Dear Yatingwu,
My heart was touched when I read your story about your dear, self-sacrificing and loving father. And when I read the replies of others here on our forum who also love and appreciate their fathers I thought I might share something with you
about Canuck's (David's) and my father.
I'm proud of my father, too. He worked hard to get out of a factory where he worked on the factory floor. (Working on the floor means right down with the machines, and not in the office.) At first he worked on a machine making screw eyes
and gate hooks and things like that. He began when he was only 14 because his
own father who was knowledgeable about all kinds of timber and chose the best for various uses, was hit by a factory chimney and went to hospital from which he
would never return. So our father's family lost their dear father and excellent
provider.
David's (Canuck) and my father was the smartest boy in his town with the highest
marks and an award. He graduated from high school and that meant he was ready for university at age 14, but it wasn't possible. He would have made an excellent
professor of history. He loved to teach, was very good with people, had excellent judgement, executive ability, and loved and knew current and past and world
history.
Instead, he had to immediately go to work to help his mother and sister. He lost his right eye that same year in the big steel mill in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, where the hospital was. They had to move there from a very beautiful northern area now famous and full of many large summer homes. It's known now as "Muskoka Lakes." Land is extremely valuable there on those lakes now.
He was blinded one night in the factory when the end of a bale of wire flew off
a turntable and hit him in the eye. He had to go the entire length of the long factory building to find someone to help him, as he had been left to work alone.
That is no longer allowed. Also, such young people working is no longer allowed. For the rest of his life he received $18.00 per month 0from the "Workmens' Compensation Board" as recompense for his eye. In the early days it helped but sdinflation eventually made that $18.00 per month into almost a ridiculously tiny
amount. And so it goes....
He worked there for many years and had a job through the great depression of 1929-1935, so he was able to keep his mother and sister fed, clothed, and the rent
paid. He married our mother in 1935, the year after his own excellent father finally died from that accident. Our father's blind right eye had to be removed a
few years later because it was causing trouble to the other eye, so I never saw
him without the glass eye he wore from then. Our mother's family didn't want her to marry a one-eyed factory worker. Nevertheless, they finally became friendly with each other, and eventually our grandmother lived with my mother and father and I, and later the twins, Canuck, David, and his brother, and we all got along very well.
Eventually our father became a foreman. At first he didn't want to be a foreman
because it put him above the other workers. Then he found that he could "go to
bat for them." That's a slang term meaning that he could take action on their
behalf when one of them needed someone to speak up and fight for him. When there was a big strike at that steel mill my mother was afraid that they would throw
paint bombs at our house as they did to a similar one on the next street. The
paint bombs were thrown at the houses of "scabs." Scabs are those who are hired
to work inside when outside the regular workers are striking the factory.
Our father wasn't a scab. He was "management" and had to work during that verynasty strike. Nobody vandalized our house.
Eventually he and my uncle put together a small factory in an old and rickety
building that had been used as soldiers' barracks when they guarded the Welland
Ship Canal during the 2nd world war. Our father was frozen into his job during the war as a necessary worker. In order to get out he went and swore at the general manager, and was fired. The g.m. pulled strings to get rid of him. It was
the only way. My father found used machinery for their "bent wire products" factory. He also found two tool-makers who put in some money and came to work there. He hired Italian workers to work on the machines. It was the law for such machines to have guards on them so that the worker's hands would automatically be
pulled back if about to be stamped by a machine.
There was an extreme amount of stress. We sold our pretty little new house in order to put the money into things for the factory. We moved to the town where it was and lived in an old house which our parents painted and wall-papered and put new flooring in so that it would be livable.
The factory also began to build oil burners to heat homes, and had a big tanker
truck to deliver fuel oil. Eventually an big oil company bought them out to remove competition, and finally our parents had some extra money and life was much
easier. The steel company was split from the oil company and our father still was in charge of it, but all the troubles had affected our father's health and he
had very high blood pressure. It was once 240/180, which is about high enough
to burst an artery. He eventually did die of a stroke, but not until many years
later. In the meantime an artery burst in his inner ear. Another burst in his
stomach. Our mother was called to his death-bed by his physician at the big city hospital. I prayed together with our mother. My brothers were still young boys and were still asleep. One of the tool-makers who was now a partner came at
1 a.m. to drive our mother to Toronto to the hospital. He hadsuddenly and very unexpectedly stabilized. Everyone was astonished that our father didn't die. His physician called him his "miracle man" for the next 25 years or so. Our mother had breast cancer. She eventually died about 25 yearslater from the effects of that, but back about 1954 the operation was horrendous
and the radiation treatment was much higher than it is now. My father and I took turns dressing the terrible large wound that was on her back and on her front
. It went right through her body it seemed.
Well, I want to tell you that things finally get better. As your country makes
its way and as it grows wealthier and more social safety nets are put into place
, and as medicine and other sciences advance things improve for everybody.
There are still those who are much richer and those who are in the middle, and those who are poor, and those who are in poverty. But things are better for everybody. Even the ones in poverty have a safety net and their children don't need
to go to school at 14. Blood pressure is better controlled. Operations are much better. Everything is getting better in these ways. You will all
benefit from this as we did. We also had to raise our country up.
Yes, like many of you, our father was a smart young boy whose parents were very,
very poor. He had a very hard life during his entire lifetime. The details are
too painful and also too much to relate here. His hands bore the scars of his
hard work and so did his eye. In those days life was much rougher in Canada for
those who worked in factories. It was very dangerous and there were few laws to protect workers. There were also few unions, and they were fighting for workers' rights and protections. All of this has changed now. It will change in your country, too.
Your hard work will pay off. Try to be alert for any kind of opportunity thatcomes your way. If you study, work well and are respected, and are willing to
put up with troubles I think you will succeed. This is because your country isrising rapidly and there are bound to be many opportunities.
I hope your fathers will begin to find some relief from their loving and incessant difficult labour to establish their families as our father worked so hard to
establish ours. He certainly loved us all and our mother, and although they had
many difficulties they pulled together and stayed together. Often it was very
hard for them right up until our father died. Our father did get to taste some of the fruits of his labours. They kept their small, plain house. He finally bought himself a very good car and they went on several trips around the world. They helped their children out to some extent. They weren't very
very rich. Only moderately well off. They loved us, and they did, indeed, give
us a leg up. And it did, indeed, come out of their blood, sweat and tears. Sometimes it seemed to me almost too big a price to pay.
With love and understanding to those who love their hard-working parents who
live and work for a better life for their children.
Mary
