Jonn: In Search of Self

By Jonn Morlin and Joyce P. Morlin

“I was ten years old and I was going to meet my mother for the first time that I can remember.”
What would be needed to overcome such a deficit start in life? The answer to this question will enlighten you, surprise you and keep you enthralled while you absorb lessons from every page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796070897

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by Jonn Morlin with Joyce P. Morlin.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2019918573

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-7960-7091-0

                Softcover         978-1-7960-7090-3

                eBook              978-1-7960-7089-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 02/13/2020

Xlibris

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794405

For Larry Lynn

and everyone else who

helped me along the way

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Part I :From Rough Start to Roughrider

What’s in Those Genes?

Jamaica Land

Grandfather and Father

My Mother

Left in Jamaica

Just the Three of Us

Memories That Haunt Me Still

School in Jamaica

Moving to Canada

In Montréal

The House on Guy Street

Going to School in Montréal

Church and Scouting

From Guy Street to Décarie Boulevard

A Little Mischief Here and There

Life on Décarie Boulevard

Finding Courage

Senior High School

The Year After High School

Working at Canadian Pacific Railway

Courtship in Cowansville

CP and Football

Visiting Father in Brooklyn

Go West, Young Man

Part II :From Roughrider to Real Life

(The Next Sixty Years)

Roughriders Training Camp

1958 Football Season

1959 Football Season

The 1960s

Off to the Yukon Territory

The 1970s

Going through the Lower 48

Fulfilling the Vancouver Dream

Going Back to Montréal

Going Back to Vancouver

The 1980s

Farewell, Vancouver

The 1990s

The Fortune-Teller Said …

Courtship in Dobbs Ferry, Germany, and Florida

The 2000s

Peace Corps Service

After the Peace Corps

The 2010s

It’s a New Life

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Foreword

by George Wilcox

Most books begin with a foreword by the author. Not this one! Based on my reading of Jonn: In Search of Self, a forward seems more fitting, especially in recognition of Jonn Morlin’s forward-looking approach to life. Jonn’s story is not your standard biographical retrospective; it reads more like an engaging mystery. It’s a real page-turner, teasing the reader to keep asking, What in the world will happen next? You can’t read this account of Jonn’s adventures looking over your shoulder, musing about what has been, but only by standing on tiptoe wondering about the yet-to-come.

Jonn: In Search of Self gives a ringing endorsement of Gracie Allen’s quip, Never put a period where God has put a comma. Jonn has often paraphrased this open-ended bit of wisdom at the end of one of our many rounds of golf. After enduring my typical parking lot laments about the putt that lipped out, the inevitable errant drive that sailed beyond the white stakes, or the dreaded shanked chip that cost me a chance to save par, Jonn wisely responded to my litany of what-ifs and if-onlys by reminding me, Tomorrow’s another day! Those words helped me overcome my hangdog disposition following frustratingly familiar disappointing rounds!

What to some might sound like a cliché has been for Jonn a personal creed, a defy-the-odds determination to not give in to the discouragement, disillusionment, and outright despair that dogged his trail from his earliest days. What I call grace—God’s mysterious providential guidance—inspired Jonn to hold on to hope (or, better yet, allowed Hope to hold on to him) with the skill and strength of a pair of seasoned welder’s hands. Ask Jonn to show you his hands, and you’ll notice he has no fingerprints. They’ve literally worn off after years of manual labor and creative craftsmanship. Nevertheless, the imprint of hope and the inexhaustible promise of What’s next? possibilities have left a signature mark on his life—and on the lives of those of us privileged to know him.

I suppose many helpful conclusions could be drawn from this account of Jonn’s life. My suggestion, though, would be to take stock of the intriguing, challenging, and hope-affirming premises evident herein, not the least of which rests on the assertion that tomorrow’s another day! No matter what happened yesterday. Regardless of the circumstances of today. As Jonn’s experience confirms, life’s best formatted in italics—with a decidedly forward-focused slant!

Fore what it’s worth,

George Wilcox

Friend, pastor, and golfing partner

Preface

For many years, every person who heard snippets of Jonn’s life story said, You should write a book! Born in Jamaica, British West Indies; left with guardians at age three by parents who immigrated to Montréal, Canada, for a better life; brought to Canada at age ten; raised by parents who separated when he entered high school; and became a professional football player at the age of twenty.

