The Secret Marriage

“How was your visit with Claire?”

“Fine, Mother. We had a good time.”

“Paignton’s a long way from Penzance, just to go for a few days. Is she married yet? Where did you stay?”

“No, she’s not, and I stayed with her at her boarding house.”

“What did you do? I hope you didn’t get into any trouble.”

“No, Mother, we didn’t. We did the usual, walked on the beach, shopped at Rossiters, had tea, talked, went to the Paignton Picture House.”

My sister smiled. She knew whom I had met in Paignton and why. And she wasn’t telling.

#CarrotRanchChallenge #99WordStories #Secrets #HighamFamilyHistory #AppletonFamilyHistory #Marriage #GeneologicalResearch #MargaretGHanna

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The backstory:

Geneological research can yield surprises.

Whenever I searched for information about my maternal Great Aunt Dorothy Appleton, Ancestry insisted on finding two marriages between the same two people, slightly more than a year apart. Finally, curiosity overcame parsimony, and I sent off for copies of the marriage certificates.

Here’s what they revealed:

20 October, 1917: Dorothy Appleton (spinster) married Alfred Harold Kerswell (farrier) at the Wesleyan Church, Paignton, Devon. Dorothy’s residence: 18 Regent Square, Penzance; Harold’s residence: Smith Street, Dartmouth. Witnesses: A.F. Holford, F. Richards.

26 December, 1918: Dorothy Appleton (spinster) married Alfred Harold Kerswell (mechanic) at St. Mary’s Church, Penzance, Cornwall. Dorothy’s residence: 18 Regent Square, Penzance; Harold’s residence: Church Street, Dartmouth. Witnesses: Amelia Appleton (mother), Clive Wright (sister).

WHAT?????

Here’s what I think happened:

The Appletons were Church of England; the Kerswells (or at least Harold) were Wesleyans. Adherents to the Church of England thought Wesleyans were apostates; heaven forbid one of their daughters should marry a Wesleyan!

Perhaps Dorothy’s mother, Amelia, was appalled that her daughter was “walking out” with such a man. Perhaps she forbade the marriage for that very reason.

Love found a way.

I think Dorothy secretly married Harold against her mother’s wishes in 1917, then continued to pass herself off as a “spinster” living at her mother’s residence in Penzance. Harold continued living in Dartmouth, supposedly a bachelor.

Did Harold “convert” to Church of England? I don’t know. But 14 months later, Dorothy and Harold were (re)married in St. Mary’s (Church of England) with Dorothy’s mother as one of the witnesses. Something happened in those 14 months that prompted Amelia to give her blessing. Dorothy and Harold now could live together openly as husband and wife.

Fairy Lights

Grandmother Ferris told us stories of fairies, sacred hills and wells, and giants roaming the Cornish moors.

“The lights that flicker at night, they be wanderin’ spirits searchin’ for rest ‘cause o’ some ‘arm they did, and like as not to take tha’ with ‘em in their wanderin’.”

We sat wide-eyed, open-mouthed, not daring to breathe lest one of those spirits snatch us away.

 “I see ‘em many a time. Oft times, a blue light, most unworldly. Tha’ take good care around St. Feock’s church, the saint guards it close.”

Thereafter, we took great care going through the graveyard.

#99WordStories #CarrotRanchChallenge #Prompt_ImpossiblyBlue #HighamFamilyHistory #Cornwall #Fairies #StFeock #MargaretGHanna

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The back story

All I know of Mary Ferris (neé Smith), my maternal grandmother’s maternal grandmother, is derived from Ancestry documents. She was born about 1828, was illiterate (she signed her marriage certificate with an X), was married to William Ferris, a ship’s carpenter, and lived in Feock, Cornwall. Whether or not she believed in fairies or any of the giants, mermaids or other beings that supposedly once roamed Cornwall, is pure supposition on my part. But why let a few facts (or no facts, in this case) get in the way of a story?

