Welcome to Page 5 of Mom's Book
April 15, 1998 (Titanic…I always thought it was April 12)
Today is the 86th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The Hitchings family had a sort of connection with that tragedy, where over 1,500 people lost their lives. It goes like this:
Passage was reserved on the Titanic for half of the family to come to Canada from England. John Thomas Hitchings, sons Herbert and Gilbert, and daughters Edith and Gladys. When they reached the port they were told that the ship was overbooked and there was no room for them. It was a big disappointment. Passage was arranged for them on the next ship—and here is where there is some confusion in the stories. Grandpa Hitchings said they were on the sea when word reached them that the unsinkable Titanic had gone down with nearly all lives lost. However, Jack Paul, Gladys’s son, said he had done a little research and it seemed they could not have been on the water as the next ship to leave the port sailed two weeks later. No matter which is right—our family would not have existed if they had been on the Titanic. Mother Hitchings and the rest of the family, sons Wilson (Bill) and Wilfred and Daughter Grace, were not to come to Canada until 6 months later, and it is highly unlikely that they would have come at all if the rest of the family had been lost on the Titanic. So you see, there would have been no Bill here for me to marry!
As far as the apparent confusion in the stories goes—it is possible they sailed from another port, and so could have been on the water at the time, as Grandpa Hitchings said. If anyone is interested in following up on it, a few letters to the Port (Southampton, I think) might produce info from their old records. Now that I am into things about the Hitchings family, I will put down all I know about them, which really isn’t much. They were not a close family and nearly all the visiting that was done was at my instigation. They seldom, any of them, even came to visit us. I was not given much encouragement. Auntie Grace seemed to enjoy our visits but never returned them. Norm’s family did, because, as you older ones know, he was married to my sister Edith. I will list each, but no birth dates, only year where I know them.
FAMILY TREE – HITCHINGS
John Thomas Hitchings Married Edith Sarah Partridge about 1892 (I think)
Herbert Born about 1894 (He was 18 when he came to Canada)
Gilbert Born about 1896 (He was 16 when he came to Canada)
Edith Born about 1895 (She was around 14 or 15 as above)
Gladys (Married John Paul….Died with flu in 1918 probably about 20 years
Old. Left two children: John Paul, Jr. about 18 months old, and
A baby girl who also died with the flu at about 6 months.)
Grace Born in 1901 ( in England)
Wilson George (Bill) Born 1906, March 13, in England
Wilfred Born 1908 or 1909 in England
Norman Henley Born 1914 (May) In Canada
Herbert Married May, a widow with two little daughters, Esther and Georgina. Their children were: Murray, twins Wilma and Wilda, Elmer, Maisie, Phyllis and Clifton. I think that’s all.
Gilbert married my Aunt Clara (Mom’s sister) and they had seven children, George Born Feb. 1926, Laurena, April 1928, Jean, July 1930, Lawrence Aug 12. 1932, Geraldine, Sept 1934, Doreen, May 1937 and Irvin, January 1939.
There were several (5) marriages between our families as I mentioned. Auntie Clara was the first, with Gilbert, I second—Bill was the lucky man. Edith (my sister) Married Norman, the youngest of the first family. Then George, Gib’s oldest son, married Dorothy, (Kay’s daughter) and Lawrence married our sister, Janet. It would take all the rest of this book to list all the progeny of all these families, and since I don’t have all the information, I can’t even attempt it. Others are working on it.
