Not enough doctors

 While I cleaned yesterday I continued to think about 3 million Ontarians not having a family doctor. When we were young there was a doctor on every corner nearly it seemed in the suburbs. They mostly had their offices in their homes in those days but everything has become so much more advanced toolwise that one needs an office in an area where everything is very accessible and close to hospitals too. Most of the patients were children for sure; the growing up days of the baby boomers. Although I was born just at war's end I went to school with children born during the war because I skipped a year ahead from 3 to 5. But we could see that huge group coming along behind us.  

Life was harder for doctors way back then; my husband's uncle was a family doctor and he died relatively young (in his 60s I think). His hours were very long and his patient load quite heavy as he was outside of the city in a small town (not a huge change for physicians in rural areas except the hospitals are better equipped than in the 50s for sure). But now the family physicians in the city are experiencing these enormous case loads and long hours plus the cost of maintaining an office is very large. So Edward did make an effort when Gordon asked him to go to the Ottawa Branch Meeting of the OGS way back in the early 80s with him. It wasn't something that we ever did; Edward and I. We liked astronomy and were members of the RASC in London and then again here when we first arrived along with the Ottawa Field Naturalists Society. My parents visited right away and took us off to the local Anglican Church (not surprising!) although I had already found it but I knew Edward wanted a United Church. Gordon and Edward did seem to enjoy the meetings of the Ottawa Branch and for the next fourty years that pretty much occupied Edward's spare time (although he was pretty involved in his United Church as Treasurer and singing in the Choir as well!). 

Personally I do better in didactic situations not social; I tend to find social situations to be a nightmare to be honest. I was volunteer secretary at Edward's Church (I didn't actually volunteer). The bonus was I was behind a table and could mostly be away from people and just be helpful if needed. After all religion was part of my very being which I knew very well and I had my own deep seated Anglicanism as my support in time of trial. But I had promised to go to Edward's Church with our daughter. Learning Edward's ancestry of dissenters opened my eyes actually and let me see my Anglican Church through Edward's eyes; not that I agreed with him (my faith is very different from his approach to faith although towards the end of his life he did come to see that my faith was a strength that he could hang on to); I do not think I have a Protestant bone in my body; Catholic through and through. With people like Roger Williams, John Bowne, Hannah Feake, Elizabeth Fones, Anne Winthrop, Rev Obadiah Holmes etc. (the reach back into history in his line was formidable in terms of the talent that was there coming down to him and it expressed itself in him as a scientist although the opportunities (unless one went to the United States) were not overly available at that time. He just really wanted to stay in Canada although as we traveled more and more to the United States one could see that he was rethinking some of that and was very supportive of any such thoughts in our children (although they prefer Canada as well but one has to go where the opportunities are for sure as is the case of my older daughter). One could also see where he got his Protestantism from (I was amazed at all the dissenters in his tree actually as he moved back in time)! But I do believe that families should worship together and whatever works for them is great (I am pretty much a wishy washy person and go with the flow unless I have a strong opinion which does occur but I could be a closet Anglican (still went to early Church at the local Anglican Church for a number of years) and in a way I am back in that closet again except I have You-Tube Services!). For Edward I think he felt the need (plus he did go to the United Church when we first met and I did go to Metropolitan United with him in London when we lived there) as we moved through parenthood and he was following in his father's footsteps (he was only two when he died) and being treasurer and in the choir; it was definitely good for his view of himself to seek that association out I think. Edward was a strong person actually; very capable and really quite brilliant and along with his classmates Canada definitely failed them back in the 70s by not hiring their own students first to academic positions in the universities. Edward's father was also an elder but that is no longer quite the same in the United Church. My maternal uncle was also an elder actually as well as being involved with the Missions and Services in the United Church in both London and Toronto. Plus Edward's father was a farmer and Edward did love his hobby of tilling the soil. I had not thought to do any writing up of Edward's work because he felt he had done all that he wanted to do. But I could go back to reprinting items on his blog I am thinking from his many talks. I was doing that but then got back into my own one name studies. But perhaps that would be a good idea and I would be more relaxed about any missing ideas that he expressed but did not write up on his website. A contemplative day I guess as I move forward in my own research but thinking of ways to keep Edward's research in the present. Most of his American ancestors came to Canada as settlers in 1800 and after. The latest one was in the 1820s - William Rathbun - at the annual reunion of that family he learned that William was said to have "an itchy foot!" which was really something quite stunning to learn from the members of the American family actually. William was remembered and that was 150 years later perhaps.

Although the girls did try hard to be with him for his genealogy endeavours it wasn't easy to be young in so many graveyards but they did their best including writing it all down for him from the stones that he selected. When he received his Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for all of his volunteer work but especially his genealogical work they were pleased to see that all that work that he did was rewarded.  

I am very busy working away on the books for my mother and my grandfather. As a member of the Guild of one-name studies we have a newsgroup that keeps us attached as a group and people often share ideas and thoughts. We were into mediaeval tracing the other day and that is basically where I am at with both of these books at the moment. It is exciting times in England between 1200 and 1500 and then you start to see more wills, the parish registers and land documents but there is still a surprising amount of material to pursue before 1500 although it is in Latin and so I continue learning Latin and it is amazing how much I am able to do with it. Published genealogies and Pedigrees can be somewhat suspicious and we did discuss that. It is hard to undo what has been in print for hundreds of years but correct the errors of Horatio Gates Somerby I will do and a few other items which simply do not make sense. But the Somerby work is the greatest problem because it has been copied so many times especially by Blake descendants in America.

