Leaving home

 

Marcia & her father

My granddaughter, Marcia, has been talking to me about leaving home.  She is graduating from High School in a few months.   I do not think that I responded in the manner she expected.

“Move away, well of course…when I was a girl in rural Carleton County everyone had to move away. There were few jobs and if one wanted to go to college or university you had to move. I grew up with the realization that I would move away after I graduated”. 

 

Of course this brought eye rolling and mutters of the good old days on her part.  For my part, it brought a flood of memories.

July 1968, forty five years ago, I had my newly minted high school diploma, a three month old baby, a husband and we had a debt of $8000.   This was 1968 when wages in our area were $1.00 an hour.  I had planned to move to Fredericton and attend Teachers College but that was not to be.

Instead, we packed our possessions into a wooden tea chest and a trunk, took down the baby crib and taped it together, tied 2 pillows together and packed a lunch and drove to Juniper to catch the train west to Vancouver.  Coach, you set up 24/7.  Our baby, Vavielle, was wonderful; she ate, slept and filled her job description.  Thank goodness we had received a package of the newly invented Pampers!  My husband Ronald was not so easily assuaged and either smoked or paced.  By Quebec he was ready to jump train.

Union Station July 1968
Ronald, Valerie & Vavielle Brooker
Marlene, Dan, Grace & Frank Rogers

I do not remember whether it was prearranged or by chance, however when the train pulled into Toronto we were met by my cousin Brenda.  In fact we were met by many of our Ontario relatives!

Brenda was ready for a visit with an infant and fashioned a bed for Vavielle by lining a dresser drawer with a towel.  We had not been in Toronto long when someone suggested we trade in our remaining tickets and purchase airplane tickets for the rest of the journey.  Good plan!  A few days later we stepped off the plane in Vancouver and were met by my Uncle Gifford, aka Buck. 

Our ultimate goal was Port Alberni on Vancouver Island.  The day after we landed Ronald and Buck went to the train station to claim our baggage.  CPR seemed puzzled as to how we were requesting baggage when the train had not yet arrived.  Buck smoothed it over and they returned a few days later.  Our few days in Van were filled with adventures; being guest in a home that also housed a number of hippies, cruising downtown on a Harley and being introduced to the drug culture.  Oh Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore.  We made our escape in an old VW van Buck had donated to our cause and feasted on our first Big Mac, twenty five cents, at the Golden arches.

We stayed in Port Alberni three years.  We truly had left home.  My cousin Brenda Rogers never moved back from the GTA and over the years her entire family migrated to Ontario.  My brother Rodney went to Toronto in 1969, many of his friend were there looking for work.  He found a job with Facelle tissue Plant in the GTA, where he worked until he retired this year. 

My Rogers grandparents raised a family of eleven, two were casualties of WWII, the eldest Ira never left New Brunswick and of the remaining eight only my mother returned and has spent the remainder of her life in the province.  While Uncle Earle raised his family in NB when they had all left home he and Aunt Effie followed them.

"Go West, young man" is a quote by American author Horace Greeley , and my family certainly took this admonishment to heart.  Some of our family stopped off in Ontario but many continued on to British Columbia.

My siblings and I number six; only two have spent their lives in New Brunswick.  My elder daughter Vavielle lives in Burlington; my sister Virginia  lives in Jamaica, and my brother Allen is in Texas.  I have eleven nephews and nieces; five are living outside of the province.  Nephews Tim in Toronto area, Dallen in Banff and Ashley in Medicine Hat; Neices Rebecca in Winnipeg and Patti in Pennsylvania.

So Marcia, you have your Gram’s approval to pack your bags and go.  Your family before you primarily went for work, but there are many reasons to move on.  Spread your wings, try something new, and see something different (this is a big beautiful country in which we live).  Make a fresh start; leave old habits behind (a good time to give up smoking?), and reinvent yourself.   I will give you all the support you need; just text me every day, eh?  

Note: After sleeping on it I realized that my brothers David and Bruce also "left home"; they both went to NBCC; David in NS, Bruce in Moncton and they both spent a year working in Calgary.  So we are six for six!