While on the subject of the Hitchings family, there is a remote connection (Call it distant cousin) with Cleo Laine—the world famed jazz singer. Her mother was a Hitchings, believed to be 1st cousin of Grandpa Hitchings. She married a Jamaican man, about 71 or 72 years ago—that would be about 1926—and her parents disowned her. You see, it wasn’t done, in those days—an English girl marrying a black man. Cleo was the only child of that marriage, and see what the family lost. She has just been dubbed "Dame Cleo Laine" by the Queen for her work in the (October, 1997) music world. That’s the equivalent of being made a "Sir" for men. Cleo is 70 years old and at this date still going strong (April 19/98). Her husband, John Dankworth is a great musician and I think he deserves the honor (sir, that is) Just as much as Cleo and I hope the Queen will grant it. Princess Margaret is Cleo’s close friend. Anyway, when Cleo first came to Saskatoon, she sent word ahead that she knew or believed, there were some of her Hitchings relations here, and would like to meet them. Well, we found that she had even closer relatives in Punnichy. Arthur Charles Hitchings, Sr., was her mother’s brother. He was dead by then, but her cousin, A.C.Jr., Was still living. I wrote to him to let him know the date she would be in, but he didn’t come. We went to her concert, then we all went out for a late supper, and visited until about 1 am. They are great people, and we have been corresponding and meeting whenever she’s been here. David had the privilege of meeting her in Regina once. I sent a letter to her, as I had planned to be there at her concert, and was too sick to go. I asked David to drop the note off at her hotel, but he waited and gave it to her in person. She gave him a pair of tickets and an autographed program, and he had a nice visit with both, and then bragged to some pals about his cousin Cleo, etc.! He still has the program amongst his stuff. And he enjoyed the concert too. Now, back to where I left off in the Hitchings family marriages.
Edith Hitchings married Jim Thompson and they had a large family. Margaret, Mabel, Mary, Nora, Patricia and George, James and John (not in that order)---9 altogether. The only ones we ever really associated with were Margaret and Mildred, both were good friends, and Mabel sometimes. The others we very seldom met.
John Robert Paul was Gladys’s son, brought up by the Hitchings family after his mother died. His father married again and never even visited his little son, so the father was completely unknown.
Grace married Jack Ewen. They had John, Gordon, Angus, Gladys and Alex. John was killed in World War II, Gordon died with a heart attack at 48, and Alex was a blue baby who died at 11 years. Angus and Gladys are still living. Wilfred and his family are all gone.
Norman and Edith had 6 children—Ivan, Donald, Philip, Melvin, Laverne and Keith. Philip died with cancer at 9 years in 1953. I don’t need to write much about this family as you all know them well, and maybe some of you can puck up the later family history, for future generations.
Wilfred married a girl from New Brunswick, Beulah, and they had two daughters, Marlene and Lorraine. The family broke up. Wilfred and Beulah are both dead and we have lost track of the girls.
The rest of this book has been the chronicle of Wilson George’s family, so I do not need to put anything more in here. More will come as I think of it.
May, 10th, 1998
So now I am going to jump to the present day, which is Sunday, May 10th, 1998—Mother’s Day. It is now 4:00 P.M. and what a lovely day it is. I had a phone call telling me not to eat any lunch as Arthur and Gloria would be in at 1:00 P.M. Well, they came and along with Colleen and Neil, and Laurie and Emily. I think Ron was working night shift and so had to sleep. They brought Kentucky fried chicken, with all the trimmings, including a cheesecake for dessert. Colleen brought a beautifully decorated little stone box, which I am going to use for a jewelry box. Arthur and Gloria brought a picture of Gloria to fill the space on the wall opposite Arthur’s retirement photo, and a computer-made card. And 5-year old Emily brought me a lovely bouquet of dandelions and tiny daisies—first flowers of spring!
November 24, 1998
And now after a lovely story like that I am going way back—about 55 years into a near disaster story. It happened on January 25th, 1943.
It was about halfway through our years on the farm. It started out as a very cold crystal clear day with nothing in particular to do after the cows were milked and everything in the barn was fed and watered. We now had the luxury of a telephone and, about ten o’clock a call came through that was to change our day and nearly our lives. Norman, Bill’s brother, was married to Edith, my sister, who was in St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon, for the birth of their first son, Ivan. In those days, they kept mothers in bed for 10 days after the birth and this day was Edith’s day to go home. The phone call was from Norman asking us to go to the city, about a 7-mile drive, get Edith and Ivan out of the hospital and onto the CPR train to Asquith. For some forgotten reason, he could not make the trip himself. We did not really want to, but we had to—so, we bundled up our 2 little ones, David 2 ½ and Arthur 6 months, built a fire in our cosy covered cutter (a stripped down old car body on sturdy sleight runners) hooked up the horses to go to town. But before we got away, another phone call came from our neighbor, Joe Ganguish, asking if we could bring their daughter and son-in-law home to them. Don’t ask how they knew we were going.
