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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1967-06-29, Page 35Plirrir7,77.77,7 ,7717 tt THIS WEEK THERE:: WILI: KINDS OF • PEOPLE • IN THE �Lp TOWN TWO . d ',Those That -Have Been Here All Their Lives Lal And 'Those Who Wished iiey' Had Lived Here All Their 'Lives ak • us it BE SURE T? PAY. US A VISIT SERVICE ELECTRIC (Goderich) LT way By Harry J', Hoyle Some marriages may be made in heaven but Willie Joe's seemed to have been influenced more by the Grand Trunk Rail. way than anything else. Willie Joe was a distant cousin, a round man with a perpetually x.d fate, a button nose, fright. en,ingly pale blue eyes and a shock of sandy Bair that looked like wire bristle. Round he may have been, but his arms were long and extended from a powerful chest. He was a bachelor of 45 and fair game with a 20(1 - acre farm for every spinster in the township. He was hard to corner at box socials or , dances and even when invited to Sunday supper always left before the 'old folks went to bed. Grandfather gave his opin- ion that Willie Joewas one of those people who would -never marry.. Without brothers and sisters, he had been orphaned at 25. Perfectly capable as a bachelor, he • had his laun. dry done in the village and pat. ronized the bakeshop, in place of baking hardtack for himself as most country bachelors did. He took his "threshing -gangs" to the Commercial Hotel for meals. He seemed to be self- sufficient and most people ag. reed he would never marry. Mother wasn't convinced. She woui'd shake her head and say that Willie Joe wanted to be married but he wasn't going to 11 a. have any of these women who were on the prowl, She oft teii said, "Just you watch his face when he sees children. It justpositively lights up. I think Willie Joe wants to be married but like everything else he'll do it when he sees at. G,iris like that Sara Jane Mac- Lennan, running .after him all the time, .are making -a mis•. take," I was helping father do chores for Willie Joe when he went to the Royal Winter Fair, in Toronto. , We had come tip from the barn and were going •to. leave when we, heard a car in the laneway. It was a mon- strous thing with red disk wheels which' Eddie the .dray- man- had bought and repaired after a Smashup on the high. way. It' was ,Eddie and he had Willie, a strange womanand a flock of youngsters. The big- ., gest shock of all -was to see Willie 'carrying a baby in his arms and the woman, a neat, little body dressed in black carried another and three others ranged -up along side of the car. "Folks," said Willie, clear. ing his throat and flushing his face, "I want to•introduce Biddy my wife, and these here are her .,. I mean our kids...". "Pleased to meet you," said the woman with a little ISob and hand extended, "Willie has .told me about you ... and you too .." she said looking at m e. !Me 04 • Biddy .made .a friend of nye for lite with her smile and the first thing I:knew j was bolding Dennis. Willie was holdih0 Patrick. The other, ranged from the tallest, Molly, to.'Xieh*, ael to Peggy. Eddie, rho dt'ay. man grinned, "sure never thoughtthat. Willie, Joe wound come home with a ready-made family." Willie' .Joe was, all smiles and Merely said -Save$ a lot 04�troub>e,'► Supper was waiting and mou ther was annoyed : until she heard about Willie Joe's bride, Then the questions started and she .grew more • annoyed. The plain fact was that neither of us had learned very much out- side of the fact that Willie Joe had married, a widow called Biddy Donovan with •five child- ren and the oldest .was -eight- year-old Molly, and the you - est was '11 -month-old Dennis. Sitting in 'the back kitchen one day, shelling peas, I heard Biddy tell my mother, "You know, it all seems like a stoy to me. There I was on the train with a poor bit of money that was all I had after my first husband, Eamonn, had been killed. There wasn't a mite of ,compensation because my Eam. onn was a bit daft, working for himself, saying he was going to shake me a fortune." , I could hear mother pouring tea and Biddy went on after a pause. "Bless us. I must have been daft myself. I was on that blessed Grand Trunk with about $25 to my name and hoping 1 OQU1d od a gthe ohroil, 1 tried Ito et a. iobildren� 1 '# ° µ been a seam$tre$s. ' he oh ld� ren were hissy" and this lflpe roan offered. tuholdl)ennis�wh1:e. 1 oba !ed'1'atxt* " . heard hex laugh that throaty chuckle then.' .., "kle waSn't a ,loeker, if Yon know. what I mean, but henalmo"., ed Dennis ,dawn and he bought: lunches` and milk .for them. 1 tried tq .pay' l Jlt he. wouldn't hear of i ' and after they all. dozed , off yre sat and ;tasked: clear forg +t ' Yny' ti"oub1es and whenwe got to the city I Vas: ° completely° baffled. I didi ?t •' knbw where .4 to go and first thing 1 knew '.he hag me in a-. cab with the kids and we had lodging at a ' nice place. 