For the next book after these two, I know my grandmother had no interest in writing a book on the Buller family but I may give it a go when Blake and Pencombe/Pincombe are done. She loved her father and mother very much (mother died when she was 11; three years before her father). But his injuries in the First Boer War made life difficult for him although he tried very hard she said. Her mother was just 37 years old and her father was 49 years old. So it would be interesting to put her family into words. They are in fact very interesting. My family would likely enjoy having all of that encapsulated into a book.

What would the second book be? I could consider Rawlings but one of my cousins in Australia has done a lot of work on that as well as our mutual cousin (he has his MBE apparently) who wrote me maybe a dozen years ago now and said who is Ada on the 1881 census with William Rawlins and his wife Elizabeth (Lywood) Rawlins (her grandparents actually who apparently didn't mind taking in their illegitimate granddaughter!)?  I had mentioned my grandmother Edith Bessie (Taylor) Blake aka Ada Bessie Cotterill Rawlings in a post that he saw and that began a detailed correspondence over nearly a decade so I think I should leave Rawlins to them. Although I do have a good writeup on my paternal grandmother already (about 120 pages actually). I will have to think of which surname to work on next. I am not that interested in collecting cousins, my sister does an excellent job on that. For me it is the deep ancestry that yDNA and mtDNA leads me to and the surname trail back into the past. Although I never really did any genealogy all those years that Edward did, I appear to be spending my retirement (was going to knit baby clothes for packages to the north; and some sewing as well) doing an entirely different thing than I had intended. 2003 was definitely a watershed year in my life when George DeKay (my cousin) asked me to write the Pincombe Profile. 

I shall have to think about a second book to write at the same time as Buller. - there are some interesting choices like Cheatle which is a Leicestershire name and pretty much only there until the 1800s. A Cheatle married a Welch and produced the wife of Henry Christopher Buller. Lawley in Shropshire is another one still on my grandmother's side (the name appears to have originated in Ireland and I do know there is a percentage of Irish as several of my siblings have between 11 and 18% Irish). Why did they come to Shropshire in the mid 1700s? One wonders that. But with my searching over the past twenty years I have encountered a number of these families written up and because we corresponded our line is included. Interesting to contemplate.

The cleaning all accomplished yesterday and on to Pencombe today. Exercise (I do think I am an addict) but then one of the first things that I did when we were in the process of moving here was to take a break from moving in and walk around the large block  (no sidewalks then and the road was incomplete) with my three year old. I decided that was going to be the greatest thing having that 2 km trek to do every day until my little one was off to school (and me to work or school to do my masters!). What a treat I thought. That was April of 1978; we moved here on the 26th of April. Some friends from London lived closeby (yes we did have friends when we moved here) and that was when we noticed these carriage houses (they also had one). I fell in love with it immediately and we have been here ever since (not  much ambition where houses are concerned; Edward traveled a lot then and it was just a comfortable size for me to look after when he wasn't there). I no longer do the walk around as my daughters do not think it is good for me to go alone and to be honest I agree (older people should not wander around alone but COVID did show us how much exercise we could create in our own homes and yards). I have my treadmill, my stationery bicycle, weights, yoga mat and runners so I can do it all inside or in the backyard and can walk/ski around outside when they are here. Teatime and Latin next. Then on to breakfast. 

My own English ancestry (grandchildren can inherit between 0 and 25%; and I am not sure that my grandchildren inherited very much of my English ancestry; the youngest perhaps as he has autism but mostly he reminds me of his mother (he has an enormous resemblance to her) but occasionally I get a glimpse of my brothers there; just rarely)). My English ancestry sinks rapidly into the past having merged with Edward's 9th and 10th generation mostly European and maybe 5 to 10% British Isles ancestry; then Edward's 8th and 9th early American colonial ancestry in our children and now with our grandchildren French Canadian ancestry merges in back into the early days of Quebec and our son in law's family has found First Nations ancestry in their lines (I do want to get back into that research as well! never enough time) so way back into thousands of years ago on this continent for at least one line. Amazing really when you think about it. Which reminds me that is exciting naming Louis Riel as the first Premier of Manitoba. We are, in my lifetime, seeing The First Nations and the settlers walking together just as Tecumseh and Brock walked together. Our Governor General Mary Simon brings the long history of her Inuit peoples to her capacity as the King's representative in Canada and she does it so very well. With three grandparents born and raised in England and a father born there I am likely going to be a royalist supporter for sure! Will we always have a King? I think having a Head of State that isn't political is better myself. Politics can be such a downer sometimes. Although Conservative most of my life; I have voted Liberal the last ten years. But frugality in government is needed; better management of money but that is also on the companies that do work for the government. Do not cheat; do the job or resign from it if you cannot do it - let someone else do it. COVID was a difficult time; decisions had to be made quickly. Things had to be cobbled together to get efficiency but cleaning it up should be a process begun in the past. Part of the problem is the negativity in Parliament. Get the job done; work together instead of trying to score points. I am not impressed by point scoring. I am impressed by good government; good management of money. And I continue to blame all of the parties for celebrating a Nazi  in Parliament. You do so much mud slinging surely you could have caught that before it happened. Stop concentrating on belittling Justin Trudeau; he has done the job for ten years and quite well actually. He was absolutely perfect during COVID. He brought his citizens home from around the world without really any problems. He organized that very well in terms of filing income tax for instance. I have to be honest it surprised me; Liberals can not generally be counted on to be efficient. That is the Conservative strength generally but Social Conservatism is dead in the water for me. I will not support it. Jesus said to love your neighbour as yourself and those words come from God. The prefatory of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms begins with "We believe in the supremacy of God and the rule of law." God has many terms including The Great Spirit, Creator. Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms represents the best wishes of a people for a government that supports all the people. 

Must get to work; the day moves onwards.