REUNION TOUR - Stage 6 - PETERBOROUGH AND THE BUNN HOSPITALITY

Monday was travel day again. We said goodbyes to Jeff and family as they prepared to drive directly back to St. Catharines where they stayed until their flight back to Vancouver on Wednesday morning. Wednesday is Gina’s and Jeff’s 13^th Wedding Anniversary.

Ferndale Bible Church

Christine and I instead took Hwy #7 to the city where I pastored Ferndale Bible Church from 1974-1981. Our children began their schooling here at Kawartha Heights Elementary School. We lived in a parsonage separated from the church by the church parking lot. The parsonage has now been sold and pastors are provided a stipend that enables them to purchase their own homes. The church appears much as it did when we were here but with some interior design changes. Christine and I had opportunity to speak with Pastor Peter Keniphaas and Pastor Jim Welch.  We knew Peter from his years serving a church on Vancouver Island. Jim was a small boy when I pastored the church. He grew up, married, has a family, became a realtor, and then as it turned out was invited to become an associate pastor here. There are so many friends in this city whom we wish we could have arranged to meet.

 

During these two days we have enjoyed the friendship of our dear friends Paul and Janice Bunn. Paul is employed as the long-time manager of Queen's Crown Antiques, a high end store of collectibles, furniture, porcelains, paintings, you name it from the UK. He is a gifted antique assessor, millinery practitioner, dress maker and through the years he has been very kind to us. Their lakeside home at Upper Chemong Lake provides a pristine view of the water in all seasons, and a respite from the city at any time. I have visited them here on numerous occasions through the years.

Queen's Crown Products

   

REUNION TOUR - STAGE 5 - SMITHS FALLS & A FLOOD OF MEMORIES

En route to a second family reunion, that of the “Langlois” clan, Christine’s family, we took time to stop in Smiths Falls. Our son Jeff was born in this town’s St. Joseph’s Hospital in 1970. 

Gina meeting Martin & Jennifer for the 1st time

Driving along Hwy #15 I was not prepared for my own emotional feelings in coming back into this area. The sunny skies enhanced the visual delight of travelling on old highway #15 to Smiths Falls. Christine and I lived in Smiths Falls from 1969 – 1974 when I pastored Calvary Bible Church. So many landmarks, names of towns and roads and so many buildings, houses and farms evoked the memories of our trips up and down this highway to go to and from Toronto or St. Catharines for business functions or family gatherings. 

Robert, Jeff and Cathy

Before arriving at Smiths Falls we took a chance that we might find the cottage where our dear friends, Ken and Frances Maley once lived. We and our children had spent many happy summers with them. They were known to our children and numerous others in town as Uncle Ken and Aunt Frances. We knew that Frances passed away a couple of years ago. Upon locating the cottage, a neighbour lady saw us and she had known the Maleys very well. Her mother was sitting on a dockside deck and she was happy to speak about the past, friends we had in common, and current news. It was a lovely serendipity.

Cathy, Richard & son Arthur & Patty 

We booked into our registered rooms at the Best Western and then drove to the church I once pastored. Cars outside indicated someone was inside even on a Saturday. We gained the attention of Georgina MacIntosh who remembered us from those distant years. She was in her late teens when we were working in that church 40 years ago. She spent time with us rehearsing names and histories of many people we had known. We toured the sanctuary and the rooms downstairs and made the acquaintance of a few people whom we met for the first time. We dropped by our old home at 46 Daniel, looking no better than it had four decades earlier. We popped into Lockwood Electronics looking for Dave Ryan, proprieter, son of Al Ryan the original owner Al Ryan but he was not in on Saturday. Al and Marg Ryan were good friends to us. Marge passed away a couple of years ago. We were told Al and his new bride were on an Alaskan cruise.

