No Poverty Between the Sheets

By Pauline Kiely

This "Holy Smoke" combination of Irish and French Canadian is hilarious! If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be part of a large family then this book is must. The story reminds us of a time before being politically correct was the norm. You'll be embraced, entertained, and captivated from the get-go by this rollicking, riveting read. The times, accents, and vibrant conversational characters are painted beautifully. Fast paced, packed with adventures to Ireland, camping holidays, and horse tales, it is a hard book to put down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pauline Kiely
• Release date: Apr 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301148059

Pauline Kiely

Pauline Kiely is a fast-paced, sassy author with a voice like no other. Her vivid, witty, writing style captures and embraces readers from the get-go, and public response to, No Poverty Between the Sheets, has consistently been, I laughed, I cried, and I couldn't put it down.

Book preview

No Poverty Between the Sheets

A Memoir

Copyright © 2018 by Pauline Kiely

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author, except for reviewers who may quote brief passages. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping or storage on information retrieval systems of any part of this work shall be directed in writing to the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Kiely, Pauline, 1961

No poverty between the sheets

Author, Pauline Kiely

[e-mail]

Editor, Ruth E. Walker - Writescape.ca

Covers, Robyn Barton - Bartoncreative.co

Leonard Tripp's Pilot’s License courtesy of Ross Tripp

Laurel & Hardy photo courtesy of Mick Kiely

Author photo courtesy of Michael Bryant

A Passionate Pen Publishing

[e-mail]

Printed in Canada

ISBN: 978-0-9919809-1-8

1 - 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

For my children,

their children,

and their children’s

children

Eternally grateful to Joan Fahey, Susan Reynolds,

Michele Dionne Appelman, Ruth Walker, Alice Gurdon,

and Michael Bryant

Praise for No Poverty Between the Sheets

A lovely read through. Very conversational, and all of those wonderful people are painted beautifully. Kiely's love for them shines through on every page.

— Neil Crone, Actor/Author/Comedian

Kiely tackles a hilarious heritage with both hands on the reins and sparks flying from her spurs!

— Hugh Morshead, Author/Equestrian

I couldn't put this book down! I started laughing on the very first page and couldn't wait to get to the next paragraph. What also impresses me is Kiely's style of writing which is so honest and down-to-earth.

— Dave Devall, CTV Chief forecaster 1961-2009

"No Poverty between the Sheets is a romp through Pauline’s childhood years, enhanced by the spicy language of her mixed French Canadian and Irish heritage. A horse theme weaves its way throughout this book and eventually has everything to do with the ending. You’ll laugh out loud, and also cry. The book is a testament to her father, John Kiely, and his unfaltering love of his family."

— Rod Urquhart, Editor of Voice of the Farmer

Horse Talk Magazine

"Cozy, funny, and a truly relatable book. Takes us back to a time when being politically correct was not the norm: just people living life.ˮ

— Christine Gonsalves, Pickering Book Club

While this is a true story, some of the names and identifying details of persons and places have been changed. Some events did not occur in the precise order or at the precise time related in the book. As with any writing, this story reflects only my perspective on events, and the book relates my perspectives. I do not mean to hurt or judge any others who are depicted in this story, especially given that I am sincerely grateful to all for their roles in this journey. This book is intended to capture resilient humour and share tales of a time when large familes were common.

Table of Contents

Chapter One – The Push that was the Shove

Chapter Two – 49 Sherwood Forest Drive

Chapter Three – Sean, Sean, the Leprechaun

Chapter Four – Blarney

Chapter Five –The Big Picture and the Four Families

Chapter Six – Why? That’s Why!

Chapter Seven – The Horse Bug

Chapter Eight – Frog Island

Chapter Nine – Go Big or Go Home

Chapter Ten – Sharp As A Tack

Chapter Eleven – Happy New Year

Chapter Twelve – The Funny Farm

Chapter Thirteen – The Bee’s Knees

Chapter Fourteen – Dylan as in Bob

Chapter Fifteen – The Dog Named Dalkey

Chapter Sixteen – Horse Mad

Chapter Seventeen – No Poverty Between the Sheets

Chapter Eighteen – Four Seasons

Chapter Nineteen – Tally Ho

Chapter Twenty – Superman

Beaulieu Family Tree

Grandparents

Alice Beaulieu (née Rancourt) & Eugène Beaulieu

Children

Léa, Gilbert, Gilberte, Oscar, Agnès, Palma, Gélinas, Dolorès, Jéan-Louis, Anne-Marie, Gabriel, Yolande

