergreen flared up. The air was full of smoke, and the sun shone through like a dim copper ball. Then, in the middle of the afternoon, it suddenly got dark as night, so dark that we had coal-oil lamps lit in the house. One neighbour woman came running, crying out the at the end of the world was here and the world was burning up: for hadn't Old Mother Shipton prophesied that in eighteen hundred and eighty-one the end of the world should surely come? My Aunt Bessie, my father's sister, made her a cup of tea and talked to her and sent her home more cheerful than when she came. Aunt Bessie was always a mother to me, and she had a true mother's heart. We learned later that the smoke which caused the unnatural darkness came from fires over in northern Michigan.

I remember also being awakened one morning before dawn and being taken in nightgown to the south end of the verahday to see the comet. I can see it yet, when I close my eyes: the star-lit sky and the great comet, just over the crabapple free in the garden, with its bight head pointed toward the north, its tail stretching across the sky to the south in a great arc. When I began preparing the material for this book, my picture of the comet was so vivid that I almost doubted its accuracy, so I wrote to the Observatory at Aurora describing the comet just as I remembered it. In reply I got a letter and a book which wholly confirmed my memory: it was the Great Comet of 1881 which appeared in the eastern sky just before dawn on October 18, 19 and 20. That was the only real comet I ever saw. I have seen comets since of course, but they were poor affairs — just nebulous blotches of light barely worth remembering. The crabapple tree still stands on the old Drury farmstead but the years have taken their toll of it, as they have of me. My granddaughters sometimes talk of having it cut down, but I rather hope if won't be done as long as I am around.

In the 1830's two houses were built on the Drury property in Crown Hill. The one on the south half of Lot 12 (Thomas) was built of brick and the one on the North half (Richard) was built with planks on end, a construction which later proved useful as the house was slow to burn. I was told that the brick house was much colder than the frame house, important when wood had to be cut by hand.

The brick house was replaced in the late 1880's by Charles and his second wife. This is the house that still is the home of Bob and Laura. E C's mother died at his birth and he was raised by a Maiden Aunt Elizabeth (Lizzy) and Uncle William in the frame house. It was from this house that E.C. went to school and to the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph On. As an example of E.C.'s forward thinking he put an aluminum roof on the house somewhere in the 1940's that still is very serviceable 80 Years later.

The frame house later was used for housing help until Mae and Carl Drury were married in 1934. The house was renovated then because it was 100 years old. Apparently in the spring of 1942 when I was 3, the house was struck by lightning. Some work was done on the wiring but because of the war not enough was done to repair the damage. Later in May (in the very early morning) the house started to burn. Mae had to go next door to use the phone. In those days, there was not an available fire brigade, so a general ring notified the neighbours of a fire, and since it was very early in the morning everyone had yet to start work. Most of the material in the house was able to be removed. For example, the doors came off and were used in the new house. Apparently two men (one who was very unsteady) carried the full china cabinet out with only two things broken. I also remember hearing my father saying what a fool he was because he was in the basement handing out fruit jars with cinders falling around him.

I was three but have some memories of the fire. One was standing in the driveway and looking in the kitchen door to see flames coming from the center of the floor. The men stood in a group on the driveway close to the house and the women were under a tree at the end of the garden. I also remember later when the old fireplace was being demolished seeing centipedes being disturbed.

The replacement house was built on part of the old foundation. For ten years there was not enough money to brick the house, so it was covered in tarpaper. My father (Carl) died in 1962 and my mother (Mae) lived there until she built a house just to the north in 1970. In 1971 my wife Nancy and I started to live in the house and raised our two boys Craig and Chris. We added a family room in 1995 (after the boys moved out) and moved to Mother's house in 2007.

My son, Craig and his wife Sandie now live in the house and in 2018 did a complete renovation but still have parts of the old foundation installed in 1834 holding the house up today. They have also used boards and doorknobs from the original Frame House as part of the restoration.

