Garry’s Story: The Adventures of a Nomad

By Garry R. Rowse

As the sun rose on a 1947 Vancouver morning, sixteen-year-old Garry Rowse stepped on the school bus without any idea he would not return to his hometown for more than five years. Without money, identification, or a plan, Garry exited the bus at the end of its route, stuck out his thumb, and left a less than ideal childhood behind.

In a lively chronicling of his nomadic adventures, Rowse begins by detailing his journey from the side of the road to his eventual decision to accept a job as a cabin boy on a Norwegian freighter in Halifax. As his travels continued, Rowse shares anecdotes from his past that highlight unique experiences that included running contraband from Borneo to Zamboanga; working as a strike breaker on the docks of Marseille; becoming stranded in a former slave village in the jungles of Guyana; and escaping prison by swimming across shark-infested Manila Bay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Oct 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483439389

Book preview

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Chapter 1

I was afraid to open my eyes. Was last night just a nightmare? No, I could still feel the acrid taste of fear in my mouth. We all felt so helpless, huddled together in the kitchen while hurricane-force winds and torrential rains slammed into the house. I was sure the roof would be torn off or that huge tree next door would come crashing down on us! My bedroom down in the basement seemed like a refuge from the storm. I opened one eye. The sun was shining, a robin was singing, and it was a beautiful morning. My brother Art, was already up, so I slid down from my bunk and readied myself for school. I could hear them talking as I went upstairs. Dad had left for work, and Kay, our stepmother was busy making lunches, while her son Charlie, Art, and I ate breakfast. The radio was saying that six people had died in Vancouver during the storm. One woman was electrocuted by a lashing power line, and man was crushed by a huge tree that fell on his car in Stanley Park. Bridges were washed out in the Fraser Canyon. All of Southern British Columbia was declared a disaster area.

There was a lot of debris on the way to the bus stop. I just made it as the bus was leaving. The driver winked at me and said it must be my lucky day. He was my favourite driver, always whistling and tapping the steering wheel and having a great time while he delivered his passengers to their destinations. I squeezed my way towards the back. By the time we arrived at the Vancouver Technical High School, there were only a few students left on the bus. They all got off except for me. The driver looked up in his rear view, but didn’t say anything. We pulled away and I stayed on until the end of the line. Our eyes met as I got off, but nothing was said. He closed the doors and drove away. I stood there wondering why I had stayed on the bus. What was I doing out here at the city limits? I seemed to be under some kind of spell. I only had enough money for the bus home and a drink at lunchtime. I hadn’t said goodbye to anyone; I had no idea I wouldn’t see them again for five years. I walked out to the road and stuck out my thumb.

Chapter 2

My mom and dad, Daisy May Baker and Art Rowse fell in love in the late Roaring Twenties. The times were prosperous, and life was fun and full of possibilities. He was slim, average height with red hair and a prominent nose, everyone called him Red. She was pretty, with bright dark eyes and lustrous black hair. He wrote poetry and played the ukulele. They wore fashionable clothes and lived the good life. They got married and rented a cute little bungalow on the fringes of the wealthy west side.

Then the Great Depression struck and their world changed completely. Bank accounts were frozen and life savings were lost in the financial collapse. On April 22,1931, I was born. I was blond and they called me Garry Richard. I always wondered how a redhead and a brunette produced a blond. Fifteen months later, my brother, Art, arrived; he had red hair. Life was a real struggle. Menial jobs or no job at all were the norm, Dad became a sparring partner at the local gym to make money. His nose got broken during one of these sessions. It was not reset so he ended up with a crooked nose. Grandpa Rowse kept his job working for the city right through the whole depression. Gran and Gramps were a rock in a turbulent sea.

One of my earliest memories was of Dad coming home on Xmas eve from one of his worst jobs ever, cleaning poultry box cars at Burns Meats. He arrived home with a huge turkey with black and white feathers - his Christmas bonus. We were all thrilled, as we had nothing to cook for the big day. This incredible bird was hung from the overhead clothes-dryer rack in the kitchen. I don’t think anyone knew how to proceed, but we all set to removing the feathers. Soon the kitchen was filled with feathers and laughter. The rest of our family contributed to the ensuing feast-Uncle Ernie and Aunty Cathy and Gran and Gramps. It was a lovely Christmas and the last one we would have together.