This little snippet of imagined family history is told from the perspective of my maternal grandmother, Mary Louisa Higham (neé Appleton). Her family (father George Appleton; mother Amelia Ferris Appleton, and siblings, Amelia, George, and Clive) lived in Feock from 1891 to 1897. This would have given them ample time to hear stories not only from their grandmother but also from their grandfather. His would have been tales of the sea and the monsters that dwell in the deeps.

From time immemorial, people have told stories that explain everything from the creation of the universe to the appearance of warts. Those stories explained our relationship to Earth and to all other creatures. They set out moral standards, often as cautionary tales to show what would happen if one didn’t follow those standards. Think of all the Trickster stories told around the world.

Some stories were simply meant to keep children safe from “things that go bump in the night.” Grandma Higham certainly told such tales – the story of the Bologna Man is a legend in our own family.

“The Bologna Man?” you ask.

You’ll read about him in my grandmother’s story, Searching for Home, which will be published this summer.

Love in a Jar

First breakfast on my own. First breakfast without her.

Tea kettle’s boiled so I pour the water into the old brown betty pot. How many cups of tea has it steeped over forty years? How many cups of tea has she steeped?

Eggs and bacon for breakfast. That was her job, gathering the eggs, packing them to send to the creamery. I’ll have to do that now.

I sit at the table and reach for the jam. Strawberry jam. Jam that she put up this summer even though she was dying. I spread it across my toast.

Tears fall.

#99WordStories #CarrotRanchFlashFictionChallenge #Prompt_SmearOfJam #HighamFamilyHistory #Sorrow #Bereavement #FirstDayAlone #StrawberryJam #Love #MargaretGHanna

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The backstory

When I read this week’s 99-word-story prompt, my first thought was of my maternal grandfather, Caleb Higham, facing his first breakfast the morning after his wife of 40 years had died.

Mary Higham died September, 1955, of cancer. Rather than feel sorry for herself, she worried about Caleb and how he would feed himself once she was gone. That summer, she canned everything the garden produced, including strawberries. In her letter dated July 6 to my Aunt Betty, she writes “I stayed home and canned strawberries, 71 pints so far, going to pick and put in the locker today. . . It’s all right to grow strawberries but canning them isn’t any fun.” She also found the energy to clean the house, wash the kitchen curtains, feed her turkeys and pigs, go to the Golden Jubilee celebrations at Meyronne, Limerick and Assiniboia (1955 was the 50^th anniversary of Saskatchewan’s becoming a province), and entertain me (I was seven) for a few days. She was that kind of person.

And then she was gone. She was no longer physically around, but her love was still there, radiating from those 71 pints of strawberries. I hope Caleb took comfort in them even as he cried.

Ever the Optimist

Canada, here I come.

No bending the knee to some high and mighty landowner, like Dad. No working someone else’s farmland, like Dad. Nope, I’m going to have my own farm.

To do that, I’m leaving not-so-merry old England. Leaving my friends, too, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay.

I don’t quite believe the picture the agent painted of Canadian farms. I’ve worked with Dad long enough to know farming is hard work. You don’t just throw the seed in the ground and watch it harvest itself.

Tomorrow, I leave on Mr. Cunard’s Ultonia. My farm awaits.

#99WordStories #CarrotRanchFlashFictionChallenge #HighamFamilyHistory #ImmigrantFarmers  #WordPrompt_Optimism #Hope #SaskatchewanHistory #MargaretGHanna

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The Backstory

Caleb Higham, my maternal grandfather, emigrated to Canada in April, 1913, in search of his own farm. He did not want to be a tenant farmer like his father, and he knew that owning a farm in England was impossible.

Caleb landed in Montreal, bound for Regina, Saskatchewan. The Ultonia’s passenger manifest indicates he emigrated under the “British Bonus Allowed” program of the Canadian government. This program paid a bonus both to the agents who recruited farmers and to steamship agents. It also paid the immigrant farmer $10.00 if the immigrant purchased his farm land within six months of arriving in Canada.

