We all had friends come over this weekend, which is always a big help in making a place feel like more of a home. Thanks, friends! Let’s do it again sometime soon.
On Saturday, I had a small victory: I managed to sort through and empty two small containers full of randomness that had begun accumulating when we were staying with my in-laws: buttons, earrings, business cards, Sephora samples, receipts, hair elastics. To give you an indication of my pack-rat tendencies: when I was done sorting, I was left with a pile that can only be categorized as “interesting string.”
I was also pretty happy on Saturday afternoon when we were gathered around our new table eating a late, informal lunch. My husband was sitting at one end of the table, working on his lunch along with his poems, and my stepdaughter and I were cozied up on our new banquette (i.e. a loveseat, pushed up to the side of the table), reading novels and eating soup. Maybe it’s not a surprise that I had a moment of feeling truly grateful for my life when everyone was sitting around together quietly reading. (For the record, we also have meals where we sit at the table and talk to one another!)
It was nice to have that time to do lots of reading this weekend, and I did quite a bit of thinking about a new story and even wrote the first scene. There was also time for a nap on Saturday, in which I somehow continued planning the story and had what seemed like a great idea involving a Saint Bernard. I don’t think the dream idea makes any sense, but I’m tempted to put a dog in, anyway.
And on Sunday, I managed to purge five items in my closet: two skirts, a dress, and two tops. I’ve stashed them in the giveaway bag in my closet that I'm storing up for the next clothing swap.
I neglected my email and the internet in general, but that seems to be the weekend pattern these days and I’m okay with that.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
January 27, 2014
December 6, 2012
Miracle on Veith St.
Ninety-five years ago today, my grandmother Marguerite Ainsworth (née Dryden) survived the Halifax Explosion. Born in December 1916, she may be among the last living survivors. In our Catholic family, it’s considered a miracle.
Just a few days shy of her first birthday, she was pulled from the rubble of her Veith St. home after the disaster on December 6, 1917. Her father, William Dryden, had arrived home to find his wife Georgina, 34, and his son Percy, 6, and daughter Dorothy, 3, dead. According to the Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book, he identified their bodies.
It is one of the first stories I remember hearing about my family, and I vividly recall visiting the Maritime Museum for the first time and seeing the personal effects taken from the pockets of schoolchildren killed by the explosion...and feeling haunted by the homeliness of the objects, by my grandmother's narrow escape, by the horrible randomness of unpredictable tragedy.
The listings of the dead are available online, as linked above, through the Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book, thanks to Nova Scotia Archives. The book is an amazing document of tragedy that supplements the original handwritten ledger book that was started after the explosion to keep track of the dead.
At first I thought these listings for Andrew Dryden and Alice Dryden were misidentified as Georgina Dryden’s children since there was another family at 48 Veith Street, the Findleys, with a mother also named Georgina, and who also died along with a number of children. Then I found a birth record for Andrew Percy Ernest Dryden, the same age as Percy Dryden, born in 1911 to my great-grandparents William Andrew Dryden and Georgina (Cooke) Dryden There is no birth record available in the archives for either an Alice or a Dorothy Dryden, but my best guess now is that this is a similar double-listing for Dorothy, based on her full name. I’ll ask my grandmother.
What would have happened if my grandmother hadn’t survived? It's too hard for me to imagine. Among other things, I wouldn’t exist, or I wouldn’t be me.
I don’t know how my great-grandfather coped with the loss of wife and older children. He had already lost one son, his first-born and namesake, William, who had died in 1911 at age one from cholera. I believe he married again, quickly. My grandmother was soon joined by two half-sisters.
My grandmother is an amazing woman. Her husband (my grandfather), John Ainsworth, who died before I was born, was visually impaired, and after her marriage and even after his death, my grandmother has spent most of her adult life (well over 60 years) volunteering in organizations to assist the blind. She is kind, conscientious, and generous to a fault. Before her house in Halifax’s Hydrostone had to be sold this year, her wall was covered with recognition awards for her active volunteer work. There is a little write-up here about her (you have to scroll down) on the occasion of receiving an award for merit in 2008 from the Canadian Council for the Blind.
Just a few days shy of her first birthday, she was pulled from the rubble of her Veith St. home after the disaster on December 6, 1917. Her father, William Dryden, had arrived home to find his wife Georgina, 34, and his son Percy, 6, and daughter Dorothy, 3, dead. According to the Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book, he identified their bodies.
It is one of the first stories I remember hearing about my family, and I vividly recall visiting the Maritime Museum for the first time and seeing the personal effects taken from the pockets of schoolchildren killed by the explosion...and feeling haunted by the homeliness of the objects, by my grandmother's narrow escape, by the horrible randomness of unpredictable tragedy.
The listings of the dead are available online, as linked above, through the Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book, thanks to Nova Scotia Archives. The book is an amazing document of tragedy that supplements the original handwritten ledger book that was started after the explosion to keep track of the dead.
At first I thought these listings for Andrew Dryden and Alice Dryden were misidentified as Georgina Dryden’s children since there was another family at 48 Veith Street, the Findleys, with a mother also named Georgina, and who also died along with a number of children. Then I found a birth record for Andrew Percy Ernest Dryden, the same age as Percy Dryden, born in 1911 to my great-grandparents William Andrew Dryden and Georgina (Cooke) Dryden There is no birth record available in the archives for either an Alice or a Dorothy Dryden, but my best guess now is that this is a similar double-listing for Dorothy, based on her full name. I’ll ask my grandmother.
What would have happened if my grandmother hadn’t survived? It's too hard for me to imagine. Among other things, I wouldn’t exist, or I wouldn’t be me.
My grandmother, my mother, and me in front of my old house in Ottawa.
I don’t know how my great-grandfather coped with the loss of wife and older children. He had already lost one son, his first-born and namesake, William, who had died in 1911 at age one from cholera. I believe he married again, quickly. My grandmother was soon joined by two half-sisters.
My grandmother is an amazing woman. Her husband (my grandfather), John Ainsworth, who died before I was born, was visually impaired, and after her marriage and even after his death, my grandmother has spent most of her adult life (well over 60 years) volunteering in organizations to assist the blind. She is kind, conscientious, and generous to a fault. Before her house in Halifax’s Hydrostone had to be sold this year, her wall was covered with recognition awards for her active volunteer work. There is a little write-up here about her (you have to scroll down) on the occasion of receiving an award for merit in 2008 from the Canadian Council for the Blind.
A family photo from my grandmother's 90th birthday party in Halifax in 2006.
This year she has not been well enough to get out and be as active as she used to be. There was no way for her to come to my wedding. I think I am the only grandchild now who doesn’t live in Nova Scotia. I miss her.
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