FAMILY & FRIENDS LETTER
Year End Edition 1964

Dear Folk:
RR3 Port Rowan Ont.
20 Dec '64 (start)

To those of you whom I've always thought of as being on my "Overseas Letter" mailing list, are now added a host of other folk who are my Family and their friends. Many of the latter have heard from this end of the country more recently than the good folk overseas. To these were sent letters starting with the time when my Father had a 9Oth birthday celebration here in the Bushouse with me. It was only logical that there be a follow up each year as Father passed his 91st., and 92nd., birthdays. By this time it was dubbed a "Family and Friends letter", of which the most recent was dated in February 1964 when Father began the Life as Eternal as the things he lived for while he was with us.

While many of my overseas friends have been in touch with me, still events have conspired to delay my answering, ever since May 1963. Indeed my wail of woe then was that l'd not had time to write or even send off all the letters prepared in '61 and '62. So some of you will really have an envelope full, this time.

'Way back then, I see by rereading the '63 copy, were events which have passed from anticipation to history. The automatic oil furnace built in the shop for the shop was finally moved to the house in the winter of '63-4 and has been barely looked at since, serving very well, despite the perfections I'd like to yet make on it. The "perimeter" circulation of heating air through registers round the outer walls does indeed ensure even heating, including the whole basement in its movement, though not overheating the latter. A later note here,--only the other week we found that the basement could indeed be heated, but that story involves rather more than a sentence here. The shop's second big door is not yet raisable (or should it be spelled "raise-able") nor have I a portable wheeled hoist using the electric aircraft engine starter motor. All the gyproc wall board has yet to be put up in place in the Bushouse also. Social Credit wise, the little local group has remained active under the drive of another worker Bill Triska, my first real "fellow-worker" since coming here again in '57. He's a traveller by the nature of his electrical repair business, and an outspoken enthusiast as well so that he's made far more personal contacts than I could ever hope to make. So our FOCUS (The Canadian Social Crediter paper) mailings have remained at 500 per month ever since May '63.

In June '63 both Father and I were planning on attending the Centennial Services of Father's last Church at a little rural spot in Dunn township. (Here a township is but a division of a County, and not a village as villages are called 'down under'). However only a few weeks before the date Father had to be hospitalized following a fall that fractured his thigh bone. So my attendance at the Dunn Centennial Service was in a way, as representing Father there. I some times wonder what would have been the course of events had my Father been with me. Perhaps I would have merely acted a personal loud speaker for him at the Church luncheon for guests from a distance, and later when he may have visited some home of old parishoners,---he was so deaf you see, and returned home to the Bushouse in the evening fairly well satisfied with a good days visiting.

But in fact, I went home rather more unsatisfied than ever before. It was all because of a renewed acquaintance at that Service whom I'd not seen for almost 16 years. Irene was different with the difference of a fully formed flower in comparison with one newly opening. Thus began my Summer of Summers, Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer again, that can never be quite equalled.

So while I continued my Garage Business, and began digging a cistern finally to replace the "near well" that was for ever going dry or filling with that ever so fine "mud" sand that no filter would exclude, courtship filled my time and thoughts. Irene had been teaching mostly in the "years between", and had gone East across the Atlantic, a few years after I'd gone West and South across the Pacific. She had in fact been only a few miles from me while I sojourned my brief 25 days in England, on my return trip in '57,----only I'd no inkling of the fact. Once re-discovered, it turned out that she was holding down a "Mathematics Department Head's" position in a town called Uxbridge some 50 miles north of Toronto here. My old '47 Chev Coupe didn't attract much attention up there, but my rough and rusty shop JEEP was object of speculation by her fellow staff members at the High School ---in due course of time.

There was early this year an element of uncertainty between us, that discouraged me, and made me susceptible to the designs that were not at all uncertain by another. So for a while I was indeed a man with two women in my life. But very shortly all uncertainty disappeared between Irene and me, and the competition retired with very good grace convinced that she'd acted on behalf of Cupid very well. Maybe she did, who knows????

The Cistern project literally collapsed when customers' work delayed its completion before the heavy frost of the winter set in. The successive frost and thaws, by spring had reduced the hard erect walls of the excavation, to shelving mud. And so it remained all Summer. The matter of Engagement and Preparations were paramount. That period from Easter Sunday evening would fill a chapter in any novel what with learning about prospective new relations and friends, and even a wonderful week end with Irene in a Muskoka Lakes cottage "Turtle Rock". It would sound much more interesting maybe by inference if I said no more about that, but we were guests after all and object of "shower" at a "doo" in our favour by former Bracebridge High School Staff members who knew Irene when she taught there.

