vino

had no computer for a bit, but back at it.....to canadian soldiers in italy during ww2 vino was a big deal; i'm sure all who survived have vino stories to tell; if they took in a stray dog, it was likely named vino; vino is homemade wine; nearly all italians make it, so it was plentiful; it is strong, tastes good, but a bit on the rip-gut side. i had one expierience with it when i was 17; grampa and i helped an italian neighbor fight a peat fire all day; when the fire was out he produced a gallon of vino...i had more than my share, have no memory of the evening and was sick for the next 2 days. during a rest time grampas' unit was billitted in a town behind the lines; after months they were out of reach of shell fire; they needed to unwind so the search for vino began right away; much to thier delight, in the basement of a big house, they found a large wooden vat of vino; one of the men took out his .38, shot a hole near the top and worked his way down untill the vino started to flow; all avalible vessels were then filled; when they ran out: another bullet another hole...more vino. after drinking untold gallons a new shot was fired but the flow was just a trickle; one of the men climbed up to look in the vat ( they thought they may have reached the sludge at the bottom ); it was not sludge stopping the flow; it was a dead body. they got a rope on the body and hauled it out; it was a south african seargent; the lads figured he must have been leaning over the edge of the vat; maybe already having drunk a bit; when he fell in and drowned; the canucks wondered why he didn't just shoot holes in the side??? the ncos' body was returned to his unit; the south africans had been at rest there several weeks earlier; grampa said no one suffered any ill effects from the vino...

john gordon

john gordon was grampas' maternal grandfather; i was named after him. the gordons and the orrs both came to ireland from the argyle regeon of scotland. the orrs were farmers and the gordons were seafaring people.(there is much rumor of smuggling!) thier land in ireland was granted to them after they put thier ships into service with the english to fight the spanish. the story goes that during a great sea battle, as one of the gordon ships was sinking, a gordon clung to the mast top as she went down and shouted " horraw for ireland ". the family always thought they would have gotten more or better land if he had called horraw for england! when john gordon was 17 yrs old his father gave him a 70 ton smack for his start in life. (i used to know the name of this ship; grampa drew it for me once; i think it was the caterina?) jg made 7 trips accross the atlantic with this little ship; he ran whiskey to montreal and brought timber home to ireland. this made him enough money to build a big three masted sailing ship which he named "the phylis"(not sure on spelling). grampa drew me a picture of her; she was square rigged on two masts and schooner rigged on one. once a huge atlantic storm pushed the phylis so far off coarse the ended up off the coast of south america; jg brought a parrot home for his wife eliza; eliza lived to be 98, they took her bicycle away the year before she died. the parrot lived to be over 100yrs and could talk very well. john gordon sailed the phylis till he retired in his 70s,(not always the same ship, for as jack berry told me the wooden ships were likely replaced every 8 or 10 yrs, but, all named the phylis.)jg gave the phylis to his 1st mate on his retirment; the mate lost her in a wreck on his 1st voyage. john gordon taught grampa about boats, ships and the sea; he had a big influence on grampas' life...

john orr

john orr was grampas' paternal grand father. he ran the farm at annalong, (the orrs' were farming people), he was also a cattle dealer; buying cattle in ireland and shipping them over to england. when grampa left ireland at 17 to start a new life in canada his grampa john orr saw him off; he took a leather pouch out of his coat, reached in and pulled out a big handfull of gold coins which he gave to grampa to help him get started in canada; the coins were not counted. this is who taught grampa about farming; they were very close...

william orr

william orr was grampas' dad. he served with a north irish regiment in the boer war of south africa; he was an engineer, to my knowlege. he worked overseas much of the time on big construction prodjects. he was a hard drinker. grampa did not know his dad that well because of his overseas work. william orr was killed (along with a few others) by a drunk driver; he was in buffalo new york, working on the erie canal, and was waiting for a tram with others when they were all struck by a car....early 30s i think....grampa was on the homestead and didn't hear about it till months later.