Getting his farm wasn’t as easy as Caleb had imagined. By 1913, all the homestead land in southern Saskatchewan was taken up, and buying an existing farm was out of the question for someone who had arrived in Canada with only $25.00 in his pocket. He worked as a brakeman for the Canadian Pacific Railway for a time, then began work as a farm labourer for Will Grigg just north of Moose Jaw. There, he met Mary Appleton and, in 1915, they married .

He had to wait another nine years before buying his farm. First, he delivered milk for a Moose Jaw Dairy, then he rented a series of farms. In 1924, Caleb finally achieved his dream – he purchased a half-section (320 acres) of land north of the town of Assiniboia in southwestern Saskatchewan.

Caleb never did collect his $10.00.

Shadow Child

I wonder what she would have been like, my little girl that never was.

A mother’s worst fear, a miscarriage, a child born too soon.

People said, “But you already have three children,” or “You can always have another.” How could people be so cruel? No one can be the same as this child.

I sometimes dream of her, what she might have been. Sometimes when I’m in my garden, or sitting quietly embroidering a pillowcase, I hear her voice, her laughter, and I look up, but no one is there. Only a ghost of what might have been.

#99WordStory #HighamFamilyHistory #Miscarriage #InfantMortality #NonFiction #Tragedy #MargaretGHanna

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The back story:
Losing a child under any circumstance is a heart-rending event. My maternal grandmother, Mary Higham, had two miscarriages sometime in the 1920s, long before the advent of medical interventions that now allow premature babies to survive. Even though infant mortality, both premature and full-term, was more common then, it was still a devastatingly tragic event.

My mother and aunts didn’t say much about the miscarriages, just that they had happened, but their few words conveyed profound sorrow. They must have thrown a long-lasting shadow in the Higham home for my mother and aunts to remember them after all those years.

Sabbatical

John leaves tomorrow.

He’s been here a month. A month of spending time with his friends, smoking, drinking telling tall tales. A month of being swooned over by all the girls who think he is “so handsome!!!” in his RCAF uniform. A month of helping Cale with harvest. A month of teasing his sisters and kid brother.

But throughout the whole month, all I could see is Damocles’ sword hanging over his head. I wonder if he sees it, too. If that’s why he spends so much time “living it up.”

Tomorrow he leaves. For Europe. For the war.

#99WordStory #WorldWarII #HighamFamilyHistory #RCAF #MothersWorries #BomberCommand #MooseSquadron #NonFiction #MargaretGHanna

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The back story:

My uncle, John Brock Higham, “signed up” for the Royal Canadian Air Force in the spring of 1940, and was called up for training in September of that year. One year later, September of 1941, he came back to the farm at Assiniboia for a month’s leave before being posted overseas as a pilot in Bomber Command.

As happy as his mother might have been to have him home, Grandma Higham probably carried a heavy stone in her heart that entire month. It wasn’t her sabbatical, it was John’s, but she experienced it, too, just from a different perspective. The news from overseas during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz was nothing but doom and gloom, destruction and death. And her son was heading straight into it as a pilot in Bomber Command. How could she not worry?

Old World Charm?

“Bodicote is a dump!”

Mary’s letter from Oxfordshire shocked me. She didn’t like the village where I grew up? How could she not? The cobblestone streets. The village pub (I got drunk there many nights as a lad). The Green where everyone caroused on Fair night.

I read further. And sighed. The pub was gone. The Green was Brown. Banbury was encroaching, razing everything in its path. Dad’s farm, the one he rented from Mrs. Wyatt, was in shambles, about to be bulldozed for houses.

I had never wanted to return to England. Now there was even less reason.