Charles, Elaine (Laine) and I had a very happy childhood on this farm. As kids, we played with Billy and Ella (Harold and Marion's kids). Our parents were happy and jolly. We had city visitors and neighbours dropping in very frequently. We loved the visits of Aunt Peggy and Uncle Var who were extremely jolly.

We had duties like some house work (which I hated) and a lot of grass cutting and garden work. In the summer, Laine and I took turns getting the cows at night. They were often way back in the pasture. One time a thunder storm came up while I was getting them at the back. I was crying and nervous of the bad thunder, but soon saw a blue car with Mom driving and coming for me. I felt very loved.

Because our parents couldn't swim they insisted that we take swimming lessons, usually in Shanty Bay. Mom would drive us for our lessons in the morning. Frequently after the chores were done in the evening, Dad drove us all to the water to swim. Laine and I were born in 1943. At that time, University students were encouraged to help on farms in the summer. Mom and Dad had two fun summers as Joan Cottrel came to help with these babies. Joan was Dad's cousin and she had fun times with the other kids in the community.

I have been on time all of my life as Dad insisted that we were at the road when getting a ride with anyone. Laine and I played on the school teams after school for practise and Dad drove in before dinner to pick us up. It was about a 15 minute drive one way. Our grandfather E.C., came for lunch on Sundays which we loved. We also loved driving with him. He had a fabulous loud laugh. He also introduced his Granddaughters as one of his favourites.

Laine and I both had our wedding receptions on the lawns at home.

I am the youngest of the Drury grandchildren. My Grandad, E.C. Drury, passed away when I was 13. I was raised on the family dairy farm in Crown Hill, and loved all the animals. I would spend hours in the barn with my father, playing with the calves, dogs, cats and my pony, Patches. We also had pigs, chickens and a lamb named Bimbo. I remember Mom bringing baby pigs into the kitchen and putting them in a box by the wood stove to keep them warm. One day Dad brought my pony, Patches, into the house. Needless to say Mom freaked out a little bit. I can still hear Dad giggling. Grandad was in a wheelchair in his later years and our budgie, Joey, would fly upstairs and sit on his head. We would go to Barrie to visit my Aunt Beth and Uncle Howell, and I remember she always had cats or kittens in her back shed.

I was so fortunate to have had such a wonderful childhood.

I'm not sure which month but I would think late June or early July. We were in Granddad's 1938 Chev 2 door coupe, I would be 7 or 8 years old. I was totally in awe with travelling that far with my Granddad. It seemed like we had traveled what seemed to me a long time north on Hwy. 93, to the 15/16 side road (1 mile) (at that time hwy. 93 was a gravel road with lots of potholes) to the first concession which backed onto the farm, it is so amazing how a young mind sees things.

Our purpose of the trip was to pick elderberries, which are a small black fruit which grows on a small brush like plant. The actual berries are deep purple or almost black about the size of an undersized pea. They grow on a small branch in a cluster. We had to push aside brush to get at the berries. Picking the berries was a tedious job, I can remember Granddad encouraging me to keep picking, because the reward of Mom making a delicious elderberry pie was well worth the time it would take to pick a couple of 6 quart baskets of the berries. Once we had filled our baskets we returned to the house and we had to separate the berries from the clusters. This seemed to take forever, but Granddad was always upbeat about the job and our reward. I can still see the baskets of elderberries in the back of the chev coupe.

My second memory (about 1958–9) when I was 9 or 10, again in the 38 Chev driving back the laneway and Granddad showing me how to drive the car (by that age on the farm you where quite capable of driving tractors so driving the car came fairly easy) the steering wheel seemed so big and the gear shift was as I remember long and wiggly. I could barely see over the steering wheel so Granddad had a cushion for me. I remember Granddad encouraging me to go faster and we actually made it up to second gear.

Granddad did not watch much TV although he had his favorites on Sunday nights at 8:00 was the Ed Sullivan show (Granddad was quite critical of some of the acts, ex. The Beatles and Elvis) overall he enjoyed the varied talented artist. The next show was Bonanza at 9:00–10:00, that was as late as Granddad ever stayed up.