Léa & Ernest Marchand - Jacqueline (Jackie), Lily, Celine, Yvette

Gilbert (Gil) Beaulieu

Gilberte (Bette) & Jéan (Johnny) Dionne - Yolande, Diane, Gerry, Reggie, Michele

Oscar & Lise Beaulieu - Denise, Denis, Ginette

Denise & Marty Beatty (Keith)

Ginette & Mike Nordover (Lucas & Danny)

Agnès & Ross Tripp - Trish, Gail, Gary

Trish & John Hudson (Carrie, Candace)

Gail & Eric Osso (Zac & Jeff)

Palma (Paul) & Jean Beaulieu - Darryl, Rae, Laura, Terry, Brenda, Rachelle

George (Gélinas) & Bernice Beaulieu - Chris, Jeannette, Marcel, Suzanne

Jeannette & Rick Timms (Marie, Derek, Wayne)

Dolorès & Gab Villeneuve - Rachelle, Richard, Réo, Lorraine

Jéan-Louis & Freda Beaulieu - Pat, Brian, Rick

Anne-Marie (Anne) & Bruce Perry - Alan, Kim, Carolyn, Michael

Gabriel (Gab) & Olga Beaulieu

Yolande & John Kiely - Pauline, Colleen, Sean, Jim

Pauline & Brad Parsons (Lacey, LeeAnn, Dylan)

Colleen & Cameron Duffy (Ryan, Lea)

Kiely Family Tree

Grandparents

Elizabeth Kiely (née Johnston) & Jack Kiely

Children

Pat, Theresa, Maureen, John, Kate, Dara, Moira, Peadar, Brenna, Maggie

Pat & Gwen Kiely - Kerry, Michael, Tess, Orla

Theresa Kiely

Maureen & Harry Darcy - Thomas, Sadie, Declan

John & Yolande Kiely - Pauline, Colleen, Sean, Jim

Pauline & Brad Parsons (Lacey, LeeAnn, Dylan)

Colleen & Cameron Duffy (Ryan, Lea)

Kate & Dave Spang - Tina, Greg

Moira & Rory Gallagher - Stan, Will, Trixie

Peadar Kiely

Brenna & Dan Gildener - Jacob, Alicia

Maggie & Charlie Malloy - Jenny, Colm, Eileen

Chapter One

The Push that was the Shove

I was born under a Gemini sun and a Gemini moon, in the sixth month, on the twelfth day, of 1961. A year that spins around. Apparently, the event took place with no complications about 8:15 on that bright June morning at Toronto East General Hospital. Other than Doctor Taylor being a looker, my mother doesn’t remember much because in those days a woman was practically knocked out and, when she came to, she’d delivered a baby. The miracle of life. A product of egg meets sperm and nine months' incubation. I imagine I was washed, weighed, measured, and pricked by a needle before being introduced to my mom.

My father was on a construction site banging nails when I arrived. His wife had tossed and turned the night before, running back and forth to the toilet. About six a.m. she nudged him to drive her to the hospital. There was a pan of cornstarch beside the bed because at the end of the pregnancy her feet would get very itchy during the night. Mother smiles at the memory of trails of her white footprints.

When John and Yolande Kiely arrived at admitting, he registered his wife, then gave her the usual two kisses, before dashing off to work. At ten o’clock coffee break Kiely says to Louie the Wop, My wife’s in the hospital having a baby.

Louie laughed and said, Don't you think you should be there?

If I need any shit from you, I'll squeeze your head. That stuff is women's work. They make the babies and bread, and we bring home the bacon.

My old man gave it to you straight, told it like it was. He said he was the man of steel and could prove it too ‘cause occasionally he had rust in his underwear.

The foreman wearing a white hard hat overheard this conversation and he sent Kiely home.

John Francis Kiely, and his sister Mary Theresa, touched down in Toronto from Dublin on May the 18th, in 1958. He was seventeen, and the February past she had turned twenty-one. These Kielys hailed from the seaside village of Dalkey, located eight miles south of the fair city.

My mother was raised in the tiny village of Alban. She calls her hometown, a piss hole in a snow bank. Alban, just north of the French River in northern Ontario, is an old logging town. It is a speck on a map of the Canadian Shield.

He was the fourth of ten children, and she the baby of twelve. He had grade eight education, and she had grade seven. When I came along, he was twenty, and she was nineteen. He spoke Irish brogue, and French was her first language. He grew up poor, she grew up poorer. They were both Catholics.