(page two)

More or less at the last minute we decided on a "camp-trailer" trip except that to hire one was too expensive and there'd been no time to build one. Since the Summer of '59 when the component parts of a trailer had been assembled with the idea of building me to live in while the Bush Shop was being built, I'd spent only two hours on its actual construction. But from the 7th of July that work had to be "undone" because there no time to build the unprecedented "independ suspension torsion bar type of construction", with an initial 8½ hours work to begin a "crash" program that even involved setting up a "shop closed" sign to keep customers away. 105¼ hours later at about 2.00 a.m. with the last licks of the brush with the aluminum paint, on the 18th July '64 the trailer was finished "almost".

That was my WEDDING DAY, and my good friend and contemporary "small business man", Tom, came to act as my chauffeur and Best Man. So some 50 miles from here, in the little rural United Church in Dunn Township, that had been on Father's last pastoral charge, the Rev Dr Young of the Delhi United Church conducted the ceremony that made Irene, Mrs Wesley Leonard. That it was a happy service and one that went off with out a hitch, other than the "hitch" intended,--goes without saying, but anyway we can still reassure ourselves by playing back the tape recording that my good old "Webcor" made of the music and words and sounds of the day.

Irene's parents live at her birthplace only a ½ mile from this church, and there, the jovial crowd made merry all afternoon until time for Irene and I to make our departure. An otherwise unfortunate incident marked our departure, when many of the other cars of the send off procession had already reached the end of the long lane, I driving Irene's "Rambler" car, promptly dropped the front wheels in the sharp little ditch that bordered the lawn before the house where the car was parked. I was unfamiliar with the location of the proper track, and it was covered with high grass. Anyway all the cars returned and many strong young backs and hands litterally picked the front of the Rambler up while I backed up. We knew that the procession was to slow us up with all the traditional fanfare, but being the only car in motion and ready to go with driver and passenger complete,---we took to our heels figuratively bypassing the cars minus drivers on the lane, and led a merry chase for a fair number of miles, 'till the last car dropped away. Then minus the streamers and stones in the hub caps, we toured by devious routes 'till after dark, the Bush House on my own Bush Lot, welcomed us for our first nights and days together.

Only Tom Backus my Best Man and his wife Verna knew of our return Home and came round the next afternoon to find Irene helping me with the completion of the tent framework of the trailer. Tom took over that while the girls visited in the house. When the trailer was finally pronounced road worthy, I, Tom, Irene and Verna visited together, the first of many such friendly get-togethers that have taken place since then.

Most novels end with, "and they lived happily ever after---", or words to the effect, (except so-called modern sophisticated writing perhaps )---only this is not just a Novel. To describe our honey-moon trip would be a travelogue on the beauties of Northern Ontario both going by the Lake Route Trans Canada Highway, next Lakes Huron and Superior, and returning over the "Northern" route past the spectacular rocky country to the more nearly barren country where bed rock lies only a litle below the surface. Of course we went beyond the Great Lakes through the fishers and hunters and tourists paradise the Rainey River and Lake of the Woods areas through Kenora and on to my Brother Etheridge's home farm near Winnipeg. It was my first visit there since '50 when my World Tour began Westward, and as Irene noted, they have become a family to "look up to" what with son Bruce at 6'3" and Daughter Barbara at 5'9", my sister-in-law my height and Etheridge six feet. Of course Irene was and is my choice at 5'2" and only a bit over 8 stone bf charming femininity.

Shop work therefore was deserted for nearly a month and the jobs undone before walking out, were still waiting my return. One, a '52 Chev engine and brakes and headlamp "rust-out" job that came in last May, was turned out only last week. Of course it was the customer's second car, but he was very pleased with the "new" car I drove back to him. It was in amazingly good shape for the 110,000 miles it had been driven, and was the first engine overhaul it had ever had. The wear was so slight as to not require any more replacements than some drivers cars at only 30 or 40 thousand miles. My sister Alice's car still awaits my attention, after having been rolled over by her son. The M G of my nephew however was rebuilt and delivered after some six weeks, following our return. All this time the orderly plans for finishing the Bushouse, were badly disrupted, as no doubt are all "best laid plans".

Just now (day after Christmas) my worry is to get the excavation filled round the outside of the brand new cement bock walls of the cistern that finally did get built. Its size had to be lengthened so now it is as wide as the house, and lies 12 feet north using the basement wall as one of its walls. It is only planned to be 5'10" deep under the concrete cover when that is built, instead of the original 8 foot depth I'd dug. 24 X 12 X 5'10" minus the six tile posts filled with concrete leave a volume of some 10,000 gallons, when full, which will be ample for cooking drinking and most laundry. The Bush Pond, (which was a major project also in the late Autumn of '63) will practically never go dry, but will always have its "swamp water" taste, (although it tested fair when I sent in a sample for bacteria count). It's our only water supply now, and in future will be used for toilet and outside water tap and shop use still. But the filling in outside the cistern is needed to keep the ground water from freezing and heaving the concrete block walls, thus undoing the six weeks work "we" both put on it. Irene was right with me wielding the mortar board and trowel like a veteran, and applying her advanced mathematics to the science of concrete composition at the cement mixer!!!