One day Mom went away. Dad said she was ill, but would be better soon. We went to see her at the Vancouver General Hospital where Art and I were born. She seemed tired but normal. That was the last time we saw her. She died of tuberculosis a short time later. What do four and five year olds do when something like this happens? We really didn’t realize the enormity of it all; life just went on. At about the same time, Auntie Cathy also died of the same disease. It seemed there was a dark cloud over the Rowse brothers. Ernie’s daughter, Dorothy, Art, and I were sent to a preventorium, where they isolated people who might be infected with TB. They gave us daily sun lamp treatments. During that period Dad lost our house, so we had nowhere to live. When we were discharged, Dorothy moved in with our Grandparents; sadly, they had no room for us. Dad finally got a job as a ranch hand on the Douglas Lake Cattle Ranch, four hundred miles north in the Caribou. Art and I were taken to a Catholic orphanage 15 miles away in New Westminster. It was a huge building with an impressive dome. I remember the gleaming wooden floors in the hallways, we soon learned who kept them gleaming.

We had some major adjustments to make in our new lives. We slept in multi-bed dormitories. Six a.m. mass was followed by breakfast of glutinous porridge, tea, bread and jam. On Sunday they gave us eggs. The Catholic school included a daily catechism class, followed by a no nonsense good basic education. Keeping the hall floors shiny was kind of fun. First we took a bar of paraffin wax and drew lines or circles or what ever we wanted on the wood. Then we would skate around with cloth’s wrapped around our feet until the floors were gleaming.

Eventually, Dad came to visit. He told us that even before he came to Canada, he had always dreamed of being a cowboy. Then he described the reality and the hardship of working on a cattle ranch. We told him about our new lives and how we missed our mom and being a family. We were all crying when he left. He promised we would all be together soon. Beautiful Sister Angela became our mentor during the year we spent there. We knew she really cared about us.

Our next home was a Protestant Orphanage nearby. It was more relaxed about religion and doing chores. One day, the army pitched camp on our front lawn. It was September 1938 and the beginning of preparations for the Second World War. Because of the war, Canada needed to build a lot of ships quickly. Dad got a job at a shipyard in North Vancouver. One day he arrived in a taxi and took us out of the orphanage without telling them.

We arrived at an old rooming house on Davie Street in the downtown West End. It all seemed a bit on the sly and very exciting! The room had a double bed, a hot plate, and a sink. The bathroom was down the hall. Our fridge was a two- part apple box with a screen door on it. It was outside the only window. On Sundays, dad cooked an English breakfast of bacon and eggs with fried bread and canned peaches for desert. The neighbourhood was very bohemian, packed with shops and cafes. We spent most of the summer on the nearby beaches of English Bay. Dad taught us how to swim after I nearly drowned in the Second Beach pool.

On Halloween morning, Art slipped a firecracker into my pocket to scare me. I already had a whole packet of fire crackers in that pocket. Soon all hell broke loose! I stupidly pressed the pocket with my hands trying to extinguish the explosives. This caused serious damage to my upper right leg and my wrists. We happened to be beside St. Paul’s Hospital, where I spent several months and nearly lost my leg. This was before antibiotics. They grafted some skin from my left leg but they could not get it to heal properly. The daily dressing changes were really painful. I remember vividly the terror building at the sound of the dressing cart approaching down the hall. I was released as an outpatient, as they needed the bed. Dad had read that sea water would help. It was early Spring but he took me into the freezing water at English Bay every day. At the hospital, they couldn’t believe the progress I was making. Soon I was back in school and life was looking up.

Someone reported us at the rooming house. Dad had to place us back in a series of foster homes. Most of our foster parents were okay, but some were just in it for the money. We ended up going to 17 schools between grade one and grade eight! Art and I went to another foster home out in Fort Langley, a farming area in the Fraser Valley, east of Vancouver. After a month, Mrs. Bodley found she couldn’t cope with the two of us, so Art was sent to a separate foster home in town. We were separated for the first time. I was truly on my own.

Chapter 3

I lived with Mrs. Bodley for two years. She was a slim serious woman with greying hair, always tied back in a bun. She was kind but firm. She had a good sense of humour that showed in the lovely smile lines on her face. I sensed she liked me and kept it at that level because the relationship was very temporary.