As the scribe for Jonn’s life story, I have also become the muse. The musings are meant to interpret, highlight, and expand the recollections of Jonn, who is now in his eighties.

The catalyst for beginning the memoir was a specific moment in time. Jonn was attending a motivational seminar by Les Brown in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2011. After a few moments in a group that Jonn was sitting with during a morning session, information about Jonn’s life was mentioned, and Les Brown went to Jonn, placed his hand on Jonn’s shoulder, and said directly to him, Man, don’t go to your grave with that book still in you! This is not a book about Jonn—it is about the book that is in Jonn and deserves to be read as an inspiration to others.

It takes more than forty years before John becomes Jonn, so Jonn tells us what he remembers about John.

Jonn Morlin’s life is presented with the help of Dragon Naturally Speaking software, wherein spoken words became typed paragraphs, reports from Ancestry.com/DNA, family photographs, research by nephew Leon Smart, and assistance from Jonn’s eighty-four-year-old brother, David Jr.

This record is to encourage others who start off with many strikes against them to take a big dose of courage and move forward. Even if you have grown up with fear surrounding your very core, as was the case for Jonn in his earliest memories, be grateful that you survived the misery.

Jonn’s story reveals a frightened little boy who experienced many ups and downs; the ups will make you laugh, and the downs will make you sad. Through it all, there is abundant courage and determination that lead to an unexpected outcome. Could any of this be related to the genes he inherited?

Part I

From Rough Start to Roughrider

What’s in Those Genes?

Just because Fate doesn’t deal you the right cards, it

doesn’t mean you should give up. It just means you have

to play the cards you get to their maximum potential.

—Les Brown

Ancestry.com/DNA, and the clever advertising, When we grew up, we thought we were German. We wore lederhosen and danced the polka. We went to Ancestry.com and found out we were Scottish. Now we wear kilts.

We chose the Ancestry service for DNA testing. Registration and orders are handled via the Internet; your DNA will reveal your genetic community and ethnicity. A genetic community consists of places and populations that might be part of your past. In other words, you inherit your DNA from places and populations.

Ethnicity connects you to social groups with a common national or cultural tradition. An example of ethnicity is Arab, Irish, Italian, Indian, or Jamaican.

A DNA kit can be ordered for approximately one hundred dollars per person. We actually ordered Jonn’s kit on sale for $79. Yes, we were curious and hooked by the bargain offer.

Within a week, the DNA kit arrived. Instructions included collecting a small vial of saliva, to which we attached an ID code used to identify the saliva donor. We mailed the sample in a preaddressed box. Six or eight weeks later, an email arrived from Ancestry.com telling us that the DNA results were available online. Two reports were included: Genetic Community and Estimated Ethnicity.

The headline news is that Jonn’s genetic community is African-Caribbean. His genes can be found on every Caribbean island—Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, and Curaçao. We never answered any questions. We never said that Jonn Morlin was born in Jamaica and was born with the name John Rivett Smart.

The Ancestry.com/DNA report provided the following overview: Most African Caribbeans in this Genetic Community can trace their ancestry back to West Africa. Over a three-hundred-year period, nearly five million people were enslaved and brought to the islands to work on sugar plantations. After emancipation in the early 1800s, they moved from island to island looking for seasonal work, usually returning home after the work was finished. Thousands journeyed to Panama, where they helped build the Panama Canal. Others moved to New York City and became successful business people and medical professionals.

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Genetic community for Jonn Morlin.

We never told Ancestry.com that Jonn’s grandfather had a passport showing trips to New York City and was listed on the ship manifest as a merchant.

The Ancestry.com/DNA report also provided an Ethnicity estimate for Jonn Morlin, which shows the regions of the world that provide matching DNA. Jonn is 59% African (Nigeria, Ivory Coast/Ghana, Mali, Cameroon/Congo, etc.), < 1% Asian, and 40% European (Ireland, Western Europe, Great Britain, etc.)

Jonn’s mother told Jonn that her father was from Scotland (thus the name Rivett), and he was a policeman until he lost his sight. Jonn didn’t believe his mother, and this revelation of a grandfather from Scotland was brushed aside, until now. Ancestry.com confirmed that Jonn is 40% European—Ireland 17%, Europe West 13%, and Great Britain 5%!