Cousins

The town of 9000 residents doesn’t have a particularly attractive main street and sections of the town look very poor and worn out, but the town still has a character due to some stately stone and brick buildings and largely due to the Rideau river and the Rideau canal that identify it with history and current convenience for pleasure craft that ply the waters between Ottawa and Kingston and other places along the way. They move leisurely through hand-cranked locks.  We noticed that many businesses and landmarks were gone and new businesses and housing had been constructed.

Christine with neices Jennifer and Tara

Jeff and Gina and their children Kale and Kadence arrived a few hours later, joined us for a swim and later for a dinner at Gerbos Greek Restaurant.

O Sunday we drove in tandem to the reunion of the Langlois Family, meeting Christine’s two brothers Robert and David and their wives Gloria and Patty and their children and grandchildren. This was a hot but pleasant time shaped by the discomfiture of updating personal news with people we have not see for 5, 10, 15, 20 years. It was nonetheless a worthwhile idea.

We all went our own ways at the supper hour, with us driving back to Smiths Falls and Jeff and Gina and the children visiting the Parliament buildings and then hurrying back to us for a late night swim on a very warm evening.

REUNION TOUR - STAGE 4 - UNRUH FAMILY REUNION DAY

Collage courtesy of Jeff Unruh

We have just had a most remarkable day. The Unruh family met each other for a grand time of happy hugging, laughter, story-telling, games, splashing in a pool, enjoying picnic foods, and realizing just how fortunate we all are to love each other.

Mom and Dad Unruh have been gone from us for four years. Their funerals were the occasions on which we were last all together. Geographical distance and the cost of covering it now impede our family gatherings. We believe that Mom and Dad went to be with the LORD. This confidence comes from a faith that has characterized the personal commitments of most members of this family for all of the generations that I have known.

The eldest of the family now are my parents' three sons of whom I am the eldest, turning 70 in September, then my brother Murray who will be 65 in September and our brother Neale who will be 59 in October. St. Catharines is the city in which we grew up. While I was born in Hepburn Saskatchewan, both my brothers were born in St. Catharines, the city to which my parents moved looking for opportunity following the end of the Second World War.

Diane and Murray

Murray and his wife Diane continue to live in St. Catharines and they will remain there after having spent their lives in serving churches in Burlington, London, Main Centre SK, Oshawa, Vineland and St. Catharines. Latterly Murray worked in a foundry and Diane has been employed at the hospital. Their daughter Beth, married Eric Woelk and they live with their two sweet young daughters, Selah and Klaris, just outside the same city among the orchards of the Niagara Peninsula. Beth is a speech pathologist and Eric is a school teacher. Murray's son Matt is married to Cristina and they enjoy three children, Aaralyn, Ellery and Silas and they live in Virgil. After serving as a worship pastor in White Rock BC for several years, Matt is now an associate pastor in a Niagara Falls church. Drew, Murray's second son also resides in St. Catharines and is presently on staff with a visionary church with four campuses providing him with opportunity to use his musical, technological and people skills.

Kathy and Neale

Neale and Kathy live in Dorchester, a bedroom community for London, and they too worked in church related missions ministry for many years before beginning a cross stitch supply store twelve years ago in London. Their daughter Amy is married to Chris Hollywood, and they live in London. Amy is a hospital lab technician and Chris works in a furniture retail outlet. Both of them are keenly involved in their church life and work as volunteers.

Christine and I have lived in British Columbia for 22 years after 21 years of church related work in Ontario. Our two children reside minutes away from our home in BC. Our daughter Cari is married to Tim Locken and they have three children, Kailyn, Ryan and Jayden. They were the only ones unable to attend this function. We took the edge off of our mutual disappointment by skyping so that we all could see and speak with them. Cari and Tim have been active in church work in previous years and are attending the same church where Christine and I are worshipping. Cari is a homemaker, scrapbook and music instructor. Tim is self-employed as a painter/renovator.  Our son Jeff is an elementary school teacher married to another part-time teacher, Gina Mikkelson, and they have two children, Kale and Kadence. Jeff has numerous interests and pursuits and both he and Gina are enthusiastic about their involvement in a new church plant in Cloverdale BC where they volunteer.

