about my little lamb

Sheep have always been a part of my mother’s family, and by default of mine.  This association began in the early 1900’s when Lottie Gaunce married Nelson Rogers.  Lottie was a teacher and her final pay was a twenty dollar gold piece; final due to the fact that as a married woman she could no longer teach.   Grammy Lottie used that gold piece to purchase a dozen sheep and a ram.

In my mind’s eye, I can see Lottie choosing her herd.  She would have gone for a few good milkers, some with an extra wooly coat and black faced simply because she liked them.  The sheep were good to Grammy and she was good to them.  Every spring the sheep produced lambs.  Grammy would choose several to add to her herd, one or two for meat and the rest would be sold as spring lambs.  While the ewe’s milk production was at its best Grammy use this and make cheese.  A little later the sheep would be sheared.  This fleece would be taken to the Briggs and Little woolen mills in Harvey, NB.  There Grammy Lottie traded for yarn and woolen items, (I still have one of those woolen blankets in my home).  The yarn was knit into innumerable pairs of socks and mitts and the occasional sweater or hat.  As well, Grammy’s stock of yarn was so bountiful she sold to all of her neighbors.  Yes Lottie had chosen well when she spent her gold piece. 

Grammy Lottie Rogers, Uncle Earle, Charlotte, Brenda, Arlene and sheep 1955

My association with the sheep was, for many years, at arm’s length.  Then in 1963 Grammy Lottie passed away and we moved into her house.  Part of the legacy was the flock of sheep.  In lambing season a farmer needed all the help he would get.   My father got me.  I never slept in the sheep pen as he did but I nursed many a sickly lamb.  That first spring was a comedy of errors including a late, cold stormy spring and sheep that had “caught” too early.  Lambs were born at an alarming rate.  Many were twins and I think I remember two sets of triplets.  A young ewe, with her first lamb, often will not nurse.  When that lamb is a twin or triplet the ewe really cannot cope.  So I had many boxes and bottles going in the back of the kitchen.  Sometimes as soon as the lamb could stand and butt back at the bottle they would be ready to go down to the barn.  Dad would work to see if an older sheep might foster one of these little ones. 

However there were many sad stories.  A returned lamb who had been bouncing out of the cardboard box was smothered by an adult.   I would check for the 2:00 am feeding and fine a lamb dead.  And the worst was when you found green diarrhea, which could wipe out your lambs in twenty four hours.  Dad and I survived that first season.  I enjoyed my animal husbandry.  The year progressed. Spring of 1964 arrived.  Dad was much better prepared; the lambs were being born later in the year.  March/April is much friendlier that the blasting snows of February, there were few lambs to be brought to the house. 

Then when the lambing season was almost finished, Dad arrived at the house with a poor waif.  He was no bigger than a kitten. I rolled him in a diaper and put him inside my shirt.  He was too tiny for our bottles so he sucked milk off my finger.  I named him Lambert.  We never named the farm animals that were to be sold or for food.  But this baby needed a name.  Mother would not allow me to take him to bed so I set my alarm so I would wake for night feedings.

Dad told me, when he brought Lambert to the house, that if I could pull him through I could have the money when he was sold. Nothing motivated me like money, unless it was Lambert’s big eyes and soft blats.  As the days lengthened and the grass grew, Mother put Lambert outside to frolic.  And how he loved to follow me around, nibbling on my clothing and butting me with his little head.  One day as the school bus was slowing down in front of our house some called, “what’s that waiting by the road?”  My brother Rodney called out “Oh that is .... Valerie’s little lamb!”   I was teased unmercifully after that. 

The lambs were sold one day while I was at school.  Dad gave me the proceeds from Lambert and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount.  I missed Lambert, but I was a farm kid and realized that that was his end.  And no one asked me about my little lamb.

why I called myself Thallery Thail

When I was young I had a lisp and mispronounced a number of letters.  My mother said this was caused from sucking my thumb, which in turn had caused a large space between my teeth.  At any rate the letters “F” and “V” came out as “TH’.  I do not remember being teased about this, or even that my teachers commented on my speech, it was simply a part of me.

