At last, the formalities begin. Ina and Jim scurry back to the seats I have successfully maintained. Father leads us in the singing of “God Save the King.” At the end of the final stanza, he, the chairman of the high school board, joins his brother-in-law and others near the ribbon. My Uncle James, still at the podium, directs our attention to the large drawing behind him—the Beaux Arts style, red-bricked library to be built. Like twenty-five hundred other libraries in small communities around the world, it will be funded with a grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation.
The decision to build the Carnegie Library was not without controversy. Perhaps in a poor display of gloating, from the podium my uncle recounts some of the obstacles that had to be overcome. He refers to the arguments of those opposed to taking money from the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, possibly the richest man in the world. Some predicted that money acquired as were the Carnegie fortunes would rot the books to be housed within the new library. Other obstacles included those created by the Carnegie Foundation itself, which refused to provide the funds until the plans for the building were altered to prevent its use as both a library and a concert hall.
Uncle James then calls upon a man in a brown suit, a representative of the Carnegie Foundation. With a strange, slow way of speaking, he thanks the crowd for its warm welcome. He points out the signature features of a Carnegie Library, including the lamppost in front, a beacon to enlightenment. The prominent wide doorway accessed from four steps outside the building and the five steps inside together symbolize how every man (or at least able-bodied man, for there were no elevators in the library in those days) is elevated by learning. He describes how this library will differ from the town’s current library, known as the Mechanic’s Institute; how it will be open to all; how it will no longer be necessary to execute a contract to borrow a book; and how patrons will be able to browse the shelves themselves, without requiring books to be retrieved by the librarian from behind a counter.
Returning repeatedly to the podium, Uncle James invites other dignitaries to come forward. They speak on and on, generally repeating what has already been said. Finally, a cheque is presented to my Uncle William, the mayor, by the man in the brown suit, and a spade is plunged into the ground. The crowd erupts in applause.
Ending the ceremony, my Uncle James, invites everyone to walk to the Presbyterian Church for a short religious ceremony to consecrate the soon-to-be-built library. I watch as the masses stand and walk down Queen Street. Everyone goes: my friends, their parents, our doctor, our neighbours, my aunts and uncles, my cousins—everyone, except for me and my immediate family. As the throng departs down Queen Street, my mother, my father, my brother, my sister, my grandfather, and I walk along Chapel Street to our home two blocks away.
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The year was 1907. The location was Brampton, a town in the County of Peel in the Province of Ontario, in the Dominion of Canada. Located on and around a part of the old Indian trail known as the Hurontario, the town was at that time home to nearly four thousand souls, predominantly Protestants of Anglo-Saxon heritage. It stood on rich farmland, making it an agricultural centre and home to local, national, and international industries. Inching into modernity, it was a town with a road system but no hard roads, with telephones but no telephone system. It had a department of public health but no hospital, a sewer system, some electricity, and sidewalks, although the latter were just being converted from wood to cement.
The town in 1907 suffered no shortage in the methods of transportation for its citizenry. The stagecoach ran down Hurontario Road, which connected Lake Ontario at the south to Lake Huron at the north. Cars were not unseen, but they were vastly outnumbered by horse-drawn carriages. The two rail lines that cut through the town’s centre provided its inhabitants with a swift mode of travel. People and cargo could be transported all over North America from Brampton’s centre. Significantly, one method of travel was not available to Bramptonians. Although the town possessed two minor water courses, allowing for swimming, skating, fishing, and in the case of one, annual flooding, neither had the width, depth, or regular volume of water to foster shipping of man or freight.
Once known as Buffy’s Corners, the town was originally named after William Buffy, a shoemaker who in the 1820s sold both shoes and alcohol from his store on the main and likely only thoroughfare. Though Buffy kept only a few bottles of liquor on his premises to serve his good customers, he was held responsible for the early debauchery of that area. Historical records do not indicate whether his customers’ need for such imbibement was due to the distance and conditions they had to endure to reach his premises or their shock at the prices or selection of his wares. Whatever the reason, years later, when leading Primitive Methodists settled in the area, the dens of licenced hotels and taverns were closed, and the name and reputation changed. Buffy’s Corners became Brampton.
* * *
The party with whom I walked home that day was quiet and small. At the front of our pack was my father, Jethro Stephens, known to most as “Doc.” My father was a local dentist and community activist. For twenty-five years he served as chairman of the high school board and chairman of the water commission, organizations responsible for bringing good education and clean water, respectively, to our town. Hardly ever given to laughter, Father ruled our household with an iron fist. A thin man with light brown hair parted to the side, he wore a pair of white patent leather shoes almost year round.
Beside Father walked my mother, Mary. A handsome, round-faced woman with a full but not large figure, she was the epitome of sweetness. I never heard her raise her voice. She doted on my father, who rarely returned the kindness. Her greatest pride was her three children, yet she was far from the smothering type of mother. Her time spent maintaining our large home and supporting her church and other social commitments kept her too busy to spend an inordinate amount of time with us.
Behind my parents walked my brother Jim and my sister, Ina. Ina had bestowed upon her the moon face of our mother (a matter about which she was indifferent) and the stocky frame of our grandfather (an inheritance that pleased her not at all). Perhaps because she felt her essentials could not change, she chose not to care for the minor matters that were within her control. As a result—despite constant hectoring from Father—she was frequently seen with the buttons on her dress misaligned, her hair unbrushed, her socks more down than up. Since she was eight years older than me, Ina’s actions generally denied my existence as a sibling. Her filial allegiance rested entirely with our brother Jim, three years her senior, with whom she was quite close.
Jim was a wonderful boy blessed with the sweet nature of my mother, the athletic prowess of my father, and the artistic drawing skills of my grandfather. He was a hard worker and was well liked by his friends and their parents. His affection for each individual family member was well known and often exemplified by a unique nickname. By Jim alone, Grandpa was known as “Old Man.” Grandpa reciprocated by calling Jim “My Boy,” something Father never objected to (although Father objected to a great many things). I fared better I thought, being referred to most often by Jim as “Little One.” While the pet name was usually accompanied by a tug on one of my ringlets, the minor discomfort was more than compensated by his term of endearment.
The final member of our party, and my walking companion, was my grandfather, Jesse Brady. My grandfather came to live with my parents for a short while in 1905 and stayed for over twenty-five years. In 1907, at the age of seventy-two, he was still a fit, sturdy man with a large head fully covered in thick, short grey hair. It matched the colour of his moustache and the neat beard that was cut squarely and hung an inch below his chin. His days, which were formerly filled building the town, were by that time spent tending his gardens as an amateur grower and supporting his townsmen as a member of the International Order of Foresters and the Odd Fellows Club. In between those pursuits, he found time for curling, lawn bowling, choir