Chapter 70.
(Somerville) Although I felt very strongly that I was called upon to enlist, both Dad and Mother were against it, particularly Dad, who was a confirmed pacifist on Christian grounds. He said that it would break his heart to see either of his sons actively engaged. Mother was more understanding, for she came of a long line of soldiers. Granny Boulton was a Graham, descended from the famous John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, the champion of Bonny Prince Charlie, and all her life she was a loyal Jacobite. Her father was a colonel and came to Canada as commandant of Fort York. Her brothers were all in the army. Her eldest brother, Sir James Graham (known to her as “Sam”), became a full general. His son was commandant of the Royal Marines. I think Mother’s view was that every one should follow the dictates of his own conscience.
However, in the face of urgent pleas from Dad I agreed instead to go to the West to produce food. He bought me a half section near Arran, Saskatchewan, for $2,500, including a team of horses, chickens, feed and enough grain to seed 100 acres. Here I attempted to settle down with Mr. Stanley Anderson and his bride Maggie. I took it over in October, 1914, and Stanley joined me six weeks later.
But my conscience still plagued me, and at the close of 1914 I left Arran, Saskatchewan, for Dauphin, Manitoba, to enlist. My original unit was the 45th Battalion, but in April, 1915, I was sent overseas with a draft of 100 men to the 5th Battalion. Dorothy and Harold Collier met me in Montreal, where we embarked, and for all practical purposes this ended my close personal connection with the family.
(Harold Collier) I don’t remember the name of the boat. It was pitch dark when the train got in and there were no lights and we didn’t know how we’d ever find Somerville. We’d waited on the docks from six o’clock and it was half past eight or nine when his train got in and then they had to embark. I asked a man which regiment he was with and it happened to be Somerville’s, so I asked him if he knew Jack Willis. He said: “Oh yes, I know him; I’ll find him for you”. He came back in about fifteen minutes and we had a nice time together and he went on board about one o’clock. Just a year later I was riding on the top of a bus in London and there was a Canadian soldier on the bus. I asked him what regiment he was with and he told me. I said: “I have a friend with the 45th Jack Willis”. He looked at me and said: “Aren’t you the guy who came to see him off in Montreal?” I said: “Yes”. Then he said: “Well, I’m the fellow who found him for you”!
(Somerville) I joined the 5th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, at Ploegstreet, Flanders, in June, just after the bitter fighting at Festubert. The Battalion was then before Messines, where it remained till the spring of 1916, when it moved to the Ypres Salient and took over defense of the famous Hill 60. By that time I had become a lance corporal and was in charge of our company’s scout section.
(Helen) He went to the continent very quickly after he got to England; much sooner than was expected. Once again Mother had a remarkable dream. She didn’t know he was going, but it must have been almost the night that he went. She dreamed that she was being shown over a battlefield by an angel. She saw the trenches and heard the shells exploding. She saw the men and she noticed that some of them had a covering, like a beehive. They didn’t seem to realize it was there—it didn’t hamper their movements in any way. She said to the angel: “What is that covering that some of the men wear?” “Oh,” said the angel, “don’t you know what that is? that’s bullet proof; it’s made up of God’s promises and mothers’ prayers.”
(Somerville) Early in July, 1916, I was wounded in an effort by four of us to capture a prisoner from a sap running out at a tangent from the German lines. I was brought to England and was in hospital for almost three months. On my discharge from hospital I was sent to a convalescent camp and then heard to my delight that Dad and Mother were coming over to see me. We had a delightful time together—went to Torquay in Devonshire. On my return to the convalescent camp I found it had been transferred to Hastings, where I spent the most disagreeable winter of my life, with nothing to do, no discipline in the troops, poor food, no fires in unheated houses where we were billeted. I applied for a commission and after a course at Bexhill returned to France as a lieutenant with my old battalion. For a time I was again attached to my old company, then posted as Intelligence Officer for the Battalion. I was wounded at Passchendaele, but did not return to “Blighty”, instead going to Cap St. Martin in the south of France, where I spent a pleasant Christmas. On my return to the Battalion I found it on its way to Arras, where I was again wounded on a scouting patrol and this time again went to Britain. My left arm was rather badly shattered and I was posted as C 3, and left as assistant to the Assistant Adjutant at our reserve depot. This was a very unattractive post and to get back to action I transferred to the Royal Flying Corps to train as a navigator-observer, my ambition being to go as navigator on one of the largest bombers, which could carry a whole ton of bombs as far as Berlin. However, the war ended before completion of my course and I returned to Canada in January, 1919.