Christine and Drew in conversation

REUNION TOUR - STAGE THREE - part three - DORCHESTER & LONDON

Breakfast on Monday with Neale and Kathy and Amy and Christopher was at Cora’s Restaurant in London. I have never seen a menu with as many selections of fruit filled dishes together with crepes and meats. Delicious and enjoyable.  From there we toured Neale’s and Kathy’s Cross Stitch store called Thread & Eye which they have operated for twelve years.  As we proceeded to Amy & Chris’ home we noticed I had a front passenger side tire issue in the rental vehicle – a nail causing a slow air leak.  Finding an Avis outlet we learned that the company would give us a car exchange and we would be charged for the tire repair or even a new tire which might range from $45-$250 depending on how it was reported. We decided instead to take it to a local repair shop and they did the fix in 5 minutes for $15.

Christine and I were pleased to drive along Queens Ave to see the building that once was the main facility of the Bible College in which we were enrolled in undergraduate years.  The Ladies dorm and the Men’s’ dorm were on adjacent corners. It was quite nostalgic. This was where I met Christine when we were in our early twenties and I loved her almost from first sight. We would become engaged and married before she graduated and I graduated.  

On Monday afternoon we drove to Kathy’s family farm, the Smale farm where her brother Bob works. There Christine and I were introduced to the values and potential of a plantation of a tree specie which could become a cash crop in a relatively short time. The tree is called Royal Empress.

LCBM now named Queen's Village is a Seniors Retirement home now

After another good night’s rest, on Tuesday morning we drove into London to visit with Dave and Sharon Gast, college students with us fifty years ago. Our school was known as London College of Bible and Missions. We cannot fathom the passage of time. Since this was a Bible College, singing was a significant ingredient of social and worship life. The four of us sang in a mixed quartet and did so long after graduation. When I was pastoring a church and Dave was directing music in another church we occasionally provided nightly music concert s at summer Conferences. After a lovely news catchup visit with them, they led us to a restaurant where several other good friends from college days were present. What a joyous and revelatory experience to meet people whose names have not changed but whose faces and stature have. Each time I experience a reunion of this nature, I am reminded that regardless of my youthful state of mind, my physical appearance to others is a bit of a shock, and that is life as it happens to us all.  On this occasion, Christine and I were thrilled to enjoy the company of Eleanor (Ellie) and George McCullough, Dave and Sharon Gast, Barry and Helen Buder, Tempe and Mary Jean Templehoff (visiting from South Africa), Ralph and Jan Thornton. 

REUNION TOUR - STAGE THREE – part 2 - DORCHESTER & EMPRESS TREE, Continued

Breakfast on Monday with Neale and Kathy and Amy and Christopher was at Cora’s Restaurant in London. I have never seen a menu with as many selections of fruit filled dishes together with crepes and meats. Delicious and enjoyable.  From there we toured Neale’s and Kathy’s Needlecraft store called Thread & Eye which they have operated for twelve years.  As we proceeded to Amy & Chris’ home we noticed I had a front passenger side tire issue in the rental vehicle – a nail causing a slow air leak.  Finding an Avis outlet we learned that the company would give us a car exchange and we would be charged for the tire repair or even a new tire which might range from $45-$250 depending on how it was reported. We decided instead to take it to a local repair shop and they did the fix in 5 minutes for $15.

Christine and I were pleased to drive along Queens Ave to see the facility that once was the main building of the Bible College in which we were enrolled in undergraduate years.  The Ladies dorm and the Men’s’ dorm were on adjacent corners. It was quite nostalgic. This was where I met Christine when we were in our early twenties and I loved her almost from first sight. We would become engaged and married before she and I graduated.