As a young teenager 13–14, I remember, Granddad having more troubles making it up the stairs to his bedroom, therefore Bill and I took turns helping him up the stairs with his wheel chair, at first we walked beside him holding his arm and later we actually pulled him up the stairs in the wheelchair, which was none too easy because Granddad was still a solid man.

And then there was an evening in Aug. 1963 about 9:00 PM, Howard Partridge had just finished combining some of our grain and we were blowing the straw into the mow. Dad, Bill and I had just come in from the barn anxious to have a shower after being in the dusty grain and straw all day, when Granddad as always was monitoring the farm from the upstairs window at the end of the hall and he hollered, "Boys, boys, the barn is on fire." I can still hear him today when I think about the events of that day.

I think it was about the same year that Uncle Carl passed 1962 when I was 13. Our bathroom up stairs, the one and only bathroom at the time was quite small, however it had an old tub and a small steel lined shower about 3'x3' with a door that swung in and the taps were behind the door. Jim and I shared the room next to the bathroom, the stovepipes came through the bathroom and into our room where they connected to the brick chimney; the walls were not very sound proof. Granddad was an early to bed, early to rise person all his life and he always started his day at about 5:00 AM with a shower.

I remember being woken by Granddad screaming, "Help, help." I jumped out of bed in my skivvies, ran into the bathroom where Granddad had accidentally turned the hot water on after he got into the shower and could not turn around to reach the taps to turn them off, he was being scalded. Thank goodness the shower walls did not extend to the ceiling there was just enough room for a skinny 13 year old to scale over the top of the shower and squeeze down beside Granddad and turn the water off. I scraped myself going over that old steel shower wall but was none the worse for the ordeal and Granddad was not too badly burned.

A memory that has always been in the forefront of my mind is how Granddad lived and died. I can remember when Granddad was down and not feeling great he would talk about the love of his life Ella and how he wished he could join her in Heaven. However when in the throes of death, which happened several times in his final years, he clung to life with all his will and might. I know that in the final hours he was happy to be on his journey to meet with Ella.

Elaine (Drury) Bigelow. Unfortunately, Elaine passed in the spring of 2018 with Parkinson's Disease. As close as our family is we sure miss Elaine, Lainy, Laine, Aunt Elaine as part of our family dinners and other events. Her husband Ted Bigelow has been very busy doing "retired" things including community work at St. Thomas Church, The Shanty Bay Village Green and finishing a book on Shanty Bay. Currently he is walking literally through Portugal and Spain on the Camino Trail.

Her son Jodi and Mireille live in Chelsea Quebec on the shores of the Ottawa River with their two children Zack and Eva. Jodi is teaching and running a business called Paddlefit which sells Paddle Boards and does fitness training on the Boards. Mireille works in IT at the City of Gatineau and is also very physically active. The kids are busy at school, fully bilingual and are active in all kinds of sports.

Her daughter, Gibby and Ron live in Ottawa by Lansdown Park on the Rideau River. Gibby is an Accountant working for the Federal Government and currently has a posting with the Department of Defense. Ron is a Financial Planner working for Scotia Bank in the Ottawa area. Their kids, Reagan and Darrin, are very active playing all kinds of sports including skiing and rugby to name a few.

Marg Drury lives in Barrie on Blake St. and is very active hiking (with cousins Jim and Kim Drury) with the Ganaraska Hiking Club as well as numerous European biking trips with friends. She also is spending time in Waterloo and Kimberly BC spending time with her grandchildren. Her son Jamie and Ilo live in Kimberly BC with Embry their daughter. Jamie is a helicopter pilot working for a company in Kenora Ont flying into Northern Ontario. He is away a lot but when he is home he enjoys snowmobiling in the mountains and skiing with Embry and Ilo at the Kimberly Ski Resort. Ilo works at the Kimberly Rec Center. Her other son, Andy lives in Waterloo with his wife Diana and two kids Logan and Ella. Andy works in the Tech industry in the Waterloo region. Diana as a busy Mom is also involved volunteering in the community. They all ski through the winter as well as lots of other activities with young children.