The five acre farm and foster care supported her. She actually needed help to run the place. That was me! With a large fruit orchard, a two acre vegetable garden, a cow with a calf and chickens, there were lots of chores. She also had a large springer spaniel named Spot. Spot and I had no problem falling in love and became inseparable.

Saturday morning was bath time. A large galvanized washtub was placed on the kitchen floor and filled with hot water from the wood burning stove. I don’t remember any sense of shyness in front of her. After the bath ritual, I would make butter in the crockery butter churn that had a plunger through the lid. This was filled with the cream saved from a weeks milking. It was a long process, so I would read the Saturday comics on the floor to fill in the time.

In the spring, I would move from my room upstairs to the tent against the back of the house. It had a wood floor and sloping wood sides part way up with canvas over the top and flaps in front. It had a single cot inside, I loved that tent.

Daisy, the tan Jersey cow had to be fed and milked every morning at six a.m. then taken out to pasture along with her almost fully grown calf. She was always so happy to see me. She would make friendly snorting noises and get quite agitated. In the winter, I would put my freezing hands between her body and foreleg to warm them before milking. After milking, the barn and trough behind the stalls had to be cleaned. I would climb the ladder to the hay loft to drop down a few forks full. Then over to the chicken house to collect the eggs and clean the pen and feed the large flock. Three times a week I delivered milk and eggs to my regular customers on my bicycle. Then I would wash up at the pump and into the house for a wonderful breakfast of preserved peaches or cherries or fresh fruit in season and eggs I had just gathered with home made bread and jams.

It was only a short walk to the school. There were two teachers, one for grades one to three, and one for grades four to six. Each classroom had a large oil drum on its side with an iron door at the end to put in the wood. There was a metal chimney going straight up. The curriculum was the basic 3Rs, which I seemed to do well at. I always went home for lunch and Spot would come charging down the lane under the big maples and often knock me down with his enthusiastic greetings. He accompanied me everywhere. After school I would do my paper route on my bike, which took us down gravel country roads to the outlying farms.

Living on a working farm gave me a whole different perspective on life, death and sex. One day we took daisy over to the bull for her annual visit. I had observed small animals doing it with some interest, but this performance certainly took care of any questions I had about the birds and bees. The most shocking event of all was the slaughter of Daisy’s calf. Fred, Mrs. Bodley’s son, arrived when it was a year old, along with a couple of neighbours. He pointed his rifle straight at its head and fired. The calf crumpled to the ground. I had never witnessed death before. I was confounded by how simple it was. Using a rope and pulley, they hung my former friend upside down over a branch of the cherry tree. Its throat was slit and all the blood came pouring out into my bathtub. I was numb with shock. Fred ran his skinning knife down its middle and out poured its entrails. They removed the skin for tanning and cut the carcass into manageable pieces for the butcher to deal with. Meanwhile Mrs. Bodley had my tub on the stove. She was boiling the blood and mixing in oatmeal and spices to make black pudding. Then she boiled the head and tongue and other bits with pickling spices to make headcheese. Most of this went to the butchers, or into jars for our larder.

Raising a calf a year was a big part of the farm’s income. Our menu changed dramatically, with calves liver and onions and new potatoes and just about every kind of innards you can imagine. Killing for food is a part of life on a farm. I became expert at snapping a chickens neck and slitting its throat to catch the blood so it wouldn’t make a mess. One of the hardest things I had to do was take a litter of Tabby’s kittens down to the river in a bag with a heavy stone in it and throw them in.

Around nine, off I would go to my bed in the tent, just in time to hear the poignant sound of the steam whistle of the trans-Canada train going east. My nomadic heart would long to be on that train until sleep finally came. In the fall, as there was no refrigeration, the root cellar under the house was soon chockablock with hard fruit and root vegetables. The angled wing doors would be closed to keep the temperature just so. This kept them surprisingly fresh over the winter. It was very satisfying to look into the pantry at all those gleaming glass jars of preserved fruits, jams, vegetables, meat and fish. We also had smoked salmon from my Indian friend Gabrielle whose family had a smoke house. He was in the same grade as me and lived on the reservation located on the island in the middle of the Fraser River. He took me onto the reserve to meet his family and friends. It became a second home. I remember being terrified standing on the milk stand to mount my first bareback pony. All there was to hang on to was the rope bridle. Once I became more confident, it was thrilling to be flying down the smooth firm silt river bank. Gabrielle also taught me how to smoke salmon and trout. They were wonderful friends.