elizabeth gordon

my next few blogs will be about family long past....most, i don't know much about.... if anyone can add more, have at a comment. elizebeth gordon (orr) was grampas' mum. she ran the familys butcher buisness at annalong; they mostly sold meat to the many ships and boats sailing out of annalong harbor. grampa learned the butcher trade from her as a teenager. i did not know grampa was a butcher until i killed my first deer; i was about 18 and brought home a nice mule deer buck. we hung it in the pump house for a couple of days; then grampa took over. as usual there was no verbal teaching.....so, pay attention! grampa had the deer cut and wrapped in no time, he then told me he had learned the butchers trade from his mum before leaving ireland at 17. this he also told me about his mum....our family were protestants; at a village further up the track the catholic church had burnt down (you can speculate on why and how, as i do.) the parrishioners from the burnt church had to walk a long way, passing grampas' farm, to go to mass in the next nearest church. grampas' mum would set out a bench and brew a big pot of tea, she would give the people walking to mass a place to rest and a cup of tea.....sounds familier....

ernie

grampa was in germany at the end of the war; there was much work to do, especially for sappers, with rebiulding and logistics, they would be the last to get home. in thier camp, the engineers had a young german iturperater named ernie. grampa and he became friends. grampa finally was sent home in the fall of '45 after five and a half years of war. as a kid i was once looking at a picture of grampas company of sappers in canada before heading overseas;(about a hundred men) on seeing this grampa said" there was only three of us left at the end of the war." i asked if they all were killed; he said" hell no; some were killed; some were wounded; some got sick; but, most went crazy!" grampa sponsered the young german lad ernie to come to canada; he worked on grampas' farm and went to school and became a high school principle while raising his family. even through more than five years of war and the loss of many of his friends grampa kept his humanity. this is a great legacy for those of us who carry on.....

mowing machine

while in italy, the 1st canadian infantry division was part of the british 8th army. as a demolitions expert, grampa and other like sappers often were lent out and worked with other commonwealth troops. on one mission four canadian engineers (grampa included) were sent to do a job for the british. they were to go behind enemy lines and blow up a bridge and were given a security team of six gurka riflemen. the gurkas were world class soldiers who had a long history of serving in the british army. they set out through the mountains and made it safeley through german lines. finding the bridge ungaurded the sappers set their charges and blew it up. they new now that getting back to thier own lines would not be as easy as the trip out. there would be the enemy hunting them and also the enemy line on the alert for thier return. after a pow-wow the ten men decided that thier best chance of getting back was to split up and go in ones or twos; grampa was on his own. he would move slowly at night and hide during the day. just before light on the day after they blew the bridge grampa found a good hiding place in some thick brush on the edge of a hayfield and settled in to get some sleep. at about noon after the dew had lifted, an italian farmer showed up at the hayfield with an ox and an ox drawn mowing machine, grampa kept an eye on the farmer but wasn't worried about being discovered; he had a good hiding place. the farmer cut his hay and grampa tryed to get some sleep. during the afternoon the mowing machine broke down; grampa watched the old farmer trying to fix it for about an hour. grampa had a similar mower on the farm in ireland and thought "what the hell"; he walked out of the bush and went to work fixing the mower for the old farmer; he soon had it working fine. the farmer was very happy and although they did not share a langauge it became clear that grampa was coming home for supper. after food and vino, when it was dark, the farmer guided grampa to another italian farm house; here, he was hidden and fed all the next day. then at night that farmer guided him through german and back to british lines. a bit of kindness payed off; grampa had a great love for the italian people.

gold tooth

grampa had a gold eye tooth; he got this in the mines at flin flon, 37, 38?,courtesy of joe skoda, who was his lifelong friend; grampa was a shift boss in the mines in flin flon mb; joe was a big fella; he played defence for the flin flon bombers; never crossed the center line but them that crossed coming the other way had to pay for it. coming up out of the mine shaft one night the ladder gave way and big joe went down until the heel of his boot was planted in grampas' mouth and his tooth was gone....ow...joe is a story on his own....

