A Brother and Four Sisters

By James Gibson

This often humorous, occasionally sad and emotional memoir begins in the 1800's; but most of the action takes place on post-war Chalmers Street in the small, predominantly protestant Canadian textile town of Galt in Southern Ontario. Older brother Jim is the lead voice with numerous injections, in their own words, from his four sisters, friends, and relatives. The story ends with the death of a sister, causing Jim to cherish having recorded for posterity the triumphs and agonies of his family. He's glad he risked the sensitivities stirred and the secrets threatened by the simple story of a brother and his four sisters seeking their own identities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Gibson
• Release date: Jun 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988098800

James Gibson

I'm married and live in Windsor. I graduated from the University of Waterloo. I retired after having taught school geography for 31 years, including serving as head of department and writing on curriculum committees. I am a published writer and since 1989 a small business owner. When not writing or managing my business, I spend time at my other passions: dogs, genealogy, sailboat racing, reading, watching movies, following ice hockey and baseball, preparing and eating good food, tasting new wines, listening to jazz, and gardening. Recent illnesses within my immediate family- cancer, Crohn's- have educated me on the importance of advocacy, care-giving, and the management of one's own health and environment.

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This book is dedicated to my sister, Sharan Oakes, 1947-2011.

A Brother and Four Sisters

Published by James Gibson at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 James Gibson

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

James Gibson is the creator of Geography and All Things Gaia and James Gibson Writes. His work has appeared in print in RTO’s Renaissance, and online in Decoded Science, Suite 101, and Windsor Square. He lives in S.W. Ontario, Canada.

Rules and Suggestions for the Enjoyment of this Book

1. Remember: I’m I. My sisters always introduce themselves, but I forget to.

2. You can skip the genealogy section unless you’re family. For the most part these are people I never knew and their lives were very difficult to make interesting. Well, that’s only sort of true; there was some interesting family mischief according to ‘well-meaning relatives.’

3. I suppose you can skip the stuff on my mother and father unless, again, you’re family. But then again, what about the sins of the father? After all, there is a lot of religion, even some good old Irish prejudice, in the book.

4. You may think you’re in a debate at times because my sisters and I disagree on what went down. Actually, that’s the fun part, but it makes the book kind of uneven.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1- Genealogy

Chapter 2- Our Father

Chapter 3- Our Mother

Chapter 4- The Pre School Years

Chapter 5- Elementary School

Chapter 6- High School

Chapter 7- Launching

About James Gibson

Connect with author

Preface

WHOEVER IS CARELESS with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.- Albert Einstein

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A strange thing happened on a trip to the local pharmacy. As I walked back to my van, I happened to spot a middle-aged man with a white cane tapping the sidewalk and slowly edging toward a rather high curb. Sensing the danger of the situation, I stopped to help, just as the voice of a similar-aged woman from a vehicle across the roadway announced, John, stay there. I’ll help you. Assured of the man’s safety I continued on to my van, climbed in, and then paused to stash some prescriptions in the console. As I prepared to leave, however, I glanced at the vehicle next to me; thinking it belonged to the lady who had just helped the blind man. To my amazement, the lady took the passenger seat and the blind man climbed in behind the wheel. I was gobsmacked, and thought: Is there something I’m not seeing?

I’m the brother of four younger sisters: the protector and trail blazer. Over the years, primarily at family gatherings, I’ve enjoyed relating stories about our post WW II life on Chalmers Street in the small Ontario textile town of Galt. Coincidentally, my history of story telling and this incident at the pharmacy coincided with the timing of a decision to write a family memoir. The inspiration for the project came from a quote in my devoutly Scottish-Presbyterian grandfather’s copy of Alexander Smellie's ‘Men of the Covenant’: In the march of years, the heroisms of the past, its agonies and triumphs, fade very quickly into a mist of indistinctness. New events, new debates, and new achievements come crowding in, until their predecessors are well-nigh forgotten. The quote, applicable to anyone, gave me the spark I needed to break the inertia of just thinking about it. But I have always been motivated by the words of Henry David Thoreau: Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.

In 2006, a niece introduced me to ‘The Girls’, Lori Lansens’ sharp fictional portrait about conjoined twins Ruby and Rose Darlen: they literally lived together but had radically different views on things. As I read it, what intrigued me the most was the book’s style which I later adopted: Rose would write something in her eloquent prose and Ruby would give her unsophisticated take with introductions like It’s Ruby writing, or It’s Ruby again.

I began what proved to be a hazardous journey with a short, personalized note to family members- sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins, and spouses- seeking their input: In it I suggested that a story of our family might be of interest, explained that the setting- the genealogy chapter- was in progress, and that, eventually, I wanted to distribute the final product to anyone interested.

As I completed draft chapters I forwarded them to my four sisters and requested feedback and alternative viewpoints. After a couple of drafts, to my surprise, the feedback became intense. Jim, began Sharan, my second oldest, in a note, I am surprised that every time I receive a new chapter of your writing I admonish you to cut the negatives. Negatives usually have anger behind them and anger leads to depression. If you’re writing for your own benefit, vent if you want. But if you plan to circulate your writings later, you’ll offend a lot of people (or is it your intent to offend).

The insinuation that I would publicly offend a family member surprised me. It certainly was not my intent; I just did not want the coming of age of the Gibson Kids to be undocumented. After all, our origins were humble but we certainly overcame all obstacles; and isn’t it true that we can learn from the way we live? In a later reply, the same sister proclaimed, We all came from a very permissive household that gave too little supervision. Thus, we kids had to find our own way; our own identity. In fact, I wonder if Jim dropped out of the picture about age ten before his sisters found their own identity. The comments were sobering and I stopped the writing for several years.