If more ancestry information is desired, it will be made available for a price. However, we’re satisfied with the knowledge of Jonn’s genetic and ethnic makeup: African-Caribbean and European.

Does genetic makeup influence human behavior? Was the ancestry information useful to understanding Jonn’s earthly journey? How is Jonn influenced by the experiences he had as a child while growing up?

In the twenty-first century, a developmental psychologist, Judith Rich Harris, writes, Genes do influence human behavior, and so do the experiences children have while growing up. Let’s see about Jonn.

Jamaica Land

And so the little freighter sat upon the sea, and, though

the land came closer day by day, the freighter never

moved. She was old and weather-weary, and she had

learned to let the world come round to her.

—Beryl Markham, West with the Night

From the beginning of time, there have always been warm breezes; tranquil turquoise waters lapping at the light tan, sandy shores; brilliant yellow sun in blue skies overhead; lush, green plants growing on the hillsides and lowlands. What a paradise! The garden of Eden could have been here in Jamaica, West Indies.

The original inhabitants of Jamaica are believed to be the Arawaks, also called Tainos. They came from South America and named the island Xaymaca, which meant land of wood and water. The Arawaks were a mild and peaceful people by nature.

Then along came Christopher Columbus, the first European to set foot on the island when he claimed it for Spain on his second voyage to the New World. Jamaica was settled by the Spanish in 1510, and the indigenous Taino people were forced into slavery and eventually exterminated.

The Spanish introduced the cultivation of sugarcane in the early sixteenth century under Spanish colonial rule when sugarcane was shipped from Haiti to the island.

During the next century, very little emphasis was placed on large-scale cultivation of sugarcane and production was undertaken only for personal use on the island. The Spaniards were unwilling to work on the estates after the Arawaks were decimated.

The British captured Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655. Unable to find gold and other precious metals in Jamaica, the Spanish saw little use for the island and hardly resisted the British invasion. In 1662, there were about four hundred Negro slaves on the island.

Sugar production became an important activity after the British took control of the island. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, under the British plantation system, the island became the major producer and leading exporter of sugar in the world. Slaves were the major source of labor.

By 1775, there were almost two hundred thousand slaves on the island of Jamaica. However, by 1800, there were movements in England pushing for the abolition of slavery. In 1807, the African slave trade was abolished by Parliament, effective January 1, 1808. This was supposed to mean that no more slaves could be brought from Africa to the colonies in the British West Indies, but slaves could be transported from one colony to the other.

Jamaica was still a paradise for all but the slaves!

Slavery ended in Jamaica, and full freedom was given to all slaves in 1838.

After the emancipation of the slaves, there was a change from the use of slave labor to that of indentured labor by Indians from India and Chinese from China, and the introduction of machinery to produce crops—sugar, tobacco, coffee, bananas.

Jonn’s family is the Smart family, and they can trace their roots back to the late 1800s in the paradise island of Jamaica, West Indies. The earliest patriarch known to the family was John Smart, a merchant, born in 1872.

This meant that John Smart, the merchant, was born a free man, with British citizenship, in paradise, where labor was performed by indentured servants.

Jonn introduces his grandfather and his father based on what he finds in a passport photo. This passport photo and other research with New York City connections, years of birth and death were provided to Jonn by his nephew, Leon Smart.

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Passport photo taken June 1920: Grandfather,

John Smart (seated), his son, David

Barrington Smart (age 8) standing.

Grandfather and Father

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

—Rudyard Kipling

This passport photo is signed by John Smart, my grandfather. As far as I can see, the photo resembles portraits of me, but it’s my grandfather, my father’s father. My grandfather is seated, and my father is standing on the left side of the chair—very elegant individuals, very disciplined.

My grandfather was born in 1872. This photo shows him at the age of forty-eight years, and David Barrington Smart, my father, was eight years old. It is a passport photo stamped with the date June 20, 1920.

A ship manifest shows that John Smart and David Smart left Port Antonio, Jamaica, on the SS Princess May headed for New York City, arriving on August 4, 1920.