1 didn't see hind the neat day but 1 was a weary one try ing to find work- - "That night he took us all. out to dinner. The youngsters were fussing.but it didn't seem to bother him and that was strange 7 for a bachelor. Fin• ally he looked 'acrgss at Molly and said, "Do you think you could put lip • with me for a father?" My heart almost Stop• ped and imp that she is, she said, "I would like help mind- ing these other kids," Biddy really laughed and there was something almostre. verential in her voice when she said, "You know• he Lord• and the Grand Trunk brought me a fine man." The solemn tone wasn't for long as she exploded, "And it brought Willie Joe a ready. made family." "Almost" Battle of Goderich The eiccitement and confusion occasioned by the threat of Fen. ian raids a century ago.is hard to comprehend today, when corn.. municationp media bring us im. mediate news of what is going on in ail parts of the world. In 1866, as Prof. Fred Landon . has written in his book;' Lake Huron; there were few daily papers; indeed, many persons did not see aweekly newspaper. Rumors of all kinds spread widely and were usually cred• ited. b • "After Ridgeway," •this ac- count states; "border detach- ., DON T SUGGEST UR BUSINESS WAS BORN JIK • D But We've- Been Here Longer Than Most Established 1925 We have been in the Goderich area for 47 years. In 1921 we came to Auburn and in 1925 opened the store you are now familiar with as F: E. Hibbert and Son. n The son was added to the business 21 years ago. For 42 years now we have been pperating the same type of business. Staple - dry goods are our specialty now as always, except today we carry a limited • lune •of ladies ready-to-wear. E. Hibbert and Son, a name synonymous with quality and. It is Goderich's - ctdist business, still operated at least in part, by as founder. � DROP IN AND RENEW ACQUAINTANCES F. ro ments of militia remained on duty, and probably nowhere out. side the Niagara district was • excitement more intense than at Goderich As the .onlygood'-- "port on the Canadian shore, it seemed a likely objective of Fenian designs. A considerable force of the county militia was thereforeassembled; heavy chains were - strung at night -- across. the mouth of the harbor, and a -vigilant watch was kept. Word came "of the attack at Ridgeway (repulsed by the Can. adians) but Major A. M. Ross, in charge of the Goderich force, . cautioned his men to .continue thei tVi'gildliee, , "A suspicious looking ves- sel caused an alarm 'o be rung and a big cannon, a trophy from the Crimea, to be fired. The ship', turned out to be a U.S. revenue cutter, with General William Tecumseh Sherman ' aboard. He was entertained by " ' officers of the garrison at a sumptuous dinner. The late William Sw.a.ffield, a resident of the county from the 1850s and of Goderich 'for • many years, wrote in his rem. iniscences: "For Goderich and surround- ing district, there was more excitement over the.war of 1866 than that of 1914-18, many years later.. Everything was at a standstill in regard to business: I well remember when I donned the Home Guard badge and night and day tramped up and down to the harbor. We had an. artillery company, a' rifle company and • an infantry com- pany, and likewise the fighting Irishmen rushing in from God. erich township'and other places Some had guns and some had • none, but they weresready to light anyway. "Hand's bakery, opposite the Park House (now the Craven residence) was the guardhouse, and oh the present beautiful walk along the bank opposite the G. M,r Elliott (Dunning) house, were rifle pits on which the men worked Sundays and week. days. On the. dock these was a battery made of sa:ltbarrels or- barrels of salt. We Huron boys meant business. We had a steamer on the lookout at" night.• "A ship came -in sight"and .made for Goderich harbor. It turned out to be the steamer Michigan with General Sherman on board. He knew about the excitement and perhaps did what he did ---to see what we Would do, for he got under our -guns - before he unfurled his' flags. I thought our men should have put a shot across his bow. if Of course we had sentinels along the bank watching in case anyone came ashore. I was in company with the farthest sen. try, around the bank where the present summer hotel stands. About daybreak a groundhog or something started away down the bank and- the sentry shot it. I believe that was the only casualty in the war. "Everybody expected to leave town if it came to the worst, and some prepared to, go. I° kept my team ready to move my family somewhere, if the enemy came. One rumor was, that - the enemy had left Chi. cago, another that a certain number of vessels had leftPort Huron for Goderich, and as I was acquainted with places along the . lake shore: where they migit make alanding, John Campbell and I started in the night through the woods for the lake„shore to warn.the settlers. They warned others on theBay. field road. About . that time horsemen were put on between Goderich and Bayfield,: and our soldiers tramped, the Bayfield road to meet the enemy. One man joined _up armed with a pitchfork. - "One man took his cow, car• ried his bed on his back and started for .the highlands of Col. borne.` One man,between God. erich and Bayfield made pan. cakes and took them with him into a hollow log. One family buried their stove, afraid, it would be broken. Some buried their valuables. The Huron boys are ordinarily peaceful, but later we had to send some to Europe to straighten things up over there.” .The Home Of Tasty Pastry HOMEMADE BREAD DONUTS — DIES and COOKIES in Goderkh SINGE 1877 _4 ..1 A BIT OF HISTORY—The land on °which the bakery stands was purchased from the Canada Company in 1832. In 1877 a bakery was' started by David Cantelon, which he .operated until 1904 when the owneirship of the business passed to D. J. Curry. He in turn was succeeded in the business by Arthur Curry in 1932, who operated the bakery until it was purchased by the present owner in 1942. Since' then the business:has been a family business with both Mel and Lil Culbert on the job every day. Since 1956 the'r inn Barry has followed his father's trade _ on a full time basis. WELCOME HOME FOR OLD HOME WEEK, 1967 Mel and Lil Culbert CULBERT'S BAKERY WES1 STREET GODERICH n• • •