(Page three)

This Christmas has been the most complete that our Bushouse has seen, even to a real live Christmas tree, with lights and trimmings. Above it where it stands in the picture window row (24 feet long round the corner of the living room) are our Christmas cards on the temporary valence shelf. Irene's furniture of course is much newer than the family furniture I've inherited, and with the expensive new 9 X 12 carpet laid out for the occasion, our house has an air of comfort and attractiveness despite the unfinished gyproc walls etc. Next Christmas we intend to buy a real live Scotch pine complete with roots, and keep it in a tub for the festivity and set it out the next year. We were too late this year, and frost and mud (in turn) prevented us from getting a "dug" tree. The Bush Lot has only deciduous trees and the little seedlings I've set out will take a decade to grow to any size, to clothe the bareness of the scene in winter.

Irene's parents, Mr and Mrs Harold Moote, are with us this time, although it had been their plan to fly (it's their first air trip) to their usual wintering spot in St Petersburg Florida. However a most unfortunate rural road accident in which child pedestrian was fatally involved, delayed them. But it has made this First Christmas that Irene and I have had in the Bushouse, just that much more enjoyable.

I must hold myself to my determination to send this letter off without the interminable delay that I have previously made, in wanting to add a more personal note to each correspondent, and friend. The sum total of these letters has been, (the answering letters that is) is indeed the most absorbing form of reading, for it deals with people in real life. There's Wallie, one of my earliest pen pals in Christchurch with his three sons and tales of caravan "canopy camping" and news of folk I knew in the Solomons;----and Audrey, of my Trans Tasman journeying, and later tripping through Ontario, with her letters telling of her Family's Centennial gathering, and problems of house alterations and building, domesticity, which problems are so much like mine and which are the stuff from which the complete life is made;----Its been some time since I heard from Florence and Les, but their hospitality the time I had all that sheep's wool to dry out for my sleeping bag, following the nine weeks "under canvas" trip in South Island N.Z., they aren't to be forgotten;----My very earliest pen-pal, Dorothy, with her hundreds of correspondents, none of whom she wishes to drop, (says she wishes they would drop her!!!) has adopted the duplicated letter method of dealing with all, and by her latest has sailed for New York on the Queen Mary, to begin her world travelling, after writing abroad for so many years. If she reaches this part of Canada I certainly would be host and make her trip more enjoyable in my modest manner;-----Arthur, my earliest N Z correspondent, whose career has been so chequered, writes of how he has left school teaching for the Church of England Ministry, and asked for my moral support in his studying. He expected to be ordained as Deacon by the end of '64, and certainly I feel a man like him with such a spirit of Christian Stewardship, should be in active Ministerial work;----- Mary, in India who has written so faithfully, literally through flood and famine sends me her best wishes for my marriage, and asks for my continued prayers for the Native Mission with which she and her Husband are engaged;-----Ted has retired, but can still tell me about who is who in my old Christchurch shop, as well as the news of his son in the Snowy Mountain Hydro work, where he's passed his examinations and has reached "the top of the ladder" promotionally speaking;-----and so on through the list, the folk I met on my travels, who helped me, the native friends from the Solomons, fellow workers there, John and Merle and Norma, Allan & Jo, two Allans in fact; Mollie to whom I said I'd tell all about my marriage when it came,----

The foregoing was written the 10th January '65, only that one paragraph, 'cause the re reading of the letters in my files became such an absorbing task that it took all afternoon and evening. Now it is the 24th January in the evening of a stormy rain and ice covered roads and trees sort of a day; which was reason why my new Sister-in-law Ruth and family, postponed their visit until next Sunday. A 100 mile round trip on ice and snow covered roads would have taken the pleasure out of the visit. Visiting, of course, is something I'm doing more of now. Last Autumn the Social Credit Convention was in the home town of my new brother-in-law Peter, so the Convention attendance was conveniently coupled with visiting. Also when the Commencement Exercises in Irene's last School were held, that meant another 300 mile odd, round trip with an overnight stay with former fellow school teacher in Uxbridge. Of course I coupled with both these, some business,--the obtaining of a new second hand roof section for my sister Alice's "rolled-over" Anglia car. (1961) Next Sat. the 30th we have tickets for the first proper "live" performance of an Opera that I've attended in a decade or more. Strictly speaking I guess "Baker Street" is a "musical" but somewhat like the show "Camelot" is being presented at the O'Keefe Ctr., in Toronto prior to the Broadway Performance in New York. It is the "Musical Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" in fact, and of course as you know 221B Baker Street is the eternal address of Sherlock Holmes and "my dear Watson". I had thought of getting Alice's Anglia done for delivery then but though I had the body and roof assembled on the car, the curved windshield that had been delivered, proved to be the wrong one and had to be returned and reordered. So the job's Stalled.