John Smart was married to Patrice Austin, his occupation was ‘merchant,’ he was a British citizen, and a resident of Kingston, Jamaica. His nearest relative in Jamaica was Stephen Smart, and the surviving family members today do not know Stephen.

The earliest family matriarch is believed to be Patrice Austin Smart, wife of John Smart. The Austin branch of the family is obscure, but US Census records show that they may have lived in New York City, NY during the 1920s.

***

The passport photo dated June 20, 1920, is a treasured document. Mr. Smart and son David are impeccably dressed. The father is dressed in white trousers, dark blazer, and a high-collared white shirt. Around his neck is a dark necktie in a perfect Windsor knot. Standing by the rattan chair in which his father is seated, is David, age eight, wearing long trousers with a well-tailored, collarless, three-quarter length Norfolk jacket covering a white shirt with a Peter Pan collar and a scarf tie that makes him appear very smart, no pun intended.

A classic version of the Norfolk jacket is single breasted with three or four front buttons; vertical pleats and a full belt are cut separately and laid on the coat. The belt of the classic version uses the same material as the jacket with a button closure. The belt goes all around the waist without being attached to the vertical pleats. The Norfolk jacket appeared in fashion illustrations for the dress of young boys starting in 1859.

Father and son look well-to-do, well-off, well-heeled, prosperous. Father and son are each wearing a pin on their jackets: John Smart has a lapel pin; David has a pin on the left side of his jacket about where a lapel would be if the Norfolk jacket were to have a lapel. Quite a bit of our knowledge of John Smart, the merchant, is in this 1920 passport information.

Close observation of this photo discloses at least three preferences that will become known and associated with the Smart family. First, a love of the tropical, paradise found only on islands, symbolized by the rattan chair; second, a love for good quality clothing; and third, a focus on making a handsome and pleasing appearance.

From 1925 US Census records, we know that David Smart, the son, lived at 2071 Fifth Avenue in Harlem, New York. He lived with his father and his sister, Maria Smart, who was thirteen years older than him. In 1925, Maria was twenty-six years old; David would turn fourteen on October 15 of that year.

The family believes that David attended school in New York and became an engineer. The story told by David’s sons is that he was a mathematical genius—he could add five columns of figures in his head and make many other calculations without pen and paper, very accurately.

Jamaican records of births, marriages, and deaths confirm that David Smart was born on October 15, 1911. After studying in New York, David Smart apparently returned home to Jamaica, where he married Jonn’s mother, Lurline Rivett.

My Mother

Wishful thinking never made anyone rich, beautiful, or happy.

Only honest accomplishment does that.

—Kabalarian writings

On Ancestry.com, we learn that Lurline Petrona Rivett was born on March 12, 1913, in Kitson Town, St. Catherine Parish, Jamaica, West Indies, to Ellen (LeRay) and Richard Rivett.

Lurline was a very private person. She spoke glowingly of her father, Richard Rivett, who lost his eyesight. She tells us, I was his eyes! And I loved to help him whenever I could. I would read to him.

According to Lurline, her father was from Scotland, and before he lost his eyesight, he worked as a policeman. The family does not know the cause of Mr. Rivett’s blindness.

Lurline has also told us that her mother, Ellen LeRay, came from Belize.

On Rootsweb, an Ancestry.com community, we learn that as a young child, Lurline faced and overcame many challenges, including childhood malaria. As a young woman, she worked as a postal clerk to help support her family and to take care of her blind father.

Lurline supposedly had a brother; no one in the family can remember his name. Only David Jr. has a recollection of seeing Lurline’s brother, named Frank, approximately three times over a spread of years. David Jr. recalls that he came for visits from London; he was an albino and a very strange sight, as he recalls. What gave the impression that Frank was an albino was that he had a very fair complexion with a face of blond eyelids and eyebrows and pale eyes. No one had ever seen an albino person, certainly not David Jr.

Lurline’s brother is not found on Rootsweb or Ancestry.com. David Jr. thinks he returned to London and eventually died there.

Early photographs of Lurline show her as a demure young lady. As an avid tennis player and dancer, she caught the eye of David Barrington Smart.

In 1934, there is a record of David’s marriage at age twenty-three, to Lurline Petrona Rivett in Saint Andrew, Jamaica, on September 26, 1934. Lurline was twenty-one years old. The marriage certificate is signed by witnesses,