The following year Sam was still working in the office of Ivey, Elliott and Ivey and took on his first big case, acting for Mr. Tomer, plaintiff, in a case of wrongful dismissal, against Crowle, defendant. Although the suit dragged on for several years through appeals, the plaintiff was finally awarded in excess of $5,000.00 dollars, a very large settlement for 1929.
Sam’s credibility as a lawyer specializing in insurance received recognition in Toronto, when in 1922, he acted as solicitor for the Paramount Insurance Co. Founded some twenty years prior with a head office in Toronto, the company was now in the process of obtaining letters of patent. Sam’s application was successful under the provisions of the Ontario Insurance Act. He was not listed as one of the five directors, but he was considered to be a brilliant and promising young man at twenty-four years of age. Sam turned his expertise in real estate to mortgage his father’s property, taking out two mortgages in his own name for $2500.00 and $600.00. At that time, a large furnace, ‘Good Cheer,’ was installed at 139 Oxford Street West to the comfort and peace of mind of the entire family. No more constantly piling wood onto fireplaces to keep some warmth in their bones, nor waking up in a freezing cold house. The furnace was well named.
Perhaps it was Ben Baldwin’s business concerning the service station that brought Sam to Boston in 1923, ostensibly as a tourist, but also with an introduction to Horace Morison, counsel-at-law at 92 State Street. Morison took Sam and a ‘distinguished surgeon’ to dinner at the Harvard Club. Sam wrote to Morison some thirty years later, recalling that he had been very impressed and remembered the occasion with great pleasure. It would seem that Sam still had his eye on an international practice.
In 1923, he left Ivey, Elliott and Ivey, now Ivey, Elliott, Weir and Gillanders, and returned briefly to Meredith and Meredith, the largest litigation firm in Western Ontario. But it was a shortlived association, for in 1924, Meredith and Meredith dissolved their practice and Jeffery, Weir, McElheran and Moorhouse was established.
It was probably in the same year that, while on a business trip to Toronto, Sam saw Lothian Hills by Homer Watson (1855-1936) and fell headlong in love with it. Painted in 1892, prior to Watson’s excursion into an Impressionist style, the painting remains an example of Watson’s best period and was quite probably the single work of art which consistently over the rest of his life gave Sam the greatest pleasure and satisfaction. “It was,” he wrote to a friend, “my first purchase other than the wash drawing of Laura Knight’s.” He bought it on the instalment plan for fifty dollars a month directly from the artist. Lothian Hills was sold to Sam for $1000.00 less the commission of 33 1/3%. It was his in 14 months. Sam, Homer Watson and the artist’s sister, Phoebe, remained friends till the end of the lives of both Watsons. The painting continues to hold the place of honour over the fireplace in the main gallery of River Brink. Sam did not count the J.W.L. Forster portrait of Sir Wilfred Laurier, the oilette on canvas, “acquired for 50^ in my student days” probably in 1913 or 1914 as a serious part of his art collection or perhaps he had forgotten all about it.
In 1924 Sam and Martha were guests of a friend at Yale. Martha caught sight of a stone angel on the campus and never forgot her. A casting of the angel eventually found its way to the Frick Museum. Sam, Ruth and Martha each paid homage to it, Ruth in her capacity of her interest in an art gallery on Fifth Avenue and Sam on his frequent visits to New York. After Martha’s death in 1959 Sam started long and involved negotiations to bring a casting of the Ange de Lude to River Brink to overlook his home and garden in Queenston, Ontario. He wanted the statue as a memorial to Martha for whom he had planned an apartment for her use in his dream home.
“Yesterday was Ted’s birthday, but we all forgot it,” Ruth wrote to Wilbur in August of 1924, a sad commentary on her family’s attitude. That summer Sam was an acting prosecuting attorney and according to Ruth, “spends his days running around to small towns, doing his office work at night.” The chief bread winner of the family worked long hours and seems to have been taken for granted by the family. Ruth wrote to Wilbur of Sam’s knowledge of an expired chattel mortgage, listing some interesting things supposedly from the estate of Governor Higgins of New York State, and other items she thought would entice Wilbur to come up to London. Wilbur’s knowledge of antique furniture and of art objects in general, as well as of paintings, was a source of inspiration to both Sam and Ruth.
According to Ruth, one of the first if not the first, of Sam’s many vacations from his law office was to have taken place in the fall of 1924. Sam and Arthur Nutter, the architect and a frequent guest in the Weir home, perhaps a paying boarder, planned to drive to the West Coast, an adventure indeed in the automobiles of the time. However Arthur Nutter lost a considerable sum of money in a Florida bank crash at West Palm Beach and the trip was off. This was the first intimation of a restlessness in Sam that would show itself in frequent trips and excursions. Despite the material rewards of his law practice and the dividends from his growing portfolio, Sam was always ready to get out of the office and see the world.
Four generations, in 1929, the year prior to Martha Amanda’s death. Martha Amanda seated, careworn Sarah standing, and Ruth with her daughter, Sarah Howell.
Religious differences seemed to haunt Sam in his choice of young ladies. One such was a French Canadian, a staunch Catholic and a designer and creator of women’s fashionable wear. Possibly Sarah’s dressmaking activities were the means of acquainting them. However, an alliance with a Catholic was not to be thought of in George’s opinion and the young canadienne was not about to renounce her faith. Sam also had a dear friend whose parents were Presbyterians. Feelings over church union were still raw in the twenties and her parents forbade the development of a serious attachment with a Methodist. They remained friends throughout their lives and she never married. She felt that Sam’s home life was such that the taking of any prospective bride to meet the parents would be an impossibility.
In 1920 or thereabouts, Sam had met a young lady from Guelph, Mary MacDonald, known to her friends as Topsy. They corresponded incessantly by letter and apparently chatted on long distance telephone at great length like a pair of teenagers. Topsy was a keen horsewoman, so Sam took riding lessons in London, rode every morning before going to the office and joined the London Hunt Club. He does not seem to have made any other use of his membership. After the romantic attachment cooled down, he and Topsy remained friends and his enthusiasm for horseback riding waned. The social life of the London Hunt Club could be most exclusive especially to a member who was not considered part of the inner social circle of the city.
Sarah was surprised at his keenness for riding, but pleased that he was enjoying the morning exercise, albeit tempered with a certain reserve according to her letters to Ruth. She had come to depend very heavily on Sam as the man of the house and the prospect of his leaving Oxford Street and establishing his own home was not one she could look upon with enthusiasm. Sam realized the responsibility of his position as the only child left, not only at home, but in the vicinity. It was a weight on Sam’s shoulders and a strong factor inhibiting him in his social life and his seeking a wife.
The situation was relieved somewhat in 1925 when Martha Amanda, Sarah’s mother died at the age of 87. George Sutton and his mother-in-law had never been compatible. The high spirited Martha Amanda and the tyrannical George Sutton were at odds with one another, so much so in fact, that George was vehemently opposed to her being buried in a Bawtenheimer plot, particularly the one at Cape Croker.