Mature Empress Tree

On Monday afternoon we drove to Kathy’s family farm, the Smale farm where her brother Bob works. There Christine and I were introduced to the values and potential of a plantation of a tree specie which could become a cash crop in a relatively short time. The tree is called THE EMPRESS TREE. Websites are easily found which speak about the Royal Empress or Royal Paulownia, otherwise Paulownia Tomentosa. The specimens we saw are distinguished from the Tomentosa as a safer, purer, non-invasive variety. This tree is a deciduous tree that can grow as much as ten feet per year, making it the world's fastest growing hardwood tree. It can be two feet in diameter. It can be full grown in seven years, logged and from the same root will grow another tree, and it can continue to reproduce like this several times.

Paulownia tomentosa is a showy, Chinese ornamental that has been naturalized throughout much of the Eastern U.S. and is grown as far north as Montreal. With its enormous heart-shapped leaves it produces dense shade and will tolerate almost any soil. It's height is usually about 40' at maturity. It was introduced from East Asia in the early 1800s and planted widely as an ornamental specimen tree and has been grown in scattered plantations for speculative big-value wood exports to Japan. That is what the Smales are believing as they plant hundreds of these trees in this year and perhaps thousands over the next few years. The Smales' website is known as Empress Trees for Canada. The wood is very light, yet hard, and nicely grained and without knots, and features so many other qualities that provide an optimistic possibility it can be harvested commercially and effectively is a short period of time. It will be interesting to watch this development.

- REUNION TOUR - STAGE THREE - part 1 - DORCHESTER ONTARIO & VISITING NEALE

Dorchester Mill Pond, watercolour by Hilda Markson
Gray

My youngest brother is Neale, eleven years my junior. What were my parents doing spacing their children apart so far, five years between my brother Murray and I and then this substantial gap to the youngest? Neale was twelve years of age when Christine and I were married in 1967 – Canada’s Centennial Year. On Sunday afternoon I drove from Port Stanley to Dorchester where Neale and Kathy have lived for over thirty years. They live in a home located nod a across from farm fields which after all these years now contain a Shoppers Drug store on a far corner and will soon have a senior’s assisted care facility directly in front of them. The immediate country view will be gone but the drive to and from work will still wind through fields of corn and other grains.

Dorchester is rural and agricultural yet it serves London as a bedroom community for people who prefer to live away from the urban urgency and willing to make the 20 minute commute. Nonetheless, Dorchester has its own distinctive identity. I walked many of its streets this morning in the warm Ontario AM sunshine at 6:45 and I loved it. Brick is the exterior building material for most homes and I love the look and the durability as compared to the wooden exteriors of most of the BC homes with which I am now most familiar. Husky’s gas station sold me a Globe and Mail as I walked and Tim Horton’s sold me a coffee and a sausage and biscuit which I did not share or reveal to Christine or Neale and Kathy when I returned to their home. But they got me again with prying questions I could not deny. The three slept in until 8:30 AM and we are about to go out for breakfast. Neale’s and Kathy’s daughter Amy and husband Chris Hollywood will join us.

Last night at Neale’s we hung out for a while, enjoyed a great dinner of ribs and potatoes a la crock pot and then went for a walk to the Mill Pond to look for turtles and frogs. How invigorating to walk past bulrushes, to see families of wood ducks, a soaring crane coming in for a fluid splashdown. And then sleep in the darkest of nights, without city lights.

REUNION TOUR - PORT STANLEY - Stage Two

Port Stanley is a wonderful port town on Lake Erie and is in fact the largest north shore inland federal harbor.

It has an historic King George VI lift bridge which opens to allow leisure craft to come into Kettle Creek.

King George VI Lift Bridge

Christine’s brother Rob and our sister in law Glo are hosting us in their cottage, a quaint home on Hetty St.

We arrived yesterday and promptly walked the town, went to the beaches, looked into stores, and at ice cream at Brodericks, one of those best ever ice cream parlours.

Brodericks Ice Cream Parlour

We enjoyed a supper of blue cheese layer lamb chops prepared by Glo, which was an astounding flavour savoured outside in the garden.

