My penchant for finding my ancestors has become a bit of an obsession. Not sure why.   And I don’t have to go all the way to Scotland to chase up some reminiscences.

Last weekend I was in Toronto and staying at a hotel near the Annex district.  For some reason I remembered that my grandfather,  Joseph Alison Vardon,  his parents and his sisters, had lived somewhere in that area when he was younger.

I happened to have found a copy of my grandfather’s record of recruitment when he was drafted into the army just shortly after his 20th birthday, on October 16, 1917, exactly 100 years ago. From this document, I discovered that his address then was 188 Delaware Ave in Toronto, about a ten minute walk from where I was staying.

My grandfather lived in this house when he was conscripted into military service in 1917.

So, on Sunday morning, I wandered down to this neighbourhood,  found the house (upgraded but still the original three story house) and stood outside it wondering if my grandfather’s bedroom was in the dormer on the top floor and how many times he might have walked down that street as a teenager.   I went down to the corner of Bloor and Delaware and sat for half an hour on a cement bench by the street, conjuring up images of streetcars going by on Bloor,  old model cars, people on bicycles.

I looked across the street at an old building that is now called the Black Horse Restaurant and Bar and knew that building (built in 1892) was there when my grandfather lived in the neighbourhood.  The building has a horse’s head sculpture coming out of the second floor. It was originally built as a store.  Did he ever go in there? How many times did he look at that horse’s head?

I thought about my grandfather signing up to go to war in Europe.  A boy, heading off to battle.  I wished that I had taken the time or the interest when I was younger to ask him about those experiences.

As I sat there, thinking about my grandfather, I wondered if my own grandchildren would, some day, 50 years from now,  sit on a bench somewhere and remember me in a similarly curious and fond way.  I hope so.

This was my grandfather, Joseph Vardon – exactly 100 years ago – aged 20 – going off to WW I. 

Last week I found my hospital birth certificate from August 17, 1947 complete with a little foot print and thumb print. ( Don’t worry, privacy freaks, I altered the prints  to post the photo here.)

What else was happening on the day I was born?

• William Lyon MacKenzie King was Prime Minister of Canada
• George VI was king of England
• Other Canadians born in 1947 included Andrea Martin, Doug Henning, Ken Dryden and Burton Cummings
• The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadians 4 games to 2 to win the Stanley Cup.  Maurice “the Rocket” Richard was named MVP after scoring 45 goals in the regular season.
• Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play baseball in a US major league team (Dodgers) and on Feb 3, the first black reporter was admitted to the US Congressional press gallery.
• Life with Father was the Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Tex Willams country tune “Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that Cigarette topped the hit parade.

• Dec 27 1st “Howdy Doody Show” (Puppet Playhouse) was first telecast on NBC with Claribel the Clown and Buffalo Bob.  

Here is how my Mom recorded my birth in my “baby book”.

I have been going to the Stratford Festival since 1964.  I saw King Lear with a Canadian All-star (of the day) cast including John Colicos, Leo Cicero, Bruno Gerussi, William Needles, Douglas Rain, Frances Hyland and Martha Henry. I may not have realized then that I was watching the creme de la creme of Canadian Theatre but the effect on me was lasting.  And I have probably gone to 30 productions or more there since that time.

Last weekend I took in three plays at Stratford.

Romeo and Juliet

I wondered how to write about this one. Everything has been said.  It also made me realize how it must be daunting to put a unique spin on it as a director.  I have been in the play twice and seen it another two times.  What was new?  Well, this time I was certainly more aware of Romeo and Juliet’s teenage youth than I usually am.  Most productions tend to make their quick infatuation with each other ooze with sexual tension and palpable emotion.  In this one, both Romeo and Juliet seemed like impetuous teenagers who made impulsive silly decisions that led to their eventual demise.  Juliet screamed at her nurse in a hissy-fit more than once.  Romeo lay on the floor like a five-year-old  bawling his eyes out and thrashing.  Whereas I am used to the Friar’s lines “Art thou a man?…Thy tears are womanish…I though thy disposition better tempered” given in a sort of avuncular empathetic fashion, this Friar delivered them with a “Grow up, you wimp!” tone.

I did enjoy the interaction between the Nurse and Juliet and  I also liked the Friar.  They were able to accomplish the play in less than three hours (we never did) but sometimes that was because they thrashed through some lines without taking a breath.  I am very familiar with this play and still missed some of the lines.  If you were at all hard of hearing it would have seemed like garbled nonsense.  The couple beside me left at intermission.

Later in the week someone asked me if the acting at Stratford was that much better than the productions I have been in.  I thought for a moment and then realized that we likely did as good a job on the acting. It is all the rest of the production accoutrements that comes with a big budget that makes a difference to the how the show looks.

(Remembering our Kingston  production of Romeo and Juliet in April 2013.)

My friends will be glad to know that they put the intermission just before Prince Escalus returns to asks “Who are the vile beginners of this frey? – presumably so he would not miss his entrance  (See an earlier post in this blog – Better late than never) as it started the second act and the actor had all intermission to be in his place.   I  give this production three stars out of five.