Well, we got Edith and Ivan on to their train about 3 P.M. Then we went to pick up the other couple—who were not ready and in no hurry. They didn’t know what could happen to the weather, and did. It was now snowing and blowing. Well, we finally got under way, and as soon as we were outside the city we were in a real blizzard. The temperature had dropped still more to a very, very cold. No worry, though. We had a good coal fire going and were nice and warm. But the going was rough. Bill couldn’t see the road, and I began to be a bit scared. The horses were having a hard time in the drifts that had built up, and we had to trust to their instincts or whatever to keep us going in the right path.
About one mile from the Ganguish house disaster struck. Plowing past a gig drift, the cutter tipped over. There we all were, tumbled every which way. The fire spilled out, red hot coals started things burning instantly. Bill grabbed stuff from around the heater and somehow got the hot coals out. The other guy was just in the way clawing frantically to get out, trampling on me, and very nearly on the babies—it was "me first" with him, never mind anyone else. Well, somehow, I don’t know now how we did it, we got everybody out into the blizzard, coats and blankets, diapers, everything rescued, including the little dog I forgot to mention (theirs). We continued on the open sleigh runners and left the old car body for good. It was never rescued.
When we got to the Ganguish house, we took stock of the personal damage. The big man was okay—he had even grabbed some of Arthur’s diapers to wrap around his head and neck and some things for his wife. Neither had done anything to help me with my babies. (She had her own "baby" to care for.) No help for Bill with the horses, either. What did he know about horses, he yelped. Can’t you hurry up? Can’t you see we’re freezing? I wanted to kill him or at least bury him in the drift. But we did all get there alive. My legs were frozen from my ankles to above my knees. I didn’t wear trousers in those days, just warm stockings. David had lost one mitten and his poor little hand was badly frozen. Bill had wrapped his overcoat around him and his arm was in the sleeve with no other protection. He could have lost his hand, it was that bad. His fingers still show the effects to this day. Arthur was warm—no damage, but he was HUNGRY! And let us all know it in no uncertain terms!
Mrs. Ganguish took care of David’s hands somehow. I don’t know what she did but it must have been right. The two city slickers had made sure they and their "baby" were warm enough. They had even tried to grab some of the things we had around David and Arthur, but I put up a fight and hung on. They were okay. Nothing frozen there.
Bill was very cold, but he had to take care of the horses so he went off with Mr. Ganguish to put the horses in the barn and give them a rest before we tackled the last mile and a half home. By then it was about 9 o’clock and we had to get home to milk cows, feed everything and the rest of the evening chores.
The blizzard had subsided and it turned into a crystal clear moonlight night. I can’t recall now anything else that happened, except that for once I did not go out to help with the chores. No way would I leave my babies alone after that experience. I got them thoroughly warmed up, fed, and into bed. Poor David. The next day he cried all day with the pain in his hand. His fingers were swollen like little sausages. I called the doctor, but he said there was nothing I could do except give him baby aspirin to ease the pain a bit. When I recall the horrors of that day, I can only add that we were very, very lucky to get out of it as we did. We could have died in that blizzard. We could have been burnt in that cutter. All sorts of things—the horses could have bolted. But they were faithful and they must have been suffering too.
We never saw that couple again. Never wanted to. Mr. and Mrs. Ganguish were okay, but that young man was insufferable. It was some time before we got over the effects of that trip, and I don’t think I went to town again until spring. Such were the hardships of our Saskatchewan winters!
