Myron Iotis & Irene Myrtle Paradis Thompson

Myron Thompson was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on October 26, 1920, the oldest son of Iotis and Phoebe Thompson, the first Whites to live in Amesdale.   Iotis, a seasoned trapper from the United States, had met pretty young Pheobe Cody, age 19 years of Chippewa County, Michigan.   Shortly thereafter they were married in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan prior to emigrating from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to establish themselves as trappers in the then lucrative Canadian fur industry.   Otis and Phoebe decided to locate in the bush of North-western Ontario at a location on the Canadian National Railway known as Freda-Richan area.  First they went to Richan where he built his cabin, then to Freda when he got the homestead.  The trap line, and what eventually became the family homestead, was located near Mile 51 crossing on the north side of the only artery of communication with the outside world, the Canadian National Railway. 

Owing to the remoteness of the place, and the absence of a doctor or mid-wife, Phoebe went to Winnipeg for Myron's birth.  Just fifteen months later, on December 5th, 1921, his younger brother Roy was born in Sioux Lookout for the same reasons.   By the time the boy’s only sister Marion Joyce Thompson was born thirteen years later, a second artery of communication had been opened up.  The community was now connected to the Canadian Pacific Railway, just 17 miles to the south, along what was then considered to be a good gravel road.  With the birth of Joyce in Dryden, Ontario on November 28, 1935 the family was complete.

Their homestead was just east of the Freda station, which was later to be renamed Amesdale.  From the road leading north from that crossing, the cabin was set back a good city block to the east.  Interestingly, the cabin had been constructed in Richan and hauled on Iotis’ back to Amesdale, log by log.  Later, and before Joyce’s birth, the original structure had been added on to making it a two story log cabin, with one big room downstairs, and two bedrooms upstairs.   By Amesdale standards it was a good sized cabin.

Myron’s father’s large trap line extended northward into the seemingly endless wilderness. Trapping was a family affair. During the winter, the front room was often shared with beaver, weasel, fox, and wolf hides stretching on hoops, or fastened to boards for drying. Years later their children would recall the drying pelts spread inside and outside of the house, as well as fleas transferred to the kids, which caused memorable discomfort.

Ote was keenly interested in the establishment of a school for his children, so in 1928 he was elected Chairman of the Amesdale School Board, and with others petitioned the government to open a school.  In the meantime Myron took correspondence courses.  Then on November 3, 1930, with an enrolment of nine students, classes commenced in the newly constructed Amesdale School, with Rhonda E. Marks of St. Catherines, Ontario as the first teacher.  Myron and Roy Thompson were members of that inaugural class, along with seven classmates, namely Donald Ames, Jim Nelson, Jim Radford, Fred Radford, Beatrice Radford, Ken Stouffer and Mary Stouffer.  It was a rough year for this first year teacher who was not only homesick but had to deal with kids of all ages who had not attended or had not been regular attendees at a formal school before.      

Nevertheless, five years and five teachers later, seven of the nine original students completed Grade 8.  Myron was one of the seven and at fourteen years of age his formal education was complete.   Graduation was followed by high school entrance exams, and the five boys travelled to Quibell for the exams, but only one of the five boys one passed.  Myron was sick while writing the exams and failed, so his Dad said “If you aren’t going to go to school you better get to work.”  By age fifteen he had left home and was working out west for farmers every summer.  Each winter he returned to help his Dad on the trapline.  Myron was smart, and he was no slouch when it came to understanding world affairs.  He had a great memory.  Although he had no high school education, he was self taught, and knew a lot. 

In 1937 or 1938, presumably due to financial difficulties related to the Great Depression, the Thompsons moved to Hayden (near Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.), and at that time the whole family also took a trip south to visit Uncle Levi and his family in Walkerville, Michigan before returning to Amesdale.

On September 10^th, 1939 regular CBC Radio programming was interrupted by a brief news bulletin declaring that Canada was at war with Germany.  Myron was eager to enlist, but his parents insisted that he wait for his younger brother.  In 1940, shortly after Roy turned eighteen, the brothers enlisted in the armoured division of The Lake Superior Regiment of the Canadian Armed Forces, a unit that traces its creation to the response to the second Riel Rebellion. During the Second World War, the "Lake Sups" (pronounced soups) was mobilized as a Motor (motorized infantry) battalion for the 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division.

Myron learned the trade of Heavy Duty Mechanics, and served in the first line behind the lines fixing the trucks and tanks being sent to the front.  Myron and Roy saw active duty, serving mostly in Holland.   Roy didn’t talk about the war.  Myron didn’t talk much about the war at first, although he did talk about the fun part, the parties and such.  Later he shared a story about a sniper who was shooting at him.  In response, he crept closer as he kept shooting, until the sniper’s shooting stopped.  The Dutch people loved the Canadian soldiers for their dominant role in liberating large portions of Holland.  For years after his return, Myron continued to correspond with a Dutch family.

While the boys were overseas, on the eve of a heavy snowfall in January 1943 their father passed away, leaving a widow and daughter with no means of support.   With her two sons overseas, and not really liking Amesdale, Phoebe went to Sioux Lookout where she found work as a waitress in Clark's Café.   There she met a young lady by the name of Jean Paradis, who had moved to Sioux in 1944 with her parents and five siblings, including a younger sister named Irene.  Both girls were working at the café, and Jean, who was just 5 years younger than Pheobe’s youngest son Roy, began corresponding with him as part of her contribution to the war effort.  

 

Near the end of the war, with savings and insurance money, Pheobe decided to build a new house on the homestead in Amesdale, in anticipation of her sons' return.  She hired Bert Ames to build a second house on the homestead, a small one bedroom wood frame building, not 400’ from the road. However, upon his return in December 1945, Roy got a good job the CNR mechanics shop in Sioux lookout, and started dating Jean Paradis.

Myron didn’t return immediately either.  He suffered a bout of poor health at the end of the war, contracted chicken pox, pneumonia, then had a mastoid operation which resulted in him being kept in England to recover.  While in England he was somewhat sweet on an English girl, whom he said he almost married.  However, after a recovery period of four months he returned home at Easter of 1946, and upon release he joined Roy in Sioux Lookout.    He got a job at Fullers Garage as a mechanic.

Jean and Roy were already going together when Myron got home, and announced that they were getting married.  Whereupon, Myron looked at Irene and said, that sounds like an idea, what do you think?  He bought a ring and gave it to Irene.  So the older brother, and the younger sister, now engaged to be married were enlisted to stand up for Roy and Jean, the younger brother and the older sister.  Unfortunately, in the meantime Irene got mad and Myron and threw the ring back at him, so they didn’t have a double wedding as planned.  Nevertheless, they still stood up for Roy and Jean, and teased them about getting married on June 21^st 1946, the shortest night of the year.   Amidst the teasing, and the romance of their siblings' wedding Myron and Irene made-up and were married on 19 Aug 1946, in Sioux Lookout.  Their wedding photo was taken in front of the Paradis home up by the Indian hospital. 

Soon after the weddings, the Thompson boys decided take their brides back to Amesdale to go trapping.  After the rigors of war, something just seemed to just pull them back to Amesdale.   Their nerves were shot and they needed to be out in the bush silence to recover from four years of war.  Roy suffered even more so than Myron who tended to play the “tough guy”.  Maybe he felt it inside but he didn’t show it.

Myron and Irene moved in with Phoebe for a while, but soon rented one of the whitewashed log cabins south of the station.  Roy, who loved the bush and the life of the backwoods, came down later that fall, planning to move into the old family cabin.  He tore off the top story and tried to make it presentable with imitation brick asphalt sheets, and got it all fixed up nicely before Jean came down.  Jean, who was now pregnant, and unhappy about the move to Amesdale, came anyways and set up housekeeping in the renovated old cabin, which Roy had made to look pretty good by then.

Mrs. Thompson and Jean always got along well, and on occasion she had even visited Phoebe in Amesdale before she and Roy were married.  Irene and Phoebe didn’t always see eye to eye on things, but since both had come to Amesdale from larger communities, they shared a lack of enthusiasm for the community.  Having lived in Brandon as a young teenager, Irene figured Sioux Lookout was small enough, so going to Amesdale was a tough change for a city girl.  It was like walking into the bush and saying this was home.  However, Myron moved her there and she was there for 7 years, taking the new but smaller house, located about 400’ from the road.

Laurie Ames was Irene’s best friend.  She had married young Sam Ames before the war and already had children. She knew how to tend a housed so she taught Irene a lot about cooking and how to look after a home.  They also shared the experiences of having husbands recently returned from the war, raising families, and living in a remote community.  For entertainment, there was lots of time to sit around and gossip.  

But community life was changed from what it was before the war.  The boys who went off to war, matured and came back as men, hardened by some pretty tough experiences.  Dryden seemed closer as everyone got cars, and prosperity increased.  There were nights of tobogganing on the hill behind the school.  There were frequent dances in Amesdale and Richan, and drinking seemed to factor into these and a few stories can be told of the fights at the dances.  Myron and Gordon Ames were frequent drinking buddies.  Every Friday Gordon and Myron would head to town to pick up groceries at New Dryden Jobbing, and return home drunker than skunks. 

In the spring of 1947 Phoebe moved to Saskatchewan with her new husband, Sidney G. Sears, whom she had met at Clark’s café in Sioux. Joyce remained in Amesdale with her brothers, for the next 6 months until her Mum and step-father were established in Saskatchewan.  After Phoebe went West, Myron and Irene moved into the house and took care of Joyce, but Myron was a tough father figure, and Joyce ended up making the rounds between the homes of Myron, Roy, and Beatrice Ames before she too headed west to live with her Mum and new stepfather..

The two Thompson boys now took over their father's trapline and spent all winter walking and snowshowing his very large route.  In the summer, Myron guided at Wick Cliff Lodge.  Myron and his friend Fred Radford, who had been school buddies, spent a lot of time together. When Fred wasn't working on the railroad and Myron wasn't doing trapping or guiding they roamed the bush in search of game, or fishing. Fishing trips were frequent, and always successful. A favourite spot was Pelican Lake, located south of the store, where there were always lots of pickerel. Irene Pierson remembers coming down from Dauphin, where she lived with her family, to visit her Grandma Harriet and her cousin Fred. On those occasions, Fred and Myron would invite Irene out to lunch - Amesdale style. Off they would go optimistically armed with nothing but fishing gear, bread, butter, a jug of orange juice and a frying pan. They always had fish.

Irene was busy scrubbing cloths on the washboard, and hanging them on the line year round.  Water was hauled from the spring behind the store, at a rate of two pails of water every day.  Folks near the store didn’t have a well, although Myron and Roy tried to dig one, but never found water.  Their neighbours, Laurie and Sam Ames may have had one but the Thompsons were never so fortunate.

In the winter of 1947, Irene went to live with Joe and Marge McKay in Dryden as she anticipated their first child.  The roads weren’t ploughed often during the winter so it was necessary to be close to civilisation at critical times like this.   David Allen, born 27 March 1947 on Irene’s 18^th birthday and Gordon Levi came along shortly thereafter on 6 Sept 1948.

In addition to the two boys, a new member of the Thompson family had arrived in the spring of 1948.  While down at the store, Myron adopted a bear cub that Fred Radford had found in the bush.  He drilled a hole by his house with an auger, put a post in the hole, and tied the bear to it. Myron Thompson and  Fred took that bear and raised it all summer. It was a real pet.  They kept it till fall, then they got a hold of the game warden and told him about it, and he said, “Well why don’t you try and get rid of it”. He says, “I think they need a bear in the Winnipeg Zoo”. So they contacted the Winnipeg Zoo, and yes they wanted one, so they had to get permission to ship it out of the province, which they did. Myron and Fred went into Winnipeg a couple of months later, and as soon as we showed up by that pen he was right there. That was the last time they saw that little bear.

In 1950, Roy worked on the power line from Dryden to Ear Falls, and trapping began to decline due to his new line of work, and declining fur prices. Roy was a bush guy and loved the trap line but times were changing.  Besides, Jean was probably ready to move on, so in 1951 when he found a job as a mechanic at the mill, Roy and Jean built a house just 4 miles out of Dryden and moved out.  

Myron, who really didn’t give hoot about trapping, kept the trapline up until he was ready to move on as well. Myron and Irene followed in 1953, when he got a job in Dryden with Mars Company, selling tractors and construction equipment for two years.  Myron was on the road from Monday till Friday, and Irene was busy keeping him in shirts, five white shirts washed and pressed every week.  Allen started school in Dryden in 1953, and Levi started the year after.

The old house was rented to someone working on the railroad or a woodcutter, but it burned to the ground in what was probably a chimney fire.  Everyone got out ok, but a piece of the old homestead was gone.  Myron and Irene moved back one more time in 1955, when Myron worked for Canadian Forest Products as a mechanic and a scaler for a couple of winters.  They lived at Canadian Forest products camp in a house they had for the boss (scaler) just west of town, and Myron toured the bush camps.  Irene tended her boys who were now in grades 3 and 4, with Ivy Bicknell as teacher.  Among others, their classmates included Arnold, Norman and Eileen Ames, Dianna Paradis, as well as the Saness, Premack, and Bakala kids.

In 1957, they moved to Quibell doing something to do with wood cutting, before moving to Vermilion Bay a year later.  There Myron set up shop in the gas station belonging to his old friends Gordon and Beatrice Ames. He continued to work as a mechanic, but for a time ran his own shop out of Gordon Ames' BA Station along the Trans Canada Highway in Vermilion Bay.  Later he opened his own shop by their house in The Bay. He was a good mechanic and