One day Dad came to visit with another girlfriend, Kay. I was happy for him and pleased when it turned into something serious. She was a waitress in a small café and had a son named Charlie, who was younger than us, with a slight build and blond hair like me. Uncle Ernie had just paid out of the army and the two of them pooled their savings to buy a dark red two story house in the downtown West End. It was on a corner lot with a steep street going up the side. There was big chestnut tree at the front of the garden that overlooked the streetcar stop. Our view included the railway yards and Coal Harbour, a warren of marinas, shipyards, fish boat docks, machine shops, lumber barges and tug boats and the eleven hundred acre Stanley Park. I said a tearful goodbye to Mrs. Bodley, Spot and Daisy. Dad drove me back into the city and family life again, feeling excited and sad.

Chapter 4

It was obvious that we all had to work together to help make this new situation work and be a family again. It worked because none of us wanted to go back to the way things were. The big kitchen stove was the sole source of heat. It had a sawdust hopper and heat coil in the firebox that provided hot water to the radiators in the rooms and for bathing. The sawdust was delivered by a big blower truck that would blow a months supply into the Garage at the back. The hopper was kept full by hand with a five gallon bucket. Uncle Ernie’s room was upstairs next to the only bathroom. There were two other rooms upstairs, both rented. The front room downstairs was also rented. My Dad, Kay, Charlie, Art and I all lived and slept in the two rooms at the back.

Art and I both had bikes, so we got after school jobs delivering groceries and prescriptions. I got a job as the shack manager for the News Herald morning paper and had to be at the shack at 4 am (it was almost across the street) to receive the papers for four paper routes. As well as my own route, I often had to do the route for the guys who didn’t show up. This meant I would be late for school with no breakfast. Kay worked part time at the café at first, but it was decided she was needed at home more than the small income she was earning. She was a good person and we all got along well. She used to make sure we had a packed lunch to take to school. We started to call her mom.

The railway yard became our adventure playground. Once we were playing inside a box car, when the car doors were jolted shut by the engine suddenly moving the train. It was pitch black inside. There was no handle to open the door from the inside. We had no water and no one knew where we were. We started banging on the heavy metal sliding doors. The train started to move and we thought we were on our way to who knows where! Our shouts and banging increased to panic levels. Suddenly, the door was rolled back, and a switchman was laughing at us and telling us we should not be on CPR property.

I don’t know why but Art and I started stealing small things from Lee’s Grocery Store. He soon figured out what we were up to, and was extra alert whenever we came in. Once, we stole a whole case of Chocolate bars from the back of a delivery van while the driver was in Lees. We also nicked a case of Coke another time. We even managed to get a refrigerator box car door open after breaking the metal seal. Inside were hundreds of cases of hot dogs. We opened one of the boxes and ate ourselves sick. The CPR cops spotted us, but we managed to get away by rolling under several lines of box cars where the rather large cops couldn’t follow. Sunday mornings we would not only profit from the lesson at Sunday school, but also from emptying the coins in milk bottles left on front porches. It wasn’t that we didn’t have any money, we both had income from our various jobs to pay for our own needs. I think it must have been the risk involved.

Fate stepped in when uncle Ernie got a new girlfriend, Beulah, who definitely would not fit into his room upstairs. Dad and Ernie were also very concerned about my brother and I. They decided to sell our house and buy a newer bigger one in Fraser view, an eastern suburb of Vancouver. The big move went smoothly as Dad and Ernie had done some preparatory work on our new home. Our bunks were in two new rooms in the basement. One for Charlie and one for Art and I. We also had our own bathroom with our first shower. Our new neighbourhood was completely different. Every house was a family home, with kids of all ages. The old neighbourhood had been mostly rooming houses with single tenants. There were lots of kids to meet and we soon got into a routine of hanging out after school with our new friends. We didn’t have paper routes and grocery delivery jobs to do. We lost our financial independence. We were becoming like normal kids. It was back to school time and Kay and Dad decided that I should go to grade nine at a technical high school so I could learn a trade. Dad was thinking of starting his own plumbing business. My new school did not teach the arts or languages. I liked the environment at first, learning how to make things was quite interesting, but I started resenting their decision. I did finish grade nine and most of grade ten, but I was getting more and more restless.