live or die

after several years as a driller underground in the hardrock mines of ontario grampa got too much rock dust in his lungs;(there was no health and safety watch for workers back then) the doc told him he needed to get out of the mines for a while to heal up. between the time of mining and when he headed west to homestead in alberta grampa worked in the logging camps of northern quebec. while up there he and some other loggers were crossing a frozen lake when grampa went through the ice into the water. his buds were able to pull him out of the water but it was so cold that by the time they got him to camp his feet were frozen and turning black. it took a couple of days to get him to a doctor, "he pulled the skin off my feet like taking off a pair of socks". the doc told grampa he would need to have his feet amputated. grampa told him "i will live or die but i will live or die with my feet." in the days of no social safety net a serious injury like this would be a real wreck! his recovery was slow and painfull; he was helped out by the hemples who were from the same part of ireland as grampa and who were his lifelong friends. after healing up, grampa headed west to look up sandy....another adventure on the horizon....

rum and coke

as mentioned before grampa was not much of a drinker; grama...was no drinker at all. about once a year this one neighbor would come over with a bottle of rum to have a drink with grampa. he had been with the merchant marine during the war and he and grampa were both dairy farmers, so they would have a few drinks of rum and coke and visit and talk of old times. once when he came over he had already had a few and insisted that grama join in with the rum. grama resisted but not wanting to be rude finally agreed to have one. she sat in her big chair by the kitchen stove and pretended to sip her drink. right by the stove beside gramas' chair is were i always put my work boots to dry out; when the conversation was running high and no attention was being paid to her she discreetly dumped her drink in my boot; of course the neighbor, seeing gramas' empty glass, mixed her another one. this was repeated 3 or 4 times until the rum bottle went dry and the neighbor headed home. grama never said anything about my one boot being well over the heel in rum and coke. next morning i went to go to work and when i pulled on this one boot my foot was soaked; what the hell? i pulled off my soaking sock and drained my boot all the while trying to figure out the mystery; grama said nothing. finally i sniffed the boot and said to grama "that smells like rum and coke!" she then told me how she had avoided both drinking the rum and offending the neighbor; i wore a different pair of boots to work that day, and have been chuckling about that for many years.

the price of cattle

about 1966 three of grampas' army buddies stopped at the farm to visit;  peplow was there, who visited regularly, i don't remember who the other two were, but by the comotion at their arrival i gathered that grampa and pep had not seen them since the war. i'm sure grama and grampa new they were coming, although it may have been a surprise arranged by pep; it was a surprise to me, but what did i know? grampa was not much of a drinker, so when the bottle of rum was brought out from under the kitchen sink and dusted off i knew it was a special reunion. i sat on the arm of gramas' big chair by the kitchen stove, made myself small and quiet so i might not get sent to bed, and, as always...listened. they had all been sappers together through scicily, italy and nw europe. peplow was in the tanks originaly but was busted out for punching an officer; he was a hothead, but a very likable guy; grampa, being the oldest of thier bunch tryed to keep pep out of trouble. they drank their hot rums and talked about all the funny stuff they saw and did; there was much laughter and all were talking at once..........going forward on a recce to find a place where the tanks could ford a river when the germans counter-attacked (nobody could counter attack like gerry) and they were cut off. half a dozen sappers layed low in the brush on the hillside while german troops and armour raced along the road below them; they are laughing this was funny; by the afternoon the heat and stress was real bad and haywire macdonald was starting to lose it;"god da ya remember how he kept his pants done up with a bent nail". haywire macdonald  is fipping out saying they gotta make a run for it and he can't lay there no more. the guys told him shut up and stay down; they would make it out after dark. "he was a crazy son of a bitch wasn't he." haywire macdonald made his move to run; "god, when the sergent clouted him in the side of the head with the butt of his tommy-gun it sounded like an axe hitting a maple tree". "silly bastard". "i'm just glad the s.o.b. woke up out of it before dark so's we didn't haf ta carry him out." "ya he was a big fella." also; their pal who hid from the germans for 3 or 4 days in the cellar of a bombed-out house; the only thing he could find to eat in the cellar was several jars of canned grean beans; he ate the beans and drank the water from the jars; "to this day he has never eaten another green bean!" this; another sapper lost one of his "nuts" to a piece of shrapnel; when he returned to the unit from hospital (one had to be seriously wounded to get sent home from the rca in ww2) "he was so worried he would be no good we dropped him at a redlight house for a test just to shut him up." it was loud and fun; stories about vino and bully beef, mud, heat, rain and army bs........then one of them said" god, do you remember the night we took the hitler line?" just like that it was so quiet you could hear the old house creaking....they were all four just sitting at the table looking at their hands........finally one of them wispered "jesus." (not like a curse; like a prayer) grampa got up and put the coffee pot on and they were talking about the weather and the price of cattle.....

