Tribute to a father; by his daughter
My father was a gentleman and a gentle man. These two characteristics served him well during his long life, both personally and professionally.
Memories are bubbling up:
Mom told me that when they first brought me home from hospital and she was in the kitchen, she could hear Dad in the living room walking around with his crying daughter. “Look at the pretty pictures,” he was saying. “See all the pretty pictures on the wall.” The crying continued. Then Dad said, “Look, I can make the pictures move for you if you like.”
He had gardens in all the houses where they lived. Once he grew peanuts in St. Thomas, on Rosebery Place, that lovely property overlooking the ravine.
That same location was where family gathered for fire works on May 24 and Dad had as much fun as the kids.
In the summer, at Port Stanley, he would carry me from the beach blanket, weaving way around many other blankets, across the hot sand to the cool Lake Erie and then swish the seaweed away as we waded into the water.
On the way home we would stop at Shaw’s for ice cream and he always got maple walnut.
He loved to dance and he and Mom would sometimes give us a demonstration of their jitterbugging expertise in the living room on Scott Street.
On summer evenings Mom and I would walk with Marty in the stroller to a park near Baba’s house and watch Dad play baseball on a team with real uniforms.
He made backyard ice rinks in North Bay and Gravenhurst. St. Thomas never had winter when I was growing up.
Once I filled out a form in a magazine and signed up for correspondence art lessons. When the company sent the first lesson and a ‘gift’ of a Rembrandt art book - and a bill! – Dad calmly wrote back explaining that I was eight years old. I got to keep the book.
A year of so later he found out (the store clerk phoned him!) that I had put one dollar down on a three dollar slip for Mom for Mother’s Day and had agreed on a “lay-away plan” to pay 25 cents per week from my allowance until it was paid off. Dad paid it off immediately. It wasn’t so much that he doubted I would pay; he simply disliked unnecessary debt.
Dad and Marty and I would wrestle together and if Dad won (unlikely as it seems against the two-against-one odds) he would shout, “The winner and new champeen of the world, Ray Sonoski Block!” It was years before I realized “champeen” and “champion” were the same word. I never did find out who “Ray Sonoski Block” was.
Once we were wrestling in the living room and, just as Mom yelled “Careful, you’re going to break something!”, we knocked over the tri-light lamp. And it did break. No “champeen” that night.
When Dad sneezed Marty and I decided he said “Juanita!” and we thought this was hilarious.
He kept his handkerchiefs in a wooden box on his dresser and another box held his medals from “Overseas” which was “behind the Iron Curtain.”
He never spoke about the War but many years later he did let some school kids on a field trip who experienced an interest see the medals. I think he was proud of having served his country.
For my twelfth birthday he bought me a brand new, portable, light-touch Underwood typewriter to replace the big, old, heavy-touch Remington which a neighbour had had in her basement and on which I was pounding out my first mystery novel. Dad’s acknowledgement of my ‘writing habit’ touched me greatly then and touches me still.
I realize now how he could well relate to being able to express better in writing than in speech as I begin to go through the letters he sent me across the years. What treasures they are. And his penmanship is exquisite!
He made potato champagne and a bottle exploded in the closet where it was aging. Mom said her fur coat never smelled the same again.
He began working for the Ontario Hospital system in Woodstock where he and Mom met. Starting up the corporate ladder he transferred to St. Thomas, then North Bay and then became administrator at Gravenhurst where he worked until he retired at 63.
We lived on the grounds on Lake Muskoka.
I remember watching Dad go out the door for business meetings at the Orillia hospital, be ushered into the back seat of the hospital vehicle by a liveried chauffeur.
Later I would learn that, once outside the hospital gates, the car would stop, Dad would get into the front seat, Bert would take off his official cap and they would enjoy a companionable drive the half hour or so to Orillia, where, outside the hospital gates there, Dad would return to the back seat, Bert would replace his cap: government protocol satisfied.
The memories continue to bubble out, colourful bursts of the past enriching the present:
Dad and Eric tearing out the kitchen ceiling at the 1867 house in Georgetown and creating a cathedral ceiling lined with cedar.
Sitting and reminiscing in the MacDonald’s on Talbot Street with Dad and Marty where Baba’s house had stood.
Visiting him at the old Schoolhouse, a senior’s residence, and seeing how he continued to make such a cozy home.
In recent years, when I would call each day and say, “Hi Dad, just calling to see how you are,” he would answer, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
And I realized I had heard him say this many times over the years for various reasons to different people.
Dad appreciated simple things in life and expressed his gratitude. It touched a chord in others and he was – is! – much loved.
So, thank you, Dad. Thank you so much.
Karen