Although I wouldn’t shy away from a fight to earn respect, one of the central messages my father left me with was the value of getting along with people. It was his nature to behave that way, and the trait was valuable to him in his work as a railway porter. In fact, there were regular visible, financial illustrations of his ability to get along with people. When my dad returned from one of his lengthy railway journeys, he would deposit a huge pile of cash on the table, the product of tips gained from being charming and effective in his work. My father was a porter on the Canadian Pacific Railway in the years when the CPR passenger service meant something. It had history and authority and class.
One story he told me was how he and his fellow porters would often serve members of Parliament or other big shots of the day. When such people took the time to say hello or chat with the porters, to treat them with respect, they received the best services available (and there were a lot of them). One payoff was that the porters would introduce them to the women in the sleeping cars. But if they ignored the porters, their shoes would not be shined, or perhaps they would not be served whisky. Those porters knew how things worked. Thanks to my father’s story, I always remember to be friendly when I meet people and to treat them with respect. If I see someone looking my way, I always say, “Hello! How are you?” That breaks the ice; the atmosphere gets warmer and the communication gap shrinks.
In our family, my father was the disciplinarian from a physical standpoint, and there was no doubt about it. He expected us to be on the doorstep at 9:00 p.m., for example; if we were even one second late, he’d dress us down. Hughie and I were afraid of him. He didn’t hit us much, though he did now and again. He’d just beat us on the bum with his belt. Not to hurt us, but to let us know that when he said something, he meant it. As a CPR porter, he had a steady run from Toronto to Vancouver — and occasionally Toronto to Montreal — so he would often be gone five or six days at a time. My mom used to say that if we weren’t good, she would tell him when he got home. Talk about protracted anxiety! He could still be several days away from getting home, and we were left to imagine our punishment the entire time. He would be coming in from either the Montreal or the Vancouver run and, along with covering the table with his tips, he would bring us a lot of things, ranging from eggs, chickens, and turkeys to Sweet Marie chocolate bars. These were things people would give him or that he would buy along the way if he found good deals. So while it was always exciting to see what he had for us, in the back of our minds we would be concerned about being punished for our youthful indiscretions. We’d be shaking in our boots. Fortunately, my mother many times would not tell my father of our misdeeds.
In the end, my father’s strict nature was good because it taught me responsibility and discipline, even though he was a rascal himself. In fact, it was that rascal element in my dad’s character that eventually tore our family apart. My parents were religious. They went regularly to the Baptist church on University Avenue in Toronto, and, as is the case with many religious organizations, it became the centre of their social life as well. As a result, I went to Sunday school every Sunday for years. But religious faith alone could not forestall what lay ahead.
Hughie and me, ready for the annual Port Dalhousie picnic, the annual gathering of the black community in Ontario and parts of the U.S. My hand is in that position because I was covering a spot on my white slacks so my dad wouldn’t see it. I ended up not having socks on and my dad sent me home, which brought on a torrent of tears.
My mother was like a lot of women in those days: she often just turned a blind eye to my dad’s indiscretions, at least up to a point, and I imagine that her faith helped her manage such emotions. So it wasn’t racism or poverty that marred my reasonably happy childhood. It was infidelity — my father’s. I had always thought there was a lot of love in the house, and in many senses there was, but in truth things were far from idyllic, at least as far as my parents were concerned.
My brother Hughie all decked out, ready for the annual picnic.
In some respects, if they were so inclined, railway porters were not unlike salesmen or sailors, with love interests in each of the “ports” they visited. That was my father’s weakness. Over the years, he had a series of trysts in the many places the trains stopped. Eventually he was caught after he passed a sexually transmitted disease to my mother. That was unacceptable to my mother, and she was humiliated, so she resolved to leave him immediately. That shows you the kind of inner strength she had, and maybe that’s where I got my strength. Imagine, in the mid 1930s, with the effects of the Depression still lingering, having the courage as a woman to strike out on her own.
On the morning my mother left, it was as if all hell were breaking loose in the house. There was a fracas, and I can remember going downstairs to the kitchen where I witnessed a physical battle. My mother was trying to get out the back door, and my dad was blocking her way. I recall screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, don’t hit her.” During the fight, I was hanging onto his bathrobe belt and I was very frightened. He slapped her and broke her eardrum, a physical exclamation mark that signified the end of their relationship.
One of my dad’s weaknesses didn’t rub off on me. He was a womanizer. That was a lesson I learned. Never put your wife in the position that my dad put my mom in. He had done a lot of running around and, as I said, she cast a blind eye up to a point — though I have to believe it hurt her deeply. But when he gave her that disease, it was the last straw. She headed to New York, to Harlem, where she had a sister, Iris Knight.
Along with the devastation of her departure, we had to figure out how to carry on. My dad mostly handled the Toronto–Vancouver run, which was a prize among the CPR porters. It produced plenty of extra tip money, so he was reluctant to give it up. But that meant he would be gone from home for several days at a time. As a result, Hughie and I became a problem, me at fifteen and him at thirteen, without a mother. To solve this, first my dad arranged for a niece of his, Isobel Gibson, to come up from Halifax to look after us. Eventually she moved to California, and even today I hear from her from time to time. After she left, fortunately for us a wonderful couple, Sadie and Rupert Downs, cared for us while my dad was away. They were like surrogate parents at a particularly rough time in our lives. They had a son, Ray Downs, who went on to become an internationally renowned jazz pianist. I taught him to play “I Love Coffee, I Love Tea,” his first exposure to the keyboard, so I guess you could say I helped launch his career.
Sadie and Rupert Downs cared for us until I was able to join my mother in New York in 1936. Hughie stayed behind and, from that point on, we never had a relationship to speak of, which is quite sad to me. My mom was in a difficult financial position at the time and could only afford for one of us to join her. That turned out to be me. Hughie was, quite naturally, jealous over the years and resented my mother’s decision, and I made matters worse by ignoring him. In due course, as he grew older, he moved to Boston and we drifted even further apart. He was a hard worker, and when he did get to Boston, where he became a plasterer, the city was in the midst of a building boom. One trait he inherited from my dad was a taste for women, and he ended up going through three wives.
Even though my dad was a porter, the trip to New York was my first train ride. It was fun, but then everybody likes choo-choos. My mom came
My brother Hughie boxing with Ray Downs, the son of Sadie and Rupert Downs, who helped with our care after my mother moved to New York. I had followed her to New York by the time this picture was taken.
up to Toronto and took me back on the train. I remember as we were preparing to depart she bought me