Charles Drury. Charles and Nancy are living on the farm still and are very busy with volunteer work including two trips every day into Grove Park Home to help feed residents that can't do it themselves. They are still busy gardening and enjoying their 4 grandchildren and just recently 1 great grandchild.

Craig and Sandie live on the family farm as well, just completing a large renovation of the old Carl and Mae house. Craig works for Vermeer Canada as a VP of Operations and Sandie is working in the Homecare Business with a company called Paramed. Sarah, their oldest, is married living in Tavistock with her husband Nathan Ropp and their new daughter Paisley. Nathan works in the family business in Horse Tack. Ryan is completing his degree at the University of Guelph in Agriculture and Food Business.

His other son, Chris and Elaine live in Midhurst with their two daughters Paige and Brooke. Chris is working for Bell managing large accounts for their Video Conferencing needs. Elaine is busy managing the two girls active schedule at school and numerous activities outside of school. They ski at the Heights of Horseshoe in the Winter in ski racing programs and love their trailer and other travel in the summer.

My mother boarded with the Drury's from 1934–1945 during which time she taught school in Crown Hill. It was during that time that she met my father who was working at the Rix farm. It's hard to believe that in 1945 female teachers were not allowed to teach if married hence her retirement.

The Drury's have always been like family to us as is evidenced by the fact that the lot where Dad and Mom built the house we live in to this day was severed from the Drury Farm.

Congratulations for 200 years and thank you for being more than just neighbours to the Thompsons.

Those who know me also know my Dad passed when I was 16. Being an only child this was a particularly tough time for me and I want to say thanks to three Drury's that were a big comfort and help at that time to get through it. I talked a lot to Mae, Bill and Charles and just the conversations about whatever made a big difference and got my mind off things and back on track. Thank you so much.

We sat at the same table, ate the same food and slept in the same house. He was Grandad to me, however to many others he was known as EC.

Ernest Charles Drury, premier of Ontario from 1919–1923, was my grandfather. For the first 21 years of my life, we were constantly doing things together on the "Drury" farm. Under his strict instructions, the vegetable garden was planted in very straight long rows. He would have me build small hothouses to give the tomatoes an early start. While I was still an underaged driver, he let me drive his 38 Chev Coup back the laneway to bring the cows to the barn for evening milking. Often, he would drive that car at 50 mph around the side roads showing and teaching me where to find the best leaks, morels and elderberries. As he was driving, up and over the hills of Oro, he sang this song in his very loud voice, "The Bear Went Over the Mountain."

During one Fall when Grandad was about 10 years of age, he and a friend were inside the barn throwing rocks at the pigeons. His special egg shaped rock got lost in the stored sheaves. On the day of thrashing, Grandad was worried that the rock could cause friction and start a fire or damage the thrashing machine. He sat next to the steam engine to listen for the rock. And… the rock was thrown out of the machine, rolled down the gangway and landed near where he was sitting. That special rock now had a chunk out of it. Grandad keep that rock all his life and it sat on the fireplace mantel.

Grandad never backed down when a challenge was presented. Some people called him stubborn. On a winter day in the 1920's, Grandad was speaking to a group of farmers in Penetanguishene. Highway 93 was closed to cars due to bad snow conditions. Determined to get home, he snowshoes home to Crown Hill. That would have taken 12–15 hours.

Grandad was Sheriff in Barrie for 25 years. One event had a long lasting depressing effect on him. A young native boy was found guilty of killing a man. Grandad's role as sheriff was to watch the hanging procedure. This is also known as the last hanging in Barrie.

Grandad read newspapers, political and history books, Shakespeare, poetry and probably comics too. His love of books lead him to give books as gifts. I still have the dictionary that he gave me in 1958.

As I got older, so did Grandad. My farm chores increased, his decreased. Grandad still read a lot, however, now he was writing books and being interviewed by radio announcers and others who wanted to record his life.