My father would say, You were the push that was the shove. We made you in the dark, in a hurry, in the backseat of a ’53 Buick Hudson Jet. I'd asked your mother for a dance about a year before at the Masonic Lodge just north of Bloor on Yonge Street. We were planning on getting married. We just weren’t planning on you attending the wedding.

Advice was sought in confession.

Father, I’ve made a girl pregnant.

Do you love her?

I think I do.

If you dip your wick, you have to pay for the oil.

My father claimed he was a thoroughbred: a man with a horse’s appetite who has pure Irish-blood. He was an inch and a pinch shy of six feet and supported by big bones in tight skin. At twenty-one, he had thick black hair and grey-blue eyes. Being a carpenter, the aroma of fresh cut timber encircled him. He called his big hands shovels. They were calloused, and he used a magnifying glass to see the slivers that he'd pull from them.

Yolande Lucille Marie Beaulieu was a fine French-Canadian filly, my father says, A hot little number whose ass did a jig of its own when she walked. At five feet, one-and-a-half-inches tall, Mom insists this is tall where she is from. With an hourglass figure, thick chestnut hair, and eyes like chocolate, he says she was irresistible.

My mother left Alban at fifteen to live and work in Toronto. She shared a Munroe Street apartment with her sister, Anne-Marie.

The Beaulieu family had been raised among black bears and blueberries. Her memories of home included a three-bedroom tar-paper shack. It had an outdoor outhouse and a Finlay woodstove. They slept six to a bed, and sometimes there were other living creatures in their bed, like lice and bed bugs.

My sister Anne spent a summer helping an aunt on their dairy farm. My mother recalls, This aunt might have had a new baby. I don’t know why Anne was sent there. All I know is that this aunt had a large family, that they did a lot of cooking, and that when my sister returned to us she was plump, and a good cook.

My mom hasn't a single memory of her father, Eugène Beaulieu. The man passed away May the 6th, in 1941, and she was born seven months later.

Aunt Bette said, Dad was a simple farmer. He had an operation in Sudbury on his goiter but didn’t have the time or money to take the train for the 30 mile journey to buy his medication.

Uncle Gil said, When I found him, I thought he was sleeping under an apple tree. It was very hard to serve as an altar-boy at my father's funeral.

The older children in the family remember the good days with their Papa. He was said to have been a big, very pious and proud man.

Auntie Agnès shares her memory of how on New Year’s Day tears would stream down her Papa's face as the family prayed the rosary together, and then he would bless each of his children, individually, for the coming year. She said, "Dad thanked God for his bonne famille, his sons, and his daughters: Léa, Gilbert, Gilberte, Oscar, Agnès, Palma, Gélinas, Dolorès, Jéan-Louis, Anne-Marie, and Gabriel. But he wasn’t there to bless, Yolande, who arrived just in time for Christmas on the shortest day of the year."

The Beaulieu family with a neighbour (top left)

Yolande says, There was loose talk in Alban, questioning the parish priest as to whether I should be baptized. After all, your mémère had been in the barn, with men, after her husband’s death. The poor woman was selling their life, their farm, the livestock, and machinery. I’d be hard pressed to believe that the first thoughts of a mourning widow with eleven mouths to feed would be a roll in the hay with her neighbour’s husband, or a relative.

Food was rationed during the Second World War. There was no pension, income, or luxuries for this young widow back in 1941. The church played an important and active role in these remote communities, keeping records of births, weddings, and deaths.

The village priest was kind and compassionate towards my grandmother on more than one occasion. In 1946, after relocating to the mining town of Val d'Or in Quebec, her eldest daughter, Léa, married Ernest Marchand. Complications from asthma and bronchitis left Léa with a weak heart so she was hospitalized regularly. In 1953, at 28 years of age, Léa passed away from a lung infection, leaving behind four daughters 6,5,4, and 2 years of age.

Yolande remembers, "I was about 12 years old at the time. Gil borrowed Father Campeau's truck, and he made a plywood box for the back of it. Anne, Gab, and me rode in the back. Gil drove all the way with Mom in the cab. It was dark, cold, and a long night on very rough dirt roads, if you call cow paths roads. My mother was so grateful when we finally arrived in Val d'Or. She agreed to bring her 4 granddaughters back to Alban to live with her, until such time as Ernest could sell his house and break ties and responsibilities he had in Quebec. We all huddled together on a mattress with blankets to stay warm on the return trip. Being war time, we were stopped along the way by the army checking for deserting solders.

"I was nervous about visiting my family when I was in the family way. My mother was living in Toronto on Walpole Avenue with Ernest and the Marchand girls in 1960 when your father and I went to see her. She was happy to hear I was getting married, but said She didn’t understand this generation that put the cart before the horse. Mom paused to wipe her hands on her apron before she said, I guess every piss pot needs a lid. My brothers set the bounty at a case of beer for my hand."

