Wednesday, October 4, 2023

On to the book; another never ending saga

 Truly this is a never ending saga this writing of family books. As the lines go forward so does the story. Cleaning all accomplished and today I am back to working on Generation Ten. 

A first in Canada - the First Nations candidate in Manitoba and leader of the Provincial NDP party Wab Kinew has won a majority victory in the election; Premier of Manitoba- best wishes to him. The rights of the many will be satisfied - namely the right of women murdered in the province of Manitoba to have a proper burial. That is really what it came down to in my mind. Basically the government was saying that it was too expensive to look for the bodies and all of a sudden an out for criminally minded people to murder and throw bodies into a landfill. Not so much a scary thought but a rather ignorant thought on the part of the party that was in power.

Canada is changing; a mistake by the past speaker of the House of Commons has resulted in his forced resignation and a new speaker elected yesterday. What was that mistake; failing to realize that there are a huge number of Canadians who still remember the Second World War and that we lost a lot of our youth to death and injury fighting the Nazis; we have not forgotten and we will not willingly recognize individuals who swore fealty to Hitler, who fought willingly for Hitler. Just like the psychopathic Nazi Putin and his enablers that we can see in real life terrorizing, raping and murdering in Ukraine, Hitler was that same kind of person. It was lust for land and riches that drove that Nazi and it drives the current Nazis who are in control in Russia. Russians throw off these leeches that force your sons to the front lines and their death. Take back Russia just as you did in 1917. Russia deserves better than it is getting from its current leadership. Mind you on the other side of that coin we did and do accept the children; children should not carry the blame of their parent; they deserve to have the chance to live their lives without being labelled.

Another day in God's world; 13 degrees celsius but another warm day is promised as high as 29 degrees celsius. Obviously the furnace is not going to come on; nor is the air conditioner. I am cooling the house in preparation for a warm day. Amazing already the 4th of October and the furnace has not yet come on. I do have it set on 20 degrees but I guess the insulation is good as the furnace, other than when it was checked, has not been on since early May. It would be nice to have six months of not running the furnace for sure - better for the environment and saves me money. Thank you God for the beauty of the earth. for the sunrise soon to come and just for the air that we breath. We must do better to clean up the earth and return it to a more pristine condition for the children of the future. 

There is a slight red glow in the east now as the day begins to brighten. I am trying to decide if I should move to a different learning method for my latin now that I have a few basics under my belt. I am most interested in old latin rather than in being able to converse in the language. I have a lot of documents to transcribe in latin and already I can see a difference in how well I am able to do that. More contemplation as I look around at different ways to improve on what I have learned. 

Solitaire next with my tea, jumping jacks done. Soon breakfast.  

I do find myself contemplating my life today and how chance does play a role. I was absorbed in learning when I first met Edward; he wanted me to look after his experiment that he had left in the Dutch Oven whilst he went out with his classmates perhaps for a lecture I do not think he said; he just asked if I would take care of his experiment. So I did as I was in that laboratory (Physical Chemistry) for another couple of hours. Then a day or so later he came and asked if I would like to have lunch and go for a walk - the University was and is a fantastically beautiful campus. And so we did and discovered a mutual love of the world around us and especially astronomy although it was daylight we chatted about astronomy).  Then he asked if I liked to skate and I did but when he suggested I meet him at the university I said no my parents wouldn't permit me to do that without meeting him and we had an ice rink at my old High School that was close to home (to me a half of a mile was close!). So he arrived and met my family and we walked (turned out to be a rather long way for Edward coming from a small town perhaps) but we had a great time skating and I enjoyed the walk back and forth. He didn't have a car and so we either walked or took the bus. I didn't mind; I do love to walk. Gradually we spent all of our lunch time together and out on the weekends. We had a mutual love of science and before long we were getting married. He did his PhD and I finished my undergraduate degree but also had a full time job as I just felt like I wanted to work. I was interested in science but I think I was too young or too old! (coming from a large family doesn't actually prepare you well for the university atmosphere!) and needed to work for a bit. I did some course work particularly in computers a new field and found that I enjoyed that. My mind was searching for a way to express my intelligence and we were busy as we bought a car (working does have its benefits) and went camping every weekend (never dreamed I would do that memories of Guide camping were still fresh, I was only 21 and 14 wasn't that long ago)!) but we had a great time. The tent had a floor and we weren't sleeping right on the ground  - lovely padded mat under the warm sleeping bags. I ended up loving camping. We just meandered our way through the PhD time as Edward worked on his experiments, wrote up and defended all in four years; I improved my computer knowledge and we waited for his completion and where we would end up living. No jobs for PhDs at universities (they were busy hiring from outside the country which does rather antagonize me still). Hire a few of them but mostly hire the students we pay to educate; I do not see a great stack of Nobel prizes at our universities so hiring externally doesn't guarantee superb research - hire our own students we might have gotten more after all they had all the assets of being educated in this country at excellent universities. But that is another story. 