I am thankful to have had those years with my grandad beside me and also thankful to all the people who wrote about his accomplishments. As a child, I didn't pay much attention to the political part of his life because to me, EC Drury was "Grandad."

These are my memories of the many Christmases that I have celebrated over my long life. They have all been happy ones. I would think I remember from when I was five or six years of age, perhaps younger, when Varley — the brother two years older than I — would be the one who always woke up first on Christmas morning and burst in to waken my sister Mabel and myself. I can't remember Carl, my oldest brother, joining us — I suppose he felt too grown up to partake in this Christmas ritual. The whole house would be warm and cozy — at that time it was heated by a wonderful big furnace that burned logs. We would race down the front stairs to the living room, always the warmest room, where our stockings were hung in front of the fireplace. The grown-ups didn't hang their stockings up, and we didn't waken them when we rushed down to see what Santa Claus had left for us in our stockings. There would be one gift beside the stocking and the stocking itself would be stuffed with a large orange, several handfuls of nuts in the shell and candies. After a time, when we had enjoyed some candies and nuts, we would take our gifts upstairs to show our parents. Lunch for Santa was always a glass of milk and a mince tart, which we had carefully put on one of the chairs the night before. The glass was always empty and the mince tart gone in the morning.

A gift I received from Santa one Christmas was a little sleigh, with a rope attached to a metal ring which went through a hole at the front of the runner on each side. On the morning I received this little sleigh by my stocking, Carl pulled me on it to my Partridge cousins to show them — probably before breakfast. To clear the route my brothers used a little snowplough, made from two fairly heavy pieces of lumber stood on their sides and held together at the front and spreading out towards the back in a V shape. They would pull this little plough, weighted with a good-sized stone, and it made a usable little path. On one of the earliest Christmases I remember Dad frantically working to finish a doll's cradle which he was making for Mabel. He did finish it, though only on the eve before Christmas. It was a good size — some three feet long and made of stout wood nailed very securely. The rockers were rounded, of course, and it was painted white. Mabel played with it for some years. It is hopefully around someplace still. Mabel was a natural little mother and had several dolls — one a really beautiful Eaton doll I think, with changes of clothes.

From the year I was eight (1918) till I was twenty (1930), we spent Christmas dinner and the exchanging of gifts with our cousins, the Partridges. The parents — Uncle Welly and Aunt Emma (my mother's sister) — had eight children, some of them the approximate age of us. With this family of cousins and our family of five children, already there were seventeen people to be seated. Almost always another sister of my mother, Aunt Clara, and her husband joined us. Some years Aunt Velma and Uncle Roy, my mother's brother, and their family also joined us for dinner and the tree. The tree was of course a beautiful one, as there were many suitable trees in the bush from which to pick one. My Dad thought the balsam was the correct tree to have. The balsam tree was scarcer than the spruce and so I think most houses would have a spruce tree. I never went on these expeditions to the bush to get the tree. It seemed to be a father-son adventure. The bush was at the back of a mile and a quarter farm. We didn't set the tree up in the house until several days before Christmas. The decorations to be put on the tree were sparse by today's standards, but we thought the result was beautiful. There would be strands of tinsel wrapped loosely around the tree at different levels, perhaps some red rope also wrapped around the tree, and a few baubles. One year my mother brought home a small box of artificial snow. It was shiny, white little flat flakes which we excitedly sprinkled a little of on the boughs of the tree. There was no electricity through the country neighbourhoods or farm areas in those days, so there were no strings of electric lights to put on the trees. But when I was about ten (1920) my Dad had installed a Delco system of electricity and the house was wired. The Delco engine and two rows of batteries were installed in the large summer kitchen, and a noisy engine it was. I seem to remember wishing we still just had the coal oil lamps, of course not thinking how much more pleasant it must have made life for my Mother. At any rate we didn't have lights for the tree, nor ever thought of it I'm sure. Instead there were small candles held in light metal holders with a snap on clamp, attached on branches evenly all over the tree. These were not lit until shortly before we gathered, sitting around the tree, waiting for Santa Claus to come and distribute the gifts.