(Christopher) He asked for a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps, but Mother prayed most earnestly that he wouldn’t get it. She was terribly upset about it, but she had that verse: “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:2828And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)). His transfer had only gone through two days, I think, when the last terrible push by the Germans occurred, when nearly all the officers were killed, and he wasn’t even sent over.
Meanwhile the family moved to the house on Markham Street in Toronto in the autumn of 1915 and stayed there until moving to Montreal in the autumn of 1918. Dorothy was working in Toronto, Helen was teaching at Westbourne School and David was at the University of Toronto School. Christopher was employed with the Steel Company of Canada in Hamilton.
(Christopher) As a boy, Mr. Hobson, father of the General Manager of the Steel Company of Canada, worked for my grandfather and lived with him at Ailsa Craig, north of London, Ontario, where my grandfather was an engineer and where Mother was born. My grandfather was a graduate in civil engineering from London University, England, and had several prizes from there, which were passed on to me. Earlier this Mr. Hobson had obtained a job for me with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Now it was his son, General Manager of the Steel Company of Canada, for whom I worked, although he never knew my connection with his father. His only daughter was an earnest Christian and one of Jean Malloch’s best friends. When I became engaged to Jane Ogston Malloch on 19th of January 1916, Mr. Hobson was very pleased and promised me a very good raise in pay— “you’ll be more than satisfied,” he said. We were married on 27 April 1916.
Pressure had been put on me to make me and my men work on Sundays. Mr. Hobson had given orders that I was not to be forced to work on Sundays, but this was disobeyed and I was fired while Mr. Hobson was in England. When he returned I was given a bonus of three months’ salary and told that he would help me get a job anywhere in Canada.
We moved to Toronto in early 1917, where we lived at the corner of Bloor and Howard Streets and I worked for the Hamilton Bridge Works on the Bloor Street Viaduct and a bridge at Kingston, Ontario. However, a Government official addressed the staff and said that every dollar of Savings Bonds we bought was a silver dollar to kill a German. I felt that if I wanted to kill Germans I would use lead bullets. I lost my job and went to work for The Standard Steel Construction Company in Port Robinson near Welland, as their sales representative in Hamilton.
While the family was living in the Markham Street house in Toronto, Aunt Dora had a stroke. She had rented the old Hamer homestead at Gordon Bay, Muskoka, and settled Arthur Glascott there, and she was going to stay and farm. In the spring of 1916 she had the stroke and David and Helen went up instead.
(Somerville) Dad had been appointed as “Auditor to the Board” in The Trader’s Bank, a post never created in any other bank. Its purpose was to keep the Bank’s directors informed of all important loans made by the Bank’s officers. He was responsible only to the Board and did not come under the direction of the General Manager. Fortunately he and the General Manager, Stuart Strathy, had been intimate friends for many years. Their minds worked along similar lines and no conflict of opinion ever disturbed their relationship. However, in 1917 the Royal Bank made an offer to purchase The Trader’s Bank on terms advantageous to the shareholders. The offer was accepted, but with the distinct understanding that all members of the staff of The Trader’s Bank would be retained in positions carrying salaries at least as high as those they had at the time of the merger and that they should enjoy pension rights on a par with previous Royal Bank employees.
Dad’s new post was “Superintendent of Branches for Ontario” but this to him was a “let down”. After a few months he suggested to Sir Herbert Holt, General Manager of the Royal Bank, that it would be in the Bank’s interest to retire him on pension, since obviously the Bank had more senior officers than it required. Sir Herbert’s answer was that this might be true at the moment, but that the Bank would continue to grow and plenty of opportunities would appear later on. However, after several meetings with Sir Herbert, Dad eventually persuaded him to agree and he left with a pension for life of $200 a month, half to be payable to Mother in case Dad predeceased her.
(Helen) To try to persuade him to stay he was asked: “Is there any post we can offer you to stay on?” He said, rather jokingly: “Open a branch in China”. When he retired from the Bank I was teaching at Miss Gascoigne’s School in Montreal and she offered a job to Dorothy. David was just entering McGill University, Somerville was overseas in the War and Christopher was married, his first child, John Stanley arriving on 12 February 1917. Consequently in the autumn of 1918 we moved to Montreal, renting a flat in the upper two stores of an old house on Mansfield Street, near St. Catherine Street. There was a terrible epidemic of influenza in October and all the schools and churches were closed and there were no meetings. I remember that the influenza and the War ended about the same time. We celebrated both together in a great parade, but by mistake a day earlier than the Armistice.