Something must have snapped on the bus that fateful morning, my restlessness had won.

Chapter 5

There I was, standing out on the highway by the bus loop with my thumb stuck out. An old pickup stopped and the driver asked where I was going. I didn’t know the answer to his question, so asked where he was going instead. His said Chilliwack, a town sixty miles east of Vancouver and as I got in, he pursued his original question. I had to conjure up an answer for him and myself, I am going to work at a resort in Lake Louise. He said, My kids are still in school, why you are out so early? I took early exams for grade ten and will be going back next fall. This seemed to satisfy him and we settled in for the long drive to the eastern end of the Fraser Valley. Damage from the worst storm in B.C. history was evident everywhere. Many homes were flooded and loads of trees were down. He wished me good luck and dropped me off just before the town.

As I stood there waiting for my next ride, I began to realize the enormity of what I was doing. Should I go back? My first ride was kind and understanding, maybe I will be okay. Two rides later I was in Hope, the town at the bend of the Fraser River where the farmland ends and the spectacular Fraser Canyon begins. Hope is surrounded by mountains looking down from all sides and was also the end of the paved road. The river was raging against the canyon walls, no wonder there was flooding down in the valley. A large friendly aboriginal man in a Ford pickup that had seen better days was my next ride. He was going about twenty miles up the canyon. He told me that the bridge at Lytton was washed out and I would have to make a big detour through Lillooet to get to Kamloops which is back on the main highway to Lake Louise. He seemed a lot more relaxed about my story than my first ride. He reminded me of my friend Gabrielle.

After he dropped me off, I set off walking and reached the washed out bridge around two in the afternoon. This is the point where the clear green Thompson River runs into the muddy Fraser. The dirt road to Lillooet stretched forty eight miles north along the Fraser River. There was absolutely no traffic and I ended up walking the whole way. The Fraser was also a raging torrent and a couple of times I had to climb above the washed out road to be able to continue. This was a semi-desert area, with sage and other desert plant life. I rested under a tree to eat my school lunch. I was thirsty, and scooped some water that tasted so pure, from a small stream. I felt really alive and pleased with myself for starting on this adventure. This seemed so much more like what I was meant to be doing. At sunset the road took me up over a ridge that gave me a wonderful view of the whole Fraser Canyon, I felt on top of the world. Luckily there was a full moon to light my way during the long all night walk. I arrived above Lillooet just before dawn on the twenty second of April, my sixteenth birthday. I found a sandy spot under a bridge by a creek and fell asleep. I was awakened by the noise of a car going over the bridge. I shook myself off, smoothed my hair out a bit and headed down to the town. No one took any notice of me, so I must look okay. I was hungry and headed for the back door of a bakery. I asked the baker if he had any bread from yesterday that I could have. He looked at me and smiled. What he saw was a tall, slim, blond sixteen year old. Sure kid, just a moment. He came back with a brown paper bag that seemed quite full. I thanked him and headed off with my prize. There were two sausage rolls, some whole wheat buns and a cookie.

The ancient town of Lillooet has a large Aboriginal population and is also the longest continually settled town in North America. I found an empty bench in the small park next to the town hall and began devouring the contents of the bag.

Where ya from? I looked up to two Indian guys standing above me looking quite friendly and curious. I managed to say Vancouver through my rather full mouth. Howdja get here? I told them about the long walk. They both sat down, one on either side of me. Where ya headin? I dropped the Lake Louise pretence and said I was hoping to find a job somewhere. They offered me a coffee and we went into a nearby café and joined a couple already in a booth. I was introduced as the guy who just walked all the way from Lytton. They talked about where I could get a job. The woman had heard that the mining town of Trail was looking for men to repair the flood damage. Being a freshly minted sixteen, I figured I qualified as a man. Trail was two hundred miles south of Lillooet, and I said I should be getting on my way. One of them said his uncle was just leaving for Kamloops and would give me a ride. Kamloops would be a good start on my way to Trail. I wondered if it was because of my friendship with Gabrielle that made me so at home with these lovely people. The uncle turned out to be a small round faced man with a happy disposition. He was glad of the company and asked where my stuff was. As I had just eaten the only stuff I had, I said I was traveling light. Sam proved to be an informed guide. On the way he described the history of the area and his people. We said goodbye at the junction going south.

I didn’t have to wait long before