We ate ice cream at Brodericks, one of those best ever ice cream parlours.

A fishing industry operates from here and today after swimming, we stopped at the Fishery to purchase some Perch for a meal of butter fried perch and home made fries.

Port Stanley Harbour with fishing boats

We walked for breakfast at the Buccaneer down at the beach this morning. Everything is in walking distance. Glo finished a career as a Presbyterian pastor and Rob is a professor of Manufacturing Sciences at Fanshaw College.

Port Stanley was occupied by the Neutral Indians until 1653, when they were expelled by the Iroquois. In the 1700s many explorers and travelers would portage across Long Point and voyage along the shore of Lake Erie to the Kettle Creek. This route gave access to a short portage to the Thames River and further inland exploring. A ferry service between Port Stanley and Buffalo was established in 1832, and by 1833 Port Stanley had become well known as one of the finest harbours on Lake Erie. In the early 1900s, Port Stanley was the main tourist attraction on the lake.

The cottage in which we stay is Rob's and Glo's home now, the one in which they intend to remain. And why not, since during the years that they have owned the place, Rob has come to know by name just about everyone in town and they return an hello using his name. The cottage sits on a small sliver of land fashioned after a old English garden with an eclectic assortment of plants that create solitude and privacy. Birds and butterflies frequent the foliage and colours. It's only a few hundred yards to the water of Kettle Creek where yachts are moored. Christine's mom and dad lived in Rob's and Glo's cottage during the closing years of their lives and enjoyed the amenities and friendships of this town. So we have visited here many times throughout the years and it is good for us to have come back again.

REUNION TOUR - Stage One - part 2 continued

We went to Montebello Park in St. Catharines. There, almost 45 years ago Christine and I posed for wedding photos, and today we posed again, happy, heavier, humid. The temperature today is close to 30 C. as it was on our wedding day.  The large pavilion evoked memories for me. It has a large area of hardwood flooring that has sometimes been used for concerts, dances and roller skating. On 

September 7^th my brother Murray will celebrate his 65^th birthday. When he was born in the General Hospital I was five years of age and with my mom and Murray in hospital, my father did a thoughtful thing. He purchased me a pair of roller skates, the kind that are strapped to shoes. He took me to Montebello Park ‘s pavilion and there almost alone, I learned to skate. It was a special treat by a proud father for his little boy who might have found that attention rather flattering when so much joy was being expressed for the arrival of this new brother.

Then following our walk through the park we went to Niagara on the Lake where at the famed, oldest golf course in Canada, we enjoyed a lunch. I had a massive corned beef on rye sandwich and a Kunzleman brew. The town is one the favourite places in all the world to Christine and me. The golf course and the restaurant sit on Canadian soil directly across the channel from Fort Niagara where in 1812, 100 years ago this year, Americans and British soldiers blasted away at each other.  

REUNION TOUR - Stage One

The Reunion Tour has begun.
So many key life markers to celebrate this year: My 70th in September, my brother Murray's 65th, Christine's brother Robert's 65th, and numerous other birthdays and anniversaries within our family. Not least among the dates to be honoured will be Christine's and my wedding day which happened on August 12th, 1967, making 45 years ago. We were married in St. Catharines Ontario and it is here to which we came yesterday. We flew on a perfect sunny day.

From Pearson International airport in a rental vehicle, a VW Jetta, we approached St. Catharines, the fruit belt district with which my childhood and youth is connected. In this city almost 45 years ago, Christine and I were married by Pastor James Vold, in Calvary Church. Our photographs were taken in the rose garden of Montebello Park. Today, Murray and Diane and Christine and I will walk through the restored rose garden before heading to Niagara on the Lake for a fine dinner.

Nostalgia oozes from the memories and the sites. We are already loving it and will have a wonderful trip around the province as we visit family and friends and the locations where we served in churches through the years.