I did get the cistern excavation filled in and just before a current freeze up too, although it's thawed and frozen several times since. Irene's enthusiasm is not balked by the mere fact of her unfamiliarity with carpentering details, and she has made free with my detailed scale drawings of proposed bathroom cupboards & closets. So that room which she started at first because it was the smallest, now has its built in medicine cabinet with two 12"X18" sliding mirror doors, as well as the wall sized storage shelves with two more 30"X12" sliding mirror doors and two 30"X31" hardboard sliding doors. In fact we have sliding doors all over the place, since I fitted all the interior doors a with sliding doors, and now even the old fashioned four legged bathtub is boxed in to form an "under-tub" storage space with sliding doors also. The kitchen centre which I began with the propane gas stove built into the counter with its stainless steel sink and deck swing faucet, and five, two foot deep by twenty inch wide, storage drawers in the three foot counter height,----now boasts a ceiling general storage cabinet, 2ftX5ft3inX22in, all above the stove ventilation hood, and the lower cupboard (3'8"X18"x12") both with sliding doors of course, and a four foot fluorescent single tube to provide indirect light.

We have endless discussions and black board drawing sessions of "just how" the centre "island" kitchen ctr counter should be arranged from the temporary set up we have now. Of course colour schemes and plastering techniques, water pressure alterations to allow for alternative use of pond or cistern water in case there's trouble in either supply, insulation of the basement wall "top" and stairway, (a job pending from the house's first building)----oh yes and I did get the new aluminum storm door nicely fitted on the day of our coldest spell yet, when it dropped to almost 10 degrees below zero, despite the lovely clear weather,----there's just no end to things to do in the house.

Never the less I've tried to get at least eight hours a day at either shop work or customers' jobs work. Shop work of course is just as important to business as is customer jobs, since it is the building and maintenance of the building itself as well as the equipment and tools, even the never ending sweeping up after each job. It is a slogan with me, that, "The first thing a man must know to be a good mechanic, is how to sweep a floor"!!!!----and it is amazing how many men try to be mechanics and retain their slovenly habits, of work that is. Included in shop work recently was the final assembly of a little rectifier made up from five selenium rectifiers from old ones discarded from T V sets. Friend Tom gave them to me years ago, but only now have I got them into use as a trickle battery charger for the battery that powers my automatic door lifting winch motor in the shop. The little 250 Volt smoothing iron bought in Christchurch serves very well as a resistance unit to allow only enough 110V current to produce about one ampere of charging current continuously. Last January a customer who hired use of the shop for his winter servicing of his 'dozer, got me to set up my little "Quebec Heater" (which has a vertical fire brick lined fire pot about 12" in diameter with three rotatable grates below) in the shop, with a stove pipe through the window. But when an east wind would blow, the fire would burn backwards into the shop. Although this isn't very frequently the case never the less I set up a twenty foot long twelve inch sheet metal Chimney, just outside the shop next my future shop furnace. So that's a job that will not have to be redone, tho' now only the little stove is connected to it. I'm so used to cold weather working, that even temperatures as low as ten above zero or more (or less I should say) are not impossible, as long as one is out of the direct wind, and is dry and properly clothed. But equipment and oils and greases etc are difficult to handle when so cold, while washing and painting etc are almost impossible. It is a case of putting off the furnace completion to do one job after another simply because each job being more urgent, is not too much trouble to do without shop heating.

9.30 am 25th January, Robbie Burns Day for all you Scots, which was also my Mother's birthday, and the radio is bursting with scotch songs--all the old favourites.-----Was just now identifying another bird species, from those come to drink at the unfrozen water at the outlet of the sump pump pipe from our basement. This unusual pretty little bird was either a Purple Finch or a House Finch from its rosy breast and head and rose colour feathers on its back in the brown overall.

It had been my intention to resume attendance at Sunday School, but not until the regular Bible class teacher was wanting a replacement while she and her convalescent husband went on a slow trip to the west coast over Christmas, did we actually begin S S again. But this time it is Irene who teaches, while I just comment now and then. Irene has excellent hearing and can follow all the comments from the Class which I cannot do at all. I'm still in the choir of course during Church Services since I get only the music from the service anyway. Unless I plant my tape-recorder mike smack in front of the preacher, to hear his address later, I never get any of it. Yesterday when the choir filed down to the front pews to augment the tiny congregation, I still could catch only about one word in ten or more in his sermon. Usually I have a study pamphlet in my hymnary to read during the sermon period, in the choir loft, so the time is not lost, and I do stay awake.

And so on and so forth----the story is endless so until "next time" all the best to you all out there, and Cheerio from
Yours truly;
    Wesley W  Leonard


Old Family Letters