HMS Pinafore

I also have wonderful memories of Gilbert and Sullivan productions at the Avon Theatre, particularly recalling the late Richard McMillan and Eric Donkin in the Mikado (1982) or a hefty Maureen Forester as the Fairy Queen gliding in on a rope in the 1988 Iolanthe.

This production took me by surprise.   Mainly because I thought it was Pirates of Penzance and only realized on my way to the theatre that it was a different G&S.  No matter.  They are kind of all the same anyway.

And it was delightfully silly and airy and visually lovely.  What is not to like about a good G&S? I give it 4 out of 5 stars since it is hard to go wrong with a good cast and orchestra and, once again, money for costumes and staging.

Treasure Island

I was happy to take two of my granddaughters to this and we had a fun day that started at 11 with a “Treasure Hunt” lunch where we dressed up as pirates, met one of the pirates who later was seen in the show, got tattoos and then walked through town stopping at various places on our map to say “Arrh” to a pirate and get more candy or a cupcake or ice cream.  By the time we reached the theatre for the production the kids were high on glucose and food colouring.

The show was pretty thin on plot and dialogue and anything meaningful but it was entertaining. Paper mâché birds flying in from the balcony.  A trap door to the belly of the ship, a boat sailing through dry ice fog, pirates giving lines from one of the boxes with wide-eyed audience now in the show.

The kids liked it and I did too, but only because there were lots of kids in the audience who got into yelling back at the actors and looking for the treasure on their maps.  Maybe the highlight of the weekend for me was when my six year old granddaughter whispered to me during a particularly vigorous storm scene in Treasure Island  “It must be fun to be an actor in this.” and then “I think that their fights with those real swords were all planned”.   I know my theatre friends will smile at this, knowing that this is why we do it!  I hope that some day Maia joins the fun of participating in theatre. Her happy discovery made the weekend for me.   Treasure Island as a production, however only ranked  3 out of 5 for me.

I was a bit disappointed in professionalism at a couple of spots in two of the plays. Once, in a quiet part of Romeo and Juliet, there was laughter and talking going on in the hallway behind the audience that was quite noticeable.  Not sure if it was ushering staff or even actors who soon after entered through the audience doors. Twice I momentarily saw actors in the wings waiting for an entrance.  Nevertheless it detracted from the show (as did the mobile phone that went off for a minute at least).  In Treasure Island I could see some backstage light and movement and actors waiting to come on stage and one could see in a gap in the curtain by the orchestra pit where actors were descending down through the stage floor.  These things tend to spoil the magic and really are not expected in a professional production company like the Stratford Festival.

I have shared the diary of Peter Porterfield as he crossed the Atlantic in 1855 and told you about James Crinklaw who came from Scotland in 1833 to London Ontario.  How did these two families unite?

Betsy Crinklaw Stevenson.

Betsy Crinklaw, my great great grandmother, born in Minto, Scotland in 1807, was the third child of James Crinklaw and Elizabeth Watson.   In 1836, in St. Thomas, Ontario, she married James Stevenson, also a Scotsman who had immigrated to Canada.  They had four daughters, all born in London Ontario within six years.  Then the family up and moved to Nebraska where a census in 1880 lists James as a teacher and Betsy as a housekeeper. In a letter from James to a relative just before his death, he describes “Bess” as a hard worker and gardener in 1880. She died in Neligh, Nebraska at the age of 86.

The only one of the James and Betsy Stevenson girls to stay behind in Ontario  when the rest moved to Nebraska was their second daughter, Mary, who married Peter Porterfield and became my great grandmother.  Now, all of the photos that I have of the Stevenson’s make them look pretty severe.  Betsy, as an old lady, was a bit scary.  Even as a young woman she looked like a guy in drag.  James Stevenson had eyes that bugged out of his head.  But Mary, my great grandmother, their daughter looked quite refined.  And my grandmother, Mary and Peter’s daughter (photo below) was a beautiful young girl.

My grandmother, Mary Porterfield Geddes in 1895, age 12.

This leather Mason’s Apron belonging to James Stevenson.

My father passed on to me a leather Mason’s apron that belonged to James Stevenson. It is not very big and pretty fragile but it is intriguing to possess something that belonged to my great great grandfather in the mid 1800’s,  maybe 175 years old.

I also have the Western Union telegram sent from North Bend Nebraska from his daughter Margaret (Caddick)  to her sister Ellen (Thorson) announcing the death of their father, James.  It spares no words.  “Father dead. Buried on Wednesday.”

Ellen’s nephew, James, also ended up with a poem written by James Stevenson the year before he died.  It was found tucked in his daughter, Ellen’s family Bible.  It is a long ode with lots of Scottish brogue, entitled,  The Dying Christian Scottish Father. Copies were made and distributed to various family at the time of his death but I have the original, typed on pinkish paper and signed by James Stevenson, himself.

You can also read a letter that James Stevenson wrote just a couple of months before his death in 1880 in the next post.