frieghter

during his homesteading (depression) years grampa spent a winter frieghting by horse team and sliegh. he hauled supplies from kinuso on lesser slave lake into the tie camps at swan hills and then hauled rail ties back out to kinuso. two men went with each rig; i'm not sure if sandy partnered up with grampa on this adventure. a one way trip took two full days; there was a cabin part way so they had shelter one night; the other night they slept out on the trail. winter temperatures in this part of alberta go down to -30 or even -50 degrees. while sleeping out on the trail they would build a big fire and put the horses bits close to thier bodies in the sleeping bags with them, so as not to freeze the horses mouths in the morning. i still have the big canvas/wool sleeping bag, eiderdown, that grampa used then; i have slept out in it while hunting in -25 weather and froze my butt off.... there it is. in the cabin they would light the stove and bring in the wrapped up fruit and vegitables in hopes of keeping them from freezing solid before reaching the camp; in the -50 the produce would freeze in the cabin! in the 70s uncle wally introduced me to the man grampa worked for while frieghting; bill was a very old man then; he said about grampa,"we called him the black irishman; he would curse all the way up the hills and sing all the way down." sounds like trucking in the oilfield to me!

two days in no mans land

our irish family lost four men that i know of in ww1, the english side i don't know, but likely as many or more. as a boy grampa lost four uncles in the great war, three army and one in the navy. all the great war veterans are gone now. as a boy of 12-13 grampa had the job/ privilege of taking the horse and cart down to meet the ships and pick up his uncles and other relatives who got to come home on leave; he said this was a job he was very proud of. his partner sandy was a veteran of the trenches and i know these men had a big influence on his life. when i was 18-19 i worked for a fuel agent; my main job in the winter was delivering furnace oil; i had 600 customers and it was a hectic route. i had one customer who lived in a little wee house in a poor area; whenever i filled his oil tank he always came out and asked me to come in for a cup of tea; as busy as i was, i always had tea with him. he was in his eighties and lived alone; he was a tall man but stooped over; i knew he had one leg shorter than the other because he wore one shoe with about a four inch lift on the sole; one of his arms also seemed siezed up. he seemed a very gentle, kind person also very lonely. his little house was spotless; the first few times we had tea it was just polite conversation between strangers; i never asked him about his injuries or where he got them. one day over tea he told me i was about the same age he was when he went overseas to fight in the great war; he stuck out his leg and pulled his pantleg up expoing the boot with the lift; "i got this and the bum arm at passchendaele". he had gone "over the top" and before long german machine gun bullets had hit him in the elbow and in the knee; he laid in the mud of no mans land for two days before stretcher bearers were able to reach him and get him to an aid station; after four years in hospital in england he was returned to canada as a disabled ww1 veteran. he said "if they ever tell you you should go fight their wars, run in the other direction and run as fast as you can!" shortly after this he was no longer on my delivery list; i don't know if he passed on or maybe went to a home; i will always be glad i took the time to have tea with this man and i wish i could remember his name. 