Then, tragically, in 2011 the same sister died from skin cancer. At the funeral I stood at the pulpit and stared down at her casket through moisture-laden eyes. The faces of the black mass before me were blurred, as though I was peering out from a bubble. I explained that I would be relating my sister’s words, memories she’d sent for a family memoir. I also related to the audience a conversation I’d had before the service with a friend of my sister: she’d remembered my sister saying, when she visited her, that she needed to finish something for her brother and could she please wait.

Realizing that my sister had been on side with the project and just wanted me to be careful, I found myself propelled to complete the memoir. With my senses aroused, however, to the sensitivities stirred and, perhaps, the secrets threatened by what I thought was a simple story of a brother and his four sisters, I took special care to tread lightly through the silken snares of this human web, begun generations ago far across the Atlantic in places like Annan and Dalry Scotland, Yorkshire England, and Armagh in Ulster Ireland: And while I knew that the written word could be powerful and divisive, I also discovered it could be overshadowed by the deafening sounds of silence.

The finished product was eventually distributed free of charge to my surviving sisters and to Sharan’s widowed husband. Then, a short time later I received this ‘Thank You’ card from my eldest sister. She wrote:

Thanks so much for the copy of the Gibson Memoir. You did an outstanding job and it will have a very special place in our library. I’m so glad you made the decision to capture the Gibson memories in print. It’s a legacy we can pass on to our kids and grandchildren.

Just before Christmas 2012, I was also surprised by a letter containing a check and this note from my widowed brother-in-law:

I read the book in one sitting. I appreciate all the long hours that were put in and the research to get it done. (My) Faye and Jeff will be surprised at Christmas to each have a copy of their family history.

So, as I now slip and slide from one memory to the next, starting as far back as the early 1800s (you may wish to skip the first three chapters, although I hope you don’t because of the story of my cousin, the ‘Man with the Iron Hands’), you will witness my four sisters and others, for the most part willing to correct, enrich, enlighten the way, and disentangle me when necessary, as I navigate the fragile and delicate but dangerous filaments of our family web.

And I do realize, albeit in hindsight, that some family members prefer to forget past experiences, wanting to live in the moment; perhaps rejecting the notion that it’s not the experiences we have in life that count the most, rather how we interpret them. I also understand that one should not carry a heavy burden of the past; and if this story in any way diminishes the potential to live in the moment, it should not be read. Still, I’m reminded of the words of Wayne Dwyer: Have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing, realizing, of course that it sounds easy until you think about how much conditioning has taken place in your life, and how many of your current thoughts were influenced by geography, the religious beliefs of your ancestors, the color of your skin, the shape of your eyes, the political orientation of your parents, your size, your gender, the schools that were selected for you, and the vocation of your great grandparents.

Chapter 1: Genealogy

LIVES OF GREAT MEN all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time.- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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We begin our story in the 1800s. Our great, great grandfather William Gibson of Newcastle Ontario Canada married Ann Fligg and in 1866 had a son named Albert. At approximately the same time our great grandfather, Benjamin Graham of Powfoot Scotland married Rosamond Sloan. In 1879 they had a son named James Jardine who, in the early 1900s along with his twin-brother Tom William and his older brother Edward, immigrated to Canada and settled in Galt Ontario. Other members of the family went elsewhere: Our aunt Belle (Isabella), a spinster died in Wellington New Zealand while our uncle, Walter, a bachelor ended up in Nowra near Sydney Australia.

William Gibson, after marrying Ann, left Newcastle and lived in Mitchell in Perth County Ontario for about six years. Then they migrated to the township of St. Vincent, Grey County in the Georgian Bay area and settled on the ninth line at Oxmead for a number of years. Before finally moving to Meaford and taking up residence on St. Vincent Street, they spent a couple of years farming on the 15th and 16th side road.

William Gibson’s 1921 obituary summed up his life: He served the town of Meaford for a number of years as Councilor and was a man of strict integrity and good judgment; in politics he was a staunch Conservative and in religion a member of the Anglican Church, where his punctuality at worship and consistency in living was an example to his family and friends; and there were eight children- five girls (Mrs. Wm Curry of Owen Sound, Mrs. Thos Curry of Goring, Mrs. Wm Booker of Meaford, Mrs. Coldwell of Huntsville and Miss Nellie at home) and three boys (Frank of Meaford, Fred, and our great grandfather, Albert E. Gibson). Albert became Meaford’s chief engineer.

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Our great grandfather on our mother’s side, Benjamin Graham, was a leader, but on the sea not the land. He was the captain of a merchant marine sailing ship and three months before our grandfather James Jardine and his twin brother, Tom William were born, his ship, the Iris sank during a typhoon off of the coast of Valparaiso Chile (where he is officially buried; although our uncle Ben Allan Graham claimed there is a headstone in the Cummertrees Church cemetery at Powfoot, near Annan Scotland). Left behind, in Powfoot Scotland, were a widowed Rosamond (born in 1840 in Huddersfield, forty miles west of Wakefield England), three girls and four boys. After her husband’s death, the resourceful widow took the money she had saved and purchased a general grocery store. She operated it until her confinement to an infirmary due to dementia; a condition which followed her offspring: her youngest son Jim at age sixty-eight, seven years before his death from spinal cancer, began suffering from it; and his twin brother Tom was confined with it in the Institute for the Mentally Ill in Penetangushene.

Benjamin Graham's parents, Walter (born 1796 in Annan) and Margaret (Carruthers- born 1800 in Annan) had three daughters- Margaret, Jane and Mary Ann- and five sons- George, William, Thomas, Joseph and Benjamin. Ben's older sister, Jane married a draper named James Jardine of Lancaster England. When the husband later died in Liverpool England, Jane went to live with her sister-in-law in