#99WordStories #CarrotRanchChallenge #HighamFamilyHistory #BodicoteOxfordshire #QuaintEnglishVillage #MargaretGHanna

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My maternal grandfather, Caleb Higham (b. 1889), grew up on a farm — The Grange — just northwest of Bodicote which, in turn, is just south of Banbury. A hundred years ago, Bodicote was one of those reputedly “quaint” English villages: three streets lined with brick row houses, a pub or two, a school, the village green, and St. John the Baptist Anglican Church surrounded by the graveyard. No longer; it is now overrun by housing development and is merely a suburb of Banbury.

No one knows why Caleb decided to emigrate to Canada in 1913. He never talked about it, in spite of the many times my mother and aunts and uncles asked. He refused to return to England, leaving everyone to suspect he left England under a cloud of some sort.

Grandma Higham did return, in 1952, to visit her sisters in Cornwall and then to visit Caleb’s family in Oxfordshire. By some stroke of good fortune, her letters to Caleb were saved, and the opening line in my little story above is taken directly from one of her letters. She was not amused, and my grandmother, never one to mince her words, spoke it like she saw it.

Fire in the Sky

“Mommy, mommy, come quick. The sky’s on fire!”

No! Cale said he would burn the stubble tonight. Had the fire got away on him? I dropped my knitting and ran outside.

“Oh, my!”

Marjorie was right. The sky was on fire. The setting sun was painting the clouds red, yellow and orange, all edged with gold.

I remembered my first prairie sunset, 10 years previous. I had never seen the like in England. A chinook arch, a continually roiling mass of reds and yellows, golds and purples. It left me breathless.

“Oh, my!” We stood still, hand in hand, awestruck.

#99WordStories #CarrotRanchFlashFictionChallenge #FlashFiction #CreativeNonFiction #HighamFamilyHistory #PrairieSunset #MargaretGHanna

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The back story:

We prairie people say there is nothing to match a prairie sunset. The setting sun ushers out the day in a blaze of glory, a spectacle of yellows, oranges, reds and golds, an ever-changing palette that slowly fades into blues and purples and indigos before winking out.

It is never twice the same. It inevitably brings gasps of “Wow!” and “Look at that!” and “Isn’t that amazing!”

It’s guaranteed to cause us adults to drop our adulthood and regain that child-like wonder at the mystery and majesty of the world around us.

What did my maternal grandmother think the first time she saw a prairie sunset? I like to think she did as we all do, that she stood in awe of the spectacle unfolding before her. A glorious welcome to Canada.

The Letter

“Dear Father,”

The start of the lie. Part of the conspiracy. Would he fall for it?

“Emigrating to Canada was a grievous error.”

It was not. Another part of the lie.

“I want to return home, to England.”

No! Her sister Bessie wanted to come to Canada.

“Alas, I can not afford the fare.”

Father could. He had promised to send it. If he did, she’d send it back to Bessie.

“Please send the money. I will be forever in your debt. Your loving daughter, Mary.”

He bought the lie. He sent the money.

Bessie arrived four months later.

#99WordStories #CarrotRanchFlashFictionChallenge #FlashFiction #HighamFamilyHistory #FamilyHistory #LiesAndDeceit #ImmigrantStory #NonFiction #MargaretGHanna

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The back story

This is the true story of how my maternal grandmother, Mary, and her sister Bessie conspired to get Bessie to Canada. I heard it 30 years ago from Aunt Marjorie, the oldest of my mother’s siblings. I’ve heard the same story from my second cousins, the grandchildren of Great-Aunt Bessie, so it must be true.

When my maternal grandmother, Mary Appleton, told her parents she was emigrating to Canada, they all but disowned her. However, her father made the (in retrospect, foolish) promise that if she ever came to her senses, realized what a terrible error she had made, and wanted to return to England, he would send her the fare. That was in June, 1912.

No one knows what prompted Mary to leave England or if what she found here is what she expected. Nor does anyone know why Bessie, one of her younger sisters, also decided to emigrate to Canada. Perhaps the “colonies” held more promise and potential than Mother England.

