Roots

This old house was built by my great-grandfather Thomas Johnston himself not too long after the American Civil War.

Which, I imagine, he didn't give a lick about, since it stands about four kilometers down a dirt road off the main road in North Ogden, Nova Scotia, population nearly nobody these days. Not that he cared all that much for Victoria, his queen, either, I suspect, even though she intimidated the hell out of me hanging on the bedroom wall of the room I slept in in his daughter Carrie's house, a good many years later.

The gravesite of my grandmother and grandfather
on a hillside in Guysborough

My great-grandfather Thomas, and his wife, Mary, raised nine kids in this house, if memory serves. Clarence was the oldest.  Then came Cliff. Mabel, my grandmother, was the third child and first girl.  Carrie, her sister, followed after her.  Then Lola, who died at age two. Then Austin, then Harold, neither of whom had any children of their own. Then came Rowlings (Rollie), the second to the last, just before Everett Earle, the last child and last boy, who died at age four.  

Mabel went off to Boston where she met and married Thomas McCornick, of Kirkconnel, Scotland, and had three sons, including my father. Her sister Carrie, came to Boston four years later with her husband, Charlie Simpson, a farmer from the other side of Guysborough, the county seat, from North Ogden. Charlie joined the U.S. Army in World War I while Carrie underwent nurse's training until Charlie's father took ill and they returned - "for a while" - but stayed forever.  Carrie and Charlie had only one child, Kenneth, who died at the age of three.

Aunt Carrie and Uncle Charlie's house, where
Betty grew up and I visited every summer from
the age of 7 on.

All this birthing and dying took place back in a day when the average person lived to the age of thirty-five, so I enjoy being able to declare that now, in the year 2021, not only am I - and my sister, the great-grandmother - still alive, but there are people of my father's generation still going. Don't know how strong, but they are still there.

Clarence, the oldest kid, had five kids of his own, including Nellie and Vera, my great-aunt who is still alive at 95. Nellie had a daughter, Brenda, my second cousin, who is two years younger than me. Brenda and I are still in touch.

With all these kids, there were people around to pick up the pieces when things went awry. Brenda was taken in by Uncle Austin and his wife Lillian when her mother ran on hard times. Betty was taken in by Aunt Carrie when her mother died and her father couldn't manage three little girls on his own. Carrie also took in her mother, my great-grandmother Mary, whom I knew as a child as a wonderful old lady sitting in a rocking chair by the kitchen stove and lighting matches. Only in my advanced years am I aware of what injustice I have inflicted on her by remembering her as the lady who everybody was afraid was going to burn the house down rather than a lady who lost two of her babies under the age of five.

The highlight of my childhood was the two weeks we made our way up the Maine coastline (before the age of freeways) into New Brunswick and to Nova Scotia, where we spent every summer with Aunt Carrie and Uncle Charlie and "Cousin Betty."  Betty, my father's cousin and my first cousin once removed, is familiar to people who know me well as the childhood hero who taught me to milk a cow when I was only seven. 

Piper wearing what I think is
the Johnston tartan
 The photo is used without
permission, so if you don't see it,
I've probably been sued.

When I was sixteen I had an accident and sliced my right hand open on a Maxwell House coffee can. Carrie had nurses training and poured Lysol in the wound until I could get to the hospital in Antigonish, 45 minutes away by car, which we had to drive to when the local doctor said he wasn't up to the job. I owe him and the doctors at St. Martha's the fact that my hand healed and I have had full use of it all my life since. I spent a month in the hospital being entertained by the priests at St. Francis Xavier University who came every day to visit the "boy from Conneck-ticut who had no family to visit him. I had come that year with an aunt and uncle who had to get home, and since Carrie and Charlie had cows to milk and only a horse and wagon to make the long journey on the highway, that was out of the question. The good fathers kept me great company, taught me a little Gaelic, the language they used with each other, and shared my love of bagpipe music (What can I say - I was only 16!) which was broadcast every day at noon. 

Then some additional time alone with Aunt Carrie, picking beans with my arm in a cast and eating them with bacon for dinner, realizing for the first time how she and Uncle Charlie actually lived when the American offspring were not there to provide more exotic variety in their diet. I'm thinking of salmon - lots of fresh salmon.

Betty just sent me a notice from Cousin Brenda that (Great) Aunt Vera has been hospitalized and will go into a nursing home, at 95, when she recovers. The reason I, at age 81, can have a great-aunt alive at 95, if I have my facts right, is that Great Uncle Clarence fathered her when he was 60 years old. Going to have to double-check that information!

My husband and I have two little canine daughters, Miki and Bounce, but no human children. But if you go through my sister's line from Grandma Mary Johnston, it goes like this:

Mary and Thomas begat Mabel who begat John who begat (me and) my sister Karen who begat Joseph, Jr. who begat Joseph III who begat Ella. Six generations of direct personal contact.

Can't say I don't have roots!

Ella Rose, six generations removed from
North Ogden, Nova Scotia. She's much
older than this picture now, but it
remains my favorite, so I'm
including it here.