When World War I was declared in August of 1914, Sam was still at Central Collegiate High School with one more year to go, a teenager with a passion for baseball and a growing interest in the garden and the flowers it produced. Paul was still a problem, given to attacks of irritability, a legacy in all probability of the encephalitis as well as pain from an arthritic condition of the spine. He seems to have been very much the baby of the family, being given extra consideration by all, but was more interested in taking care of the livestock than in doing well at school. In such a situation, it can be understood that serious minded Ted was taken for granted and sometimes his achievements were passed over lightly in the family.
Paul received a Christmas letter from Ruth on Roosevelt Hospital stationery, dated January 3 on the envelope. Ruth never dated her correspondence, but fortunately her letters to her family were preserved in their envelopes, the cancellation marks revealing when they were written.
“How was the New Year’s goose? I suppose the Weir family did not get much of the Christmas one. How are Pat and Buster and the cows? Is Buttercup giving good milk? It was too bad about the poor chickens. Did you save any of them? (I think you are a regular Shylock.)”
Perhaps a cold snap was too much for the hen house. It would seem that Paul had a little business venture going in the back yard.
At some period before Sam graduated from the collegiate, possibly in the Easter holidays or on weekends in early 1915, he found work in a wartime factory producing explosives. Sam was fascinated by the processes and told his father he wanted to study chemistry and work in that field. George was opposed and persuaded Sam to stay in school, graduate and get himself articled in a law firm. A career in chemistry for Sam would mean that two of his children would be living at home and pursuing degrees. At this time Martha was working part time in Dr. Hadley Williams’ office while studying at the University of Western Ontario for a degree in English and History. Sam reluctantly agreed to abandon his hopes for a degree in chemistry or chemical engineering and, immediately after his graduation with honours from the collegiate in June of 1915, started working as an articled clerk at Meredith and Meredith, a very highly respected law firm, for the sum of $2.00 a week.
Samuel Edward, after high school, while he articled with Meredith and Meredith.
Early in 1915, Ruth apparently left the staff of Roosevelt Hospital and went into private nursing. She sent postcards home to the boys with views of her whereabouts: Larchmont, New York; Allenhurst, New Jersey. Sam received a postcard in June, “How are the exams?” By August the adventurous Ruth Weir R.N. had volunteered to go overseas with the American Red Cross and on October 27 she wrote to her mother, “Just sailing, La Touraine.” For the remainder of the year Ruth sent cards to everyone in the family at the rate of two or three times a week. No doubt her tidbits of news were received with rapt attention: to Martha from Bordeaux, “very beautiful;” to Sarah, “a view of the cathedral;” to Ted, “How goeth the law? Do you know what this statue commemorates? I don’t.” It was a view of the Girondins. Just the sort of communication that would have Sam going to an encyclopaedia, Ruth knew, to discover details of the political party, named Girondins for the members of the French Legislative Assembly and National Convention from the Gironde region between 1791 and 1793. Their views were verging more on republicanism than the Parisian deputies, but ultimately they were defeated by the Montagnards. Ruth was well aware of Ted’s compulsion to learn and to investigate every field that came to his attention. In November, Ruth visited Paris and wrote, “Paris is lovely. We drove through the Arc de Triomphe along the Champs Elysee, saw the Eiffel Tower. Love to all.”
Ted had been working long hours every day, six days a week after his graduation. On Friday August 15, Sarah made him a little presentation. “My dear Ted. Birthday greetings. Here is Harry’s tie pin. I know you will take care of it and perhaps value it as highly as he did.” But Ted’s birthday was August 12. She missed it by three days and Harry had been dead for nine years. One wonders how strong a memory Ted retained of the brother who had died nine years ago. In the hundreds of Ted’s letters to his relations later in life that have survived, never once was mention made of Harry.
The family’s interest was centred on the faraway doings of Ruth. How the family must have marvelled at their Ruth seeing the wonders of the world! Postmarked again from Bordeaux, she wrote to Paul, “You should see the big carts drawn by little donkeys about the size of Buster.”
By December Ruth was one of the hard working nurses caring for the French wounded in the disastrous offensives of late 1915. On December 26, Ruth wrote to Martha, “We are having a party — plum pudding — and I may be incapacitated. I got a real American fruit cake for the blesses and champagne and we had a grand treat this afternoon. Last night at midnight mass in the chapel — the patients went on stretchers, chairs and crutches. It was a sight never to be forgotten. Our Abbe is a dear old soul.” Sarah kept this letter so presumably Martha shared its contents. Ruth drinking something alcoholic, going to mass in a Catholic chapel and speaking so warmly of a Catholic priest — George and Sarah must have had grave misgivings about temptation assailing Ruth and that more than the war was contributing to the world’s downfall.
For Ted, the combination of his new world of learning at Meredith and Meredith, together with Ruth’s accounts of a sophisticated existence, made for a broadening insight on the world which contrasted strongly with the blinkered attitude of his religious upbringing.
Ruth encouraged Martha, Ted and Paul to learn French and, early in 1916, sent Martha a ring made by a wounded French soldier, out of apiece of German shrapnel. As the war drew on, Ruth wrote more and more frequently of food shortages, sugar every other day and lack of heating for the patients. She frequently reminisced about the food in her family home, Paul’s maple syrup, the hens laying fresh eggs and about an animal, Sherry, who “is most disappointing in the matter of progeny.” She did manage to get a Swiss cowbell for Buttercup, and from a letter of Ruth’s, we learn that Sarah’s mother, Martha Amanda, was making one of her prolonged and tiresome visits. George and his mother-in-law did not find each other companionable, a family situation bound to be upsetting to the sensitive Ted. By August Ruth had been promoted to Major and had started her long search for a suitable present for Ted. It was to be a chess set worthy of an up and coming young lawyer and Ruth kept on searching until she found what she wanted.
Sarah kept many letters from Martha Amanda. In one short note her mother details her travels from one relative to another, discusses her health and ends with a post script, “You forgot to send the money.” This last is possibly a contribution to Martha Amanda’s welfare or an agreed upon sum to be sent by all the sisters to Bertie, but it must have been a drain on the Weir finances. Martha Amanda Bayne’s letter to Sarah in July of 1916 asks rather anxiously about Paul, “How is Paul standing the work?” Allowances were made for the baby of the family by everyone.
Ted continued to work hard at Meredith and Meredith and to save every penny he could. For the next three years he would have to live in Toronto when attending Osgoode Hall, the only way to qualify for the bar in Ontario. He seems at this juncture to have had no social life at all outside church attendance. Martha, at twenty-two, obtained her B.A. with honours in her English and History course and won the Governor General’s gold medal for obtaining the highest marks of all arts graduates. Ruth wrote to her in August upbraiding her for not learning to swim. “So what if you swallow some water?” but ending with “Hope you get a nice school. How does Ted like the law?” By the last year