As the family account goes, Bessie wanted to emigrate but had no money. However, Mary remembered her father’s promise. She wrote him what I assume was a letter of regret and remorse for having left England’s fair shores, and asked him to send her the fare so she could return. When she received the money, she sent it back to Bessie who arrived in June, 1914.

One can only imagine her father’s reaction when he learned the truth. I doubt that neither Mary nor Bessie cared. They were together and in Canada, and that was all that mattered.

My reaction when I heard this story was, “Now I understand why the women in my family are the way they are!” Strong, independent, stubborn, contrary and proud – those characteristics are firmly entrenched in all of us.

That is not quite the end of the conspiracy. On the passenger manifest of the Ascania that brought Bessie to Canada is the notation under “Destination” – “going to married sister.”

Except, Mary was not married! Why the deception?

I suspect it was because Bessie was only 19 and was traveling unaccompanied by either father, husband or older brother. There is some information suggesting it was frowned upon for young (i.e., younger than 21) unmarried women to emigrate on their own – they had to be accompanied by an older male family member. After all, what sort of young woman (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) would emigrate on her own in 1914? Bessie might have run into that roadblock when booking her passage and again upon arrival in Canada. Going to live with a married sister would legitimize her travel because there would be(supposedly) a brother-in-law, i.e., a man, to look after her.

Not that either Bessie or Mary needed looking-after!

In Remembrance

The bedsprings squeaked as John tossed and turned. Tomorrow he was flying his first sortie. Tomorrow he was flying into danger.

He had always wanted to fly, that was why he had chosen the Air Force rather than the Army like his brother. He had trained for this day, and now it was here. Was he ready for the responsibility? Of bringing his Wellington back? Of bringing his crew back? Of the carnage he would leave behind?

Other bedsprings squeaked. John wasn’t the only one fretting about tomorrow. But tonight . . .

He closed his eyes and dreamt of prairie skies.

#99WordStories #CarrotRanchFlashFictionChallenge #FlashFiction #HighamFamilyHistory #WorldWarII #MooseSquadron419 #NonFiction #RoyalCanadianAirForce #PTSD #MargaretGHanna

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The Back Story:

John Brock Higham, my maternal uncle, “signed up” for the war in the spring of 1940. He received his “call” in September, 1940, and began his training as a pilot in the Canadian Air Force. A year later, he received his wings – he was now Pilot Officer Higham. In September, 1941, he was posted to England, a member of “Moose” Squadron #419 of Bomber Command. On his first few missions, he flew as second officer. In May, 1942, he was assigned his own Wellington bomber and chose his own crew. He was not yet 22 years old.

They flew their remaining missions together and, miraculously, all survived. The Wellington was not so lucky. More than once, John brought his Wellington limping home on a wing and a prayer. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for once such event; King George VI and the Duke of Kent visited on separate occasions and congratulated the Squadron for their service.

In September, 1942, John and his crew were chosen, purely by chance, to go on a cross-Canada tour to raise money for the war effort and to raise the spirits of Canadians, especially those working in factories supplying the war effort. At the conclusion of the tour, he was posted to the west coast where he flew submarine-spotting missions – there were rumours of a Japanese invasion.

In 1944, Trans-Canada Airlines (now Air Canada) was recruiting pilots from the RCAF. John was not about to give up flying just because the war was ending. He joined TCA and trained to fly civilian airplanes. He flew for Air Canada for 41 years before retiring.

John privately published a book about his war-time experiences, a matter-of-fact description of how a prairie ploughboy came to fly over dangerous and deadly German skies. Only once did he describe the emotional toll of the war. One of his crew members had serious moral and religious problems with being the bomb-aimer. John knew if he reported this crew member, he would be court-martialed for “lack of moral fibre” as PTSD was then called. Instead, John reassigned duties among his crew.

Many years later, his younger brother George asked, “Do you ever dream about the war?” “All the time,” John replied.

Pilot Officer (Ret.) John Brock Higham, D.F.C., passed away June 18, 2020, 22 days before his 100th birthday. He now flies safer skies.