December 7, 1998
Since this is Christmas month I think I will finish off this chronicle with memories of Christmas from my very earliest—a Sunday School performance—I think I was about 4 ½ years old. I had been learning a little song, my mother was my teacher, with no thought other than learning a song. Then when the great day came, we all went to church, me in a pretty new dress, and listened to other kids doing their piece. Then mom took me up to the platform, set me in a little rocking chair and told me to sing. I think I took a little persuading, but I must have done all right because there was a lot of clapping. My song was about a little dolly go to sleep-dreams are waiting, dreams are waiting, sleep wee, my darling! See, I even remember part of it after all those years.
We lived about a block away from the edge of the Great Northern Forest, so Christmas trees were easily gotten. An axe and a few yards into the forest and a beautiful tree was ours—free! It was always put up about 2 days before Christmas, decorated mainly with things of our own making—lots of fun. Strings of popcorn and cranberries, paper chains made from red and green crepe paper and each year a few more bought glass decorations and some clip-on birds. I think one or two of the birds are still around somewhere. We had candles on the tree too, and they were lit once only, on Christmas Eve. We did not have electricity then, so we had to light the candles on Christmas Eve so Santa would know where to find us. I guess it was dangerous, but we never had a fire.
Christmas morning was the same for us as it is for the kids today—a rush to see what Santa brought. There was always a gift from Santa and one from Daddy and Mommy; that is, in the early years. Up to about 1927, when things began to be tough. I was 10 years old, and got my last doll. Baby brother, Jack, dropped his bottle on the porcelain head and cracked it on Christmas day. Mom taped it together, and my injured doll lasted for ages. I learned a lot of my sewing by dressing dolls, for myself and my younger sisters. I taught some of them to sew for their Christmas dolls and a few went on to become excellent at it.
We never had turkey for Christmas dinner, but we always had a very large rooster. A farming couple, the Johnsons, always saved the biggest and fattest rooster for us and Mom made loads of dressing to stuff us all. We had cranberry sauce with it too. I don’t think we ever had cranberry sauce with a roasted chicken at any other time.
After we opened our gifts there was always a hilarious time, putting things together, seeing how they worked and so on. Once, when George was about 9, he got a train set, with an oval track and a wind-up engine. Of course, it was the big attraction. We also had a kitten. George had an idea. He got the train ready to go—set the kitten inside the oval and then let the train go. Well, the kitten shot straight up, about 3 feet into the air and came down with his fur standing straight out and almost sparking. Lots of laughs for everybody but the kitten.
1927 was the last Christmas that George was home. As I wrote somewhere else, he stayed at Gib and Clara’s place after our holiday that year, 1927, and went to school at Douglas Plain until he finished Grade 8. No high school for him. He stayed with Gib and Clara for a year or two, then went to work for another couple, Frank Ffewelling (two f’s—Welsh, I think). He moved with them to the Carrot River District where there was land to be had for $5.00 for a half section. But it was covered with forest that had to be cut before it was any use. Trees were the farmer’s enemy in those days, the same as around Edson. But once cleared and broken it was certainly the best of land. Well, I have gotten away from the Christmas theme, haven’t I?
There are lots of Christmases that I can’t recall what went on, chiefly in my adolescent years, when I was travelling back and forth between Edson and Asquith. I do remember, though, that Christmas at Gib and Clara’s place was nothing like Christmas at home—no Christmas tree, no gifts, no anything that had made Christmas so special in my growing-up years. I remember thinking that if I ever got married and had kids it would be as near like my early Christmases as I could make it. I’m quite sure if my family should decide to write memoirs they would agree that we did succeed.
Though right now, one Christmas stands out as pretty special. I have a feeling that I may have written this earlier in my chronicle, so if I did, please forgive. I don’t want to read the whole thing to job my memory. It was the one time that Bill was out of work, in the early 1950’s. There was no money for Christmas gifts, just buying a turkey was tough, but we did manage that. So Bill went over to a millwork company and came home with a sackful of odds and ends, which he cut into elaborate blocks, etc. We all played with those blocks all day, building castles, churches, palaces, houses, anything we could think of. Just proving you don’t need a lot of money to have a happy Christmas. Just ingenuity and good nature! That’s all for this book. Hope you enjoy it.
Love Mom, December 8th, 1998.
Transcribed by Evelyn, January, 1999.
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