For some years at our house the tree was set up in the front hall, which was a medium-sized square room with a wide staircase which turned twice making two landings. The tree must have been very tall as it extended up past the middle flight of stairs. We loved to reach through the banisters to touch the boughs and place some of the smaller gifts on them. Iro, the oldest of our Partridge cousins, acted as Santa Claus and he did it very well indeed. He would come down the stairs Ho Ho-ing and jingle a string of cutter bells which were strung around him. There was always a red Santa Claus suit for him to wear, with a false beard. He didn't look like Iro. To us he was Santa Claus, though we surely knew it was Iro. Where the suit came from and who kept it all those years, I didn't think of then, or even know until this day.

We would all be sitting around the tree, spreading out into the front living-room on the one side of the hall, and the middle hall on the other. Opening up on these two walls of the front hall were double doors with bubbly glass in the upper half and these doors would be opened wide. Stella Partridge (the cousin my age) and I would always sit beside each other, and enjoy each other's opening of their gifts. Outside of our immediate family, I only exchanged a gift with Stella, Mabel with Minnie (who was her age) and my older brothers with Perce and Elmer, of approximately the same age. All of the gifts given within each family were also on or under the tree and were given out, so it took considerable time for all to be opened. It was done in a leisurely fashion, all of us enjoying seeing each other's gifts. My aunts and my Mother exchanged gifts and they received gifts from their families, but Dad and my uncles received very little. At the time this seemed to be the way it was. I gave it no thought and took little notice. Looking back now I know they were perfectly happy just to enjoy fellowship together for one evening of the year and to see their families happy.

I can vividly recall my older brothers and my male cousins, all teenagers, comparing and showing the ties they had been given. For the boys it seemed to be the ultimate to get a tie. They did receive other gifts but a new tie brightened up their good suits which they always wore when they got dressed up. Harold was just a little fellow at this time — he always just blended in and never gave any trouble. When they were younger, I remember my brothers receiving a "mechano set," made up of metal pieces to assemble into bridges and buildings. I recall there was a small engine fueled by some liquid fuel. For Christmas dinner the tables would be set up in a U or an L shape in the dining room, which was very large. White tablecloths would be spread on the tables. Usually we could all fit in one room. Decorations on the tables were as simple as on the tree — usually a red streamer running the length of the table. There were also little candy dishes with coloured candies and chocolates, which of course were the most coveted. Bowls of nuts were also on the tables. Always there was homemade maple cream or chocolate fudge, a specialty of my Partridge relatives.

The meal itself. The men did the carving. Usually a large turkey would be at one end of the table, two ducks at another and sometimes a large chicken. Bowls of vegetables were put on the table — always mashed potatoes and turnips and carrots. There was also cabbage salad — for which there would be no bought ready to use dressing. We made our own boiled dressing. About 1923 there had been an agricultural short course given in Barrie. Stella had taken this and she learned to make the Waldorf salad. This was a great favourite and she continued to make it for as long as we celebrated together. Red jello was also a great treat. Of course there bowls of gravy. Dessert consisted of mince tarts, Christmas cake and plum pudding. The mince tarts were made in the same style as I have done every year since my Mother died in 1931. The recipe was handed down in my Mother's family as all my aunts made them too.

After dinner we would play games on the dining tables — mostly we young people — such as dominos, tiddly-winks, checkers, croquinole, tumble-in, and the card game lost heir. To finish off the evening, around 10 p.m., we really enjoyed a game of "blind man's buff" in the kitchen. The farm kitchens were large, but always with a cook stove on one side wall. So the stove had to be blocked off by putting chairs around it, and the large kitchen table shoved against another wall. Then the person who was "it" was blindfolded by putting a man's handkerchief over his eyes, and tied at the back of his head. The blindfolded person then cavorts around, backwards and forwards and sideways, with the rest of us trying to keep out of his way. Eventually the "it" person would catch someone, and they in turn would be "it." It was good exercise, and we younger ones really enjoyed this game. Uncle Welly was a small, agile man. I can still see him darting around the room so quickly.