And so we continued forward and our eldest was born and we were off to Ottawa to a new life. My health was poor due to a nervous/mental/physical breakdown about six months after the birth of our child. I had returned to work and the strain of her delivery proved to be too much for this brain; I exhausted myself and the rest is history. The doctor did warn me about returning to work too early but I did think I could do it all. But lurking in my brain was an episode that affected me at the time but life changed rapidly and I did not recognize that I was literally in hiding from a person who attacked me with a knife all because of my surname. It shocked me and still does; all I did was do the right thing of helping an individual who was frightened by her female room-mates and asked me to help her move. It looked easy; they were not supposed to be there and her sister's boyfriend had a car and drove us to the apartment and he would  help if there was anything heavy. Instead my screams as I ran away from the crazy woman and the knife could be heard likely quite aways away. I was hiding from life; it just happened and Edward facilitated that hiding as it turned out. But a long story needs to be shorter and we lived our 54.5 year marriage with our two children and I just meandered through life doing what I wanted to do and gradually coming to terms with my fears. It was joining Anglicans Online in 1995 that cleared  my path somewhat as I met a number of individuals who were homosexual and I began to understand that these people were not a threat; why this girl felt frightened I have no idea (she said something about them being stoned - I had no idea what that was actually). I did ask her to call the police and complain and I have no idea if she did (I did not want to get involved which was likely a mistake but one learns as one ages nor did I share it with my family until many years later as I did not want to frighten them; they were not of a tendency to do what I did). But I never really spoke to her again except as I needed to do at work which soon ended for the summer as I did also blame her for exposing me to that episode. Did it control what I did in life? It would have probably if I had not married and sort of disappeared as a person. It did affect me later and cause my breakdown as the psychiatrist said to me you have it within you to move ahead and I have no idea now if at some point in that time which I do not remember if I told my story to him. But he was right although the memory did haunt me (flash backs and poor sleeping) but eventually I realized I could just get run over by a car or some other accident and I lived my life. Would I have make great discoveries - no ideas on that. Would Edward have made great scientific breakthroughs - he certainly had the determination and the skill set but that too is lost in time. But he too enjoyed how he ended up spending his life working at the National Research Council at CISTI and doing all that genealogy, all that traveling and searching for his ancestors and what it entailed. Glad that I finally was able to persuade him to go to Europe (it took me nearly fourty years to get him to get on an airplane and fly over that ocean!). He loved going to the British Isles and Europe. Even as his health declined we talked abut future trips - Germany, Galapagos Islands, China. He didn't get to do them living but now in Heaven he can see it all.

Back to my work of the day which is revising James Sanders book of long ago - 1912 to be exact. This rendition of the Siderfin family of West Somerset will be mine but I am sure there will be others. I am not capturing all that could be captured. There are many many documents still to be read and the history of this family learned from them. 

Breakfast next.



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