leroys' spelling

sorry people; my spelling is not the best; if one can edit entries it is so far beyond me ken. henceforth i will have sylvia check before i post.....leroy

two geese and a muskrat

from about 1929-1935 grampa and his partner sandy home sreaded near valleyview ab. sandy was older than grampa; he was a ww1 veteran and came to canada from the same part of ireland as grampa; annalong, co down. i'm sure thier families new each other in the old country. this time pretty much spans the great deppression, so life was hard no dought. grampa said they never went hungry on the homestead, but there was no cash money. they mostly ate moose and deer, raised a few hogs, grew spuds and other veggies that would do well in that climate. for salt, sugar, coffe and flour they could trade labor or other barter items. at harvest time they would ride the rails (hop frieght trains) to saskatchewan where they could make a bit of money at thrashing time. grampa figured picking the coal cinders out of your eyes was the worst thing about riding on top of frieght cars. in winter grampa and sandy would trap; this also earned them a bit of cash, although furs were not worth much. they would load thier traps and supplies in big packs and on a light tobogan, strap on thier snowshoes and trek to the headwaters of the goose river. grampa carried a .303 savage lever action for deer and other larger game they could eat and sandy packed a .22 for small game. they would trap at the end of winter mostly for beaver and muskrat. when the thaw came in the early spring they would build a raft and float their harvest and gear down the goose to the little smokie to near their home. one year the thaw came fast; lots of snow then warm weather; the goose and the little smokey are not large rivers but in a melt like that they can rage! grampa and sandy built their raft and started out; they had no choice other than to abandon thier furs and try and walk out over the thawing muskeg. they didn't get to far before thier raft was overturned and they were both thrown into the river; luckily they made it to shore and sandy was able to hold on to the .22. they were soaked and cold as they watched thier winter harvest and all thier gear tumble down the goose river. there was no time for feeling sorry for themselves; they got a fire going (flint and steel work when wet), dried out and started walking. it took them several days to walk out to the homestead; they had no food, but sandy was able to shoot two geese and a muskrat during thier trek; grampa said forty years later he could still taste that muskrat if he thought about it. tough life; tough men!

cordwood

one of the first jobs grampa got when he came to canada was cutting firewood. he was paid $1 dollar per cord; a cord is 4ft x 4ft x 8ft of cut split and stacked wood. this was done with a hand saw and axe; i have done 1 cord in a day with a chainsaw and it is alot of work. it cost grampa about $1 dollar a day for lodging and food; he would cut 1.25 cords per day so he could have some money to spend on saturday night. he soon found work in the mines; here he was issued a shovel and sent to the bottom of the mine to "muck out the shafts". this was the only work they would give an irishman to start. hard, dirty, dangerous work; talk about start at the bottom! in just a few years grampa worked his way up to become a driller and blaster; this was a top job underground. his hard work ethic and good nature served him well all his life.

cigarette papers and slit trenches

grampa was a sapper (combat engineer) in ww2; he went overseas with the 1st canadian infantry division in 1940. while in italy he and some other sappers were leaving thier headquarters to go to the front line when they were told to guide a group of replacement infantry men up to thier new unit. the new troops were young and cocky; as they neared the front they passed an aid station with a large pile of bodies "stacked up like cordwood". one of the young guys asked grampa if they were all germans; grampa said "cripes man, they're all canadians; your life isn't worth a cigarette paper up here!" while in england before the invasion of sicily the sappers had to build fortifications and mine the beaches and other work to prepare the island in case of invasion. while fortifying an airstrip the engineers would be called upon to help clear damaged or destroyed planes from the runway.  it was terrible to see the bombers coming back all shot up and the injuries to the air crews. some of the bombers had to be hosed out because of the carnage inside. grampa said it " made him glad he was in the army because; those poor guys just had to fly right into it; they had nowhere to go; at least i could dig a slit trench; if you had a good hole you had a chance." the shovel as valuable as the rifle maybe?......bomber comand had the highest casualty rate of canadians during ww2.