This all changed the Christmas vacation I was ten.  My Uncle Earle arrived to take me to his place for holidays. Earle was one of my Mother’s older brothers and father to Charlotte, Brenda (my partner in crime who is oft mentioned in the blog) and Arlene. They lived some thirty miles away in a rural area of Lindsey near the town of Woodstock.  Uncle Earle was my favorite relative; the smartest, best story teller, champion of literacy and female enlightenment; I could go on and on.

Uncle Earle

As we were travelling to Lindsey Uncle Earle said, “You are too old and too smart to continue calling yourself Thallery Thail (Valerie Vail) so we will just correct that during your visit”.   There was no dispute from me.  The first day was spent with Uncle Earl giving me sounds and words to repeat, and then he watched my lips and mouth and made notes. By the second day the diagnosis was made.  As was the case with all items of importance, this was done at the dinner table with Uncle Earle, Aunt Effie, the girls and I in attendance.  “Your tongue gets in the road, but I think I know what to do.”  Then Uncle Earle proceeded to show me how to put my front teeth out over my bottom lip whenever an “F” or a “V” occurred.  And it worked!

My speech therapy had some other positive effects.   I had been a very rapid speaker.  Now I must mentally preview all my conversation spelling out each word to “set up” for my offending letters.  Suddenly my thoughts need be much more important to make it out as speech. 

I went home in ten days, I was Valerie Vail.   I could talk about funny, fabulous fruits and Valentines with violets.  I had been released from my imposed word prison.  The slower speech continued and also my voice took on a quieter modulation.  In the next year my Grandmother Rogers, Uncle Earle’s mother suffered a stroke and lost most of her speech.  Uncle Earle arrived with flash cards and instructions for me to teach/coach Grammy.  And we did, She angry and determined, me eager and filled with pride at being the teacher. 

When I was seventeen I had a head injury and developed a facial paralysis. A complication of this was that I lost my speech.  This was in the 1960’s and there was no medical intervention. However, using those skills taught to me by Uncle Earle, I was soon speaking once more.  You would think it ends there or that I choose a career in audiology (I did not even know that profession existed) but no, there is more. 

With my challenges most would shun public speaking but this has not been my case. This past fifty years I have participated in countless speaking engagements from radio and television, storytelling, facilitations, political debate, spokesperson supply minister and more.  I have addressed crowds of thousands with no qualms.  And yes, I miss words, or forget them.  I handle this by speaking slowly and it I hit a road block, I stop.  I stop and look the crowd over, make eye contact. Those thirty seconds that it takes to shuffle my mental file cabinet and find the word only serves to heighten the interest of the audience. Several local sound people have mentioned how much they like working with me because of my slow measured speech.

My daughters, Vavielle and Leisa, also loved to visit Uncle Earle and Aunt Effie.  With a house filled with books and magazines, unlimited learning opportunities and one on one mentoring the house in Lindsey was their own private science museum.

When I was fifty five I suffered a stroke,   the right side of my face dropped even more, I tripped over my tongue, speech was again difficult.    And again, I remembered the lessons of my childhood and bit by bit I was able to bring my speech up to par.  I still have problems getting words out, but that is a brain cramp and not with the speech. Uncle Earle’s method’s assist with these challenges as well.   

Uncle Earle has been dead almost fifteen years; someone is going to correct me on this, but I think of him daily.  I am fortunate to now have the privilege of spending several weeks a years living with Aunt Effie.  We talk about my speech therapy.  Uncle Earle was not flying solo on that.   His whole family had invested time and energy researching speech defects and working with me that week.  And they provided back up and coaching over the next few years. Another positive was for my younger brothers who had unknowingly been copying my lisp.   Their speech corrected as well. 

Thank you Uncle Earle; you are still my hero.  And no one asked me why I called myself Thallery Thail.