Chapter 44.
Early in the spring of 1890 my sister Dora had gone to England at my grandmother’s urgent request. She wished her to see Devonshire, the home of the Carews for generations, and Tiverton in particular. My cousin Sophie Cayley, who had lost her sister, mother and father during the previous winter, had received a letter begging her to come to Ireland at once if she wished to see her sister Minnie Glascott again. It was decided that Dora and Sophie should travel together and that Dora should visit Ireland before going on to England. On the way there the vessel struck on the Fastnet Rock, near Ireland, but being a vessel with water tight compartments, they reached port without loss of life or cargo. After a few weeks Dora left Sophie with her sister, who lived until August, when she peacefully passed away. Dora visited Miss Murray, sister of our old friend, in Dublin, and then went on to Devonshire. She much enjoyed meeting all her father’s relations and later visited our Uncle Alfred, my mother’s uncle on her mother’s side. He was an earnest Christian man and lived at Westonsuper-Mare. After this she received an invitation to spend the winter in Germany with my mother’s sister Alice (Mrs. Knowles). When we went to Port Hope she was spending the winter in Hanover.
Deserted by all her children when we went to New Brunswick, my mother agreed to spend the summer in Fairy Lake, Muskoka, with Fred Robinson. He had built a little cottage at the end of a point. It had a beautiful view but not much more to recommend it, and being very tired of summer housekeeping, she went in September to an hotel at the other end of the lake, where she remained until we returned on October 1st.
Mim, who now was the fond mother of three dear little girls, Gwen, Julia and Hilda, was now living on Brunswick Avenue, Toronto, and Juey was with her parents, who not long after this left the dear old house on Selby Street and took a more modern and convenient one on Jarvis Street, which was then one of the best residential streets in Toronto.
The Ords were in the south—Florida, I think. Mr. Ord was dying of heart trouble. Our old friends the Gausby’s were still in Grosvenor Street, Emily and Amy taking a course in nursing. Mr. and Mrs. Irwin had moved into a nice house on Earle Street. The Rubidges had moved to Vancouver and Mr. and Mrs. Brendon were with them.
I do not think great changes had taken place in Toronto except for the building of a new Union Station, which was considered a fine piece of architecture, and a new City Hall. The Parliament Buildings in Queen’s Park had not yet been built. Horses still dragged the streetcars up and down Yonge and Sherbourne Streets. In the winter these were put on sleighs and the bottoms of them were covered with straw to keep the passengers’ feet warm.
The name Port Hope brings back to me thoughts of little homes, each in its pretty garden, perhaps a small lawn in front, with old-fashioned flowers—dahlias, hollyhocks, tall white lilies and scarlet geraniums—in borders round it. In the back garden you would find vegetables of all kinds and raspberries for sure. The town is built on two hills, known as Protestant Hill and English Town. A long street winds down the hill from English Town and at the bottom of the hill you find the shops, not a great many or very pretentious, but like the houses they are homey and the clerks welcome you as a friend and know just what you want. After passing through the town you reach the pretty little Ganaraska River, which runs into the lake at no great distance, and then the road takes a turn and wanders up a very steep hill and you are at “Protestant Hill”. You can avoid the hill by climbing a very long flight, or indeed several flights, of stairs called “Jacob’s Ladder”, and come out at a little old-fashioned English church, St. Mark’s.
It was to this quiet, sleepy little town that we came, with my mother and the two children, early in October, 1890, and here it was my lot to live through cheerful sunshine and dark shadows for sixteen years. Jack had been already a week in Port Hope, staying at the Queen’s Hotel, and he was very glad to receive us and had much to tell us of the Trader’s Bank and the town generally. We arrived on a Monday night and the next morning an old gentleman, Mr. Adams, brought his little pony carriage and took us to visit one of the many little homes, with a view to our renting it. It was a small red brick cottage, but it had four rooms upstairs and a basement kitchen and dining room. At the back was a verandah with a lovely view of hills and woods, and the blue lake in the distance. We were not hard to please and we agreed to take the house at the large rent of $10 a month. After that we just had to wait for our furniture to arrive, but we were not bored. We had various visitors, people who remembered my mother as a young widow thirty years before and who were delighted once more to renew her acquaintance.
Several girls came to apply for a “place” and we arranged for two. Mary Brockinshire, a girl of seventeen who was to act as general servant and do the washing and ironing, was much elated, as we offered her $6 a month and she had previously worked for $4. The other girl was to act as nursemaid. Her mother apologized for asking $3.50 a month for her services but said as she was nearly sixteen she thought she might do upstairs work as well as care for the children. Her name was Jinny Wright but Dorothy and Christopher always called her Jin Peter.
Our furniture soon arrived and willing hands made light work of the settling. We gave my mother the room on one side of the hall and she was very comfortable there and had a quiet, peaceful winter. I do not know when she had had so much leisure. She amused herself making a large picture book for the children, and she always had toffee of her own making for their benefit.