On November 26th, my parents, a holy smoke combination, were joined in holy matrimony at Holy Name Catholic Church in Toronto on Danforth Avenue. Mom's sister Anne served as her maid-of-honour, and Jerry Sharkey was my father’s right arm. Mom says she put all her brothers’ names in a hat and drew Paul’s name; so he walked her down the aisle. She said, My teeth chattered when I repeated my vows. Pictures show an exaggerated grin on my father.

The day was remarkably mild, and they posed for a few snaps on the steps of the church. Her dress had sequins and pearls, and plenty of lace over a crinoline hoop. Their matching bands were plain white and yellow gold. Tissue bows and paper streamers camouflaged the rusty spots on the Buick where, locked in the trunk, was a case of twelve Red Cap Ale for her thirsty brothers.

During the meal teaspoons bounced off wine glasses, a custom that demands a kiss from the bride and groom. Sixty-odd members from her side were in attendance. Standing for him were Sharkey, his sister Theresa, his father Jack, and Jack's mistress Caroline with their son.

Theresa recalls, When John and I first arrived in Toronto, we had barely digested the ham sandwiches we’d eaten in a lounge at a stop-over in the Montreal Airport. The sandwiches our Mammie had made us for the journey. Then, wow, we were introduced to my father’s friend and our half-brother when they greeted us at Malton Airport.

Canada in all its glory had come at a high price!

My father was not impressed and had little or no patience for the redhead his father was sporting. Years later when we looked at a photo album, I made the mistake of asking, Who is that?

Caroline. She was the image of a harvest frog in that dress. Fat through the middle, and a long sticky tongue waiting to snap up the change that fell from my old man's pockets.

John and Yolande Kiely - 1960

Mom said. As newlyweds we played house. One pay-day John bought a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He would put the microphone on my belly and record your heart beat.

Thankfully, she threw out her prescription for Thalidomide. Mom told her doctor, My mother never had these drugs. She said, I wasn’t sure how you were going to come out, but I knew babies were born every day.

I was a healthy 7 pounds, 4 ounces, 21 inches long, with a mass of dark hair. My father wanted to name me Pollyanna because he’d so enjoyed the film starring Hayley Mills. My mother put her little foot down, and they settled on Pauline Ann.

She says, It was the stupidest thing. A ward of new mothers in sterilized sheets and gowns, feeding newborn babies with sterilized bottles of sterilized formula while puffing away on cigarettes. Mom wasn't expecting to see her husband when he arrived at the hospital around noon. Dad was especially proud when the nurses chose his strong baby girl for their bathing-a-newborn demonstration.

Two weeks later I was christened; and afterward, there was a light lunch in their basement apartment. My grandfather, Jack Kiely, with white hair and thick bifocal glasses had aged beyond his years. He offered his son a drop of whiskey the day I was baptized, and my father’s virgin throat swallowed the liquid gold. He wouldn’t be the legal drinking age of 21 until September.

When I was about two, my fleur-de-lis mother, shamrock father, and their maple leaf daughter moved into a little white house in Markham, a rental from his boss, Michael Wade.

Dad called me Molly Mouse, and this was his idea of a lullaby:

Molly Mouse was a hat-check girl, woo hoo!

Molly Mouse was a hat-check girl, he thought he’d

give that chick a whirl, ah ha, ah ha, woo hoo!

Oh, Molly Mouse, won’t you marry me, ah ha,

Molly Mouse, won’t you marry me, woo hoo?

Not without Uncle Rat’s consent, I couldn’t

marry the president, ah ha, ah ha, woo hoo!

I can remember waiting at the screen door for my hero, my daddy, to arrive home from work. There was scant breeze in that very little house during warm summer months. My mother wore her short shorts while teaching herself to cook from what she called The Bible according to Betty Crocker.

On Saturday mornings or late evenings, Dad and I would park ourselves on the front porch and watch the cars zip by on busy Highway 7, and we’d play the memory game.

What kind of car is that one? he’d say.

A ’57 Chevy.

What about the red one?

A Ford.

What about my car?

A jalopy.

You’re a bright girl, kid. In life you’re going to have to use that head; it’s more than a hat-rack.

In the backyard my father had made me the biggest swing in the world. It hung suspended by about twenty feet of rope on the mature limb of an old elm tree. It had a long wooden seat that he’d painted red. It was cooler in the shade, and the swinging motion lent a breeze. I sat beside my dad and hung onto his every word.