(Somerville) I came back to Canada in January, 1919, spent ten days with the family in Montreal and then went to Toronto, where I obtained employment with the West End Y.M.C.A. as a junior secretary. I was assigned to open a new branch on St. Clair Avenue, but after some months I made up my mind that this was not the type of work at which I wished to spend my life. I felt that in the “Y” the real power lay with the directors, most of whom were men from the business world. I felt that these men really were doing a more important work than the secretaries and determined either to enter the teaching profession or business. I was approached to accept a position as lecturer in Greek at the University of Western Ontario, London, an offer which I accepted with alacrity. However, the offer was subject to confirmation by the caput and after waiting several weeks I was told they preferred a man with greater experience in teaching.
Meanwhile I had left the Y.M.C.A. and my funds were down to a few dollars. I never before or since felt so completely “lost”. I had to get something to do and spoke to an old Port Hope and University of Toronto friend, Norman McLean, brother of the Secretary-Treasurer of The Harris Abattoir Company. He used his good offices to get me a job with his company. It was with the pork killing and cutting department. For about three days I wondered whether I could stand it. Then the true nature of the work became apparent: transforming the raw materials of Canadian farms into foods of ever higher quality at progressively lower processing costs. To me this seemed worthy of any man’s best efforts and from that day forward I never regretted my decision to become a packer. The nature of the business required perpetual alertness and instant decisions to keep supply and demand in balance.
After a few months I was transferred from the plant to the Provisions Desk and shortly afterward was placed in charge of the Export Shipping Department. From here I was transferred to the sales end of the business.
In June, 1924, I had the good fortune to marry Mary Fleck, elder daughter of Mr. James Fleck. At the time we were both over thirty. She had graduated as a Registered Nurse from Grace Hospital in 1918 and later entered medical school at the University of Toronto. Her intention was to go to India as a medical missionary. However, in her fifth year symptoms of an old heart condition developed and the Missions Board informed her they could not accept her. Although in the fifth year of the six year course, ill-health forced her to discontinue her studies, at least temporarily, and we were married on 26 June 1924.
In 1928 I became manager of the Branch House Department of Canada Packers Limited, which took over operation of The Harris Abattoir Company and several other companies in 1927. In 1931 I became manager of the Company’s canneries and pickle business and in 1933 was appointed “Staff Educational Director”, which post evolved into that of Personnel Manager. After World War II I moved over to the position of Advertising Manager until I retired in 1957.
The new General Manager of the Royal Bank was a Mr. Neill. He had been at school or college in Montreal with a Mr. Thompson, whose father was a Presbyterian missionary in Yeung Kong, a town about 130 miles southwest of Canton, the largest city in South China. Yeung Kong in those days was reached by junk traveling from Kong Moon, a city on the delta of the Si-kiang, the largest river in South China.
(Helen) Mr. George Thompson, who had gone out with his sister to join his father in mission work, had been impressed by the frightful rates of interest—as much as 10% a month—charged by the native banks. He conceived the idea of a “missionary bank” to lend money cheaply. So he wrote to his friend Mr. Neil asking for $40,000 as capital and a man to manage such a bank.
Mr. Neill thought that Father had gone to China when he retired. He knew that Mr. Stuart Strathy was his friend, so he passed on the letter. Mr. Strathy sent the letter to Father with the question: “Would you like to go out to China and manage a bank?”
At that time the elder Mr. Thompson and his wife happened to be in Montreal. He had been engaged in escorting Chinese coolies to and from the war zone. So we went to see him and then had correspondence with Ir. Thompson, and finally my Father decided to go. Of course Mother said she would go with him. David had just entered McGill University and since Dorothy and I were teaching in Montreal we thought we would stay on. However, I was offered a position at a school in Peking. Dorothy said she couldn’t stay on alone, so she decided to go too. In January, 1919 Father had taken two first class passages, which were extremely difficult to get. Mr. Robert Jaffray of the Alliance Mission had been trying to get passages for himself and his wife. When Dorothy and I decided to go too, Mr. Jaffray took over the two first class passages (bought with the proceeds of the sale of the block of land in Oakville) and we exchanged them for four second class passages. On 6 March 1919 Father wrote to Christopher from Montreal: “We rec’d another letter from George Thompson and have decided to go to China. I could have gone to Kentucky, but I think it wd. have been a case of Genesis 49:1515And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute. (Genesis 49:15) Mr. Neill recommends me to go at once.”