As for me, I felt my circumstances were as nearly perfect as they could be down here. I enjoyed having a home once more after our wanderings. I enjoyed my housekeeping, which included doing most of the cooking. I enjoyed the daily shopping at the quiet little shops around us. A dollar seemed to go so far in those days, when eggs were 100 a dozen, butter 13 or 140 a lb. bacon or sausages 100 a lb. good beef 50 a lb. for a roast, and lamb could be had by the quarter for 3 or 40 lb. Then the pleasure of getting a chicken large enough for our family for 250, and so nicely plucked and ready for the oven. A goose could be had for 600 and a turkey for 900 or $1.00. The farmers were certainly not making much at that time, for grain and vegetables were equally cheap; a 2 lb. loaf was 5¢ and potatoes were 250 a bag. Our milk we got from an old man who had been coachman to Mrs. Williams and remembered mother well. It cost me $1.00 a week for three quarts a day—and such milk! It was well that a dollar did go a long way or else with all my economy I could never have fed my large family and paid the servants’ wages on $40 a month. Clothing came out of that too but we did not buy much that winter.
When my shopping and housekeeping was done I used to take the children out, and reveled in the country lanes, the snug cottages and their pretty gardens. After dinner I always read to Dorothy and taught her verses and hymns, and then mother and I went out or we had visitors. But the evening, when the little ones were safely tucked up in bed, was my greatest pleasure. As yet there was no meeting in Port Hope and I had my husband to myself all that winter. He got books from the library and as mother and I sat and sewed he read aloud to us.
I have always looked back upon that winter as one of the happiest ones of my life. There was, however, one “fly in the ointment”; the impending division in the meeting, commonly known as the Raven division. We were inundated with literature from both sides and became—or at any rate I did—more and more perplexed. After much waiting and consideration we refused to go with Mr. Raven. What principally influenced me was the fact that his teaching as to the Person of the Son of God seemed untrue and did not seem to give Him His true place as God manifest in the flesh. However, nearly all our closest friends went with the Raven party; the Robinson and Sophie Cayley in particular. Mr. Cartwright, who had just married Miss Young, went back to the Church of England. Miss Barham went back to the Open Brethren. Everything seemed broken up. I remember going to Toronto just after the division and on Sunday morning the room struck me as so empty and the sense of what it all meant came upon me so strongly that I was in tears through the whole meeting.
In Port Hope there was one old lady who had broken bread with mother and Mr. and Mrs. Locke twenty-five years before. She had waited all these years and now was very glad to meet with Brethren again. Mrs. Eli Ward was her name and she lived in a funny little wooden cottage near St. Mark’s Church with her old husband and only child, a most devoted daughter named Winnie. It was in a little Fire Hall near her house that we first broke bread in Port Hope. Jack was not the only brother. A very dear man, Mr. McMahon, had come to our house one Sunday to visit. He had been a Roman Catholic, but was converted through Mr. Scriven. He was an earnest, devoted man and a great help to us for many years. But I am going on too fast with my story, for we did not break bread at all that winter, though we made Mr. McMahon’s acquaintance somewhere about Christmas time.
We had not been settled long before my grandmother came to visit us. She was much pleased with our new home and surroundings and especially delighted with the Devonshire cream, a luxury peculiar to Port Hope. Many of the inhabitants are from Devonshire and my grandmother felt quite at home amongst them. One evening Mr. Willie Crombie, a well known evangelist at that time and a particular friend of my grandmother, preached in the English church half way down the hill. She begged Jack to take her to the service, as she rather dreaded the slippery hill. Accordingly they went and after the sermon Mr. Crombie begged those in the congregation who were Christians to stand up and repeat: “The Lord is my light and my salvation”. My grandmother was the first to arise and repeated the verse with reverence and feeling. Only those who knew her could understand the effort it must have been to her to do this. After spending ten days with us she went on to Lindsay to stay with Cousin Emilie Wilgress, now Emilie Marsh. Her husband was the English Church clergyman in Lindsay.
We also had a visit from Birdie Ord, who had just lost her father. We saw something of the Reids of Bowman-vile. They too had gone from us in the sad, heart-breaking Raven division. Mrs. Reid’s youngest son Dr. Lestoch Reid had lately come from England with his nine children, and settled near to his mother. He was a very good homeopathic doctor but was losing his eyesight and unable to go on practicing. He was our nearest homeopathic doctor, being only about twenty miles away, a mere nothing in the days of motors, but motors were as yet unheard of when we moved to Port Hope.
So with work and play, a few kind friends and a good many new acquaintances, that first winter passed happily away and at last the snow disappeared and the spring began to appear, but with the bright April days came an event which is worthy of a fresh chapter.