"You know, Molly Mouse, the castles in Ireland touch the sky. When I was a young lad, my family lived on an estate called Monkstown Farm. At the back of our house was this apple orchard. In the spring, when the trees were in blossom, there would be a sweet smell in the air. There was this stone wall around the orchard with broken glass at the top so no little gurriers like us could get in and rob the apples when they were ripe. There we’d be, a gang of kids standing quietly near the garden wall, shushing each other to listen to the buzz of the bees.

"Your granddad worked two jobs to keep the bread and butter on the table. When we were little, he’d bathe us in a wash-tub by the fire on a Saturday night. Daddy would give us a polish and trim our hair and nails. He’s a good and decent man.

"My brother Pat is the eldest. He is married now. His wife’s name is Gwen, and they have a young lad about your age. Pat always loved opera music and photography. Then came your Auntie Theresa, your godmother, who lives here. When we were kids, she studied film stars and enjoyed swimming. Next came my sister Maureen. She and I were joined at the hip, Oxo and Alo, the Bisto Kid’s. Maureen is married and lives in England with her husband Harry and their son Thomas. I have a sister, Dara, that I sent on a trip down the stairs in a suitcase once, and she chipped her tooth. You have an Auntie Kate, who is very bold. When she was a girl, she went wee-wee in a basket of apples, and then gave them out to the kids on the street.

"Next was Moira. She was your granddad’s pet. Daddy would say to her, Come here, me little red hen. We had a little brother, Peadar, that went to heaven when he was seven, and that was very sad and hard for all of us. Brenna and Maggie are the babies; they’re still at home with my mother, your Granny Kiely. When she wasn’t washing up, she was peeling spuds for a stew. The woman is the salt of the earth. When we’d fight, she’d cool us off with a bucket of water."

Why did you leave your home, Daddy?

I had to, to find your mother and make you. Don’t worry, Mousey, someday I’ll take you to Ireland, and you can catch a leprechaun.

Chapter Two

49 Sherwood Forest Drive

There were raindrops on the windshield of the pick-up truck my father borrowed that damp, dark Friday night that we moved into our brand new house on Sherwood Forest Drive. All their worldly possessions didn’t amount to much more than a couple of loads. I was a curious three-year-old. My father called me Big Ears. I remember sitting between him and my mother on the truck’s bench seat, my head moving back and forth like the wipers, attempting to follow the conversation. Heaven forbid I’d miss anything.

The Kielys were the proud owners of the right half of a solid brick, semi-detached house in Markham. It cost $18,000 in 1964 for a house like this one. It was a back-split raised bungalow that my father called a postage stamp because all these subdivision homes were pretty much one and the same. I played hop-scotch on the black and white checkerboard tiled kitchen floor. Mother was delighted that there were two washrooms. All the walls had been painted eggshell white, with the exception of their bedroom which was violet. When showing people the house, Dad called his room the Purple Passion Room or Conception Headquarters. With his hammer and saw he had made their white bed frame, headboard, and dresser.

This subdivision was built on a hill, and our street had a steep grade. The lawns were still mud, and from the front picture window

Reviews for No Poverty Between the Sheets

[mishker-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a memoir of a very large French-Canadian family written by Pauline Kiely. With the title "No Poverty Between the Sheets," I figured this would provide a humorous view of growing up in such a family. Kiely provides this looking back from when her parents first came to Canada from Ireland and France to the day she was born to her time as an adult. This memoir is filled with amusing anecdotes, comedy and raw emotion. I loved reading about this family's experience through time, especially the 60's and 70's. It was very interesting to see how music, the mix of cultures, drugs and the changing decades affected the family. I really loved all of the stories about animals and the song lyrics from her family. The story and some of the anecdotes did seem a little disjointed at times, I never really felt a good flow. However, it was a good book to pick up put down over the day. Overall, this was a different type of memoir, one about family ties and bonds with the unique outlook of a French and Irish Canadian point of view. This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

[vickiln · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It took me a while to get interested in this book. It might have been because I?d heard such good thoughts about it and heard that it was hilarious, and maybe I just built it up in my mind too much. It could have just been the mood I was in.But then the book got funny. Some of it was LOL funny and some of it was just snicker funny. It was also just a bit too corny at times.What I liked about the book was that the family was super close and really loved and enjoyed each other?s company. I liked reading how they interacted and all the crazy things they did, and I liked learning a bit about where the lived. And I liked the photos. They add to the story and make you feel part of it.All in all I liked the book, but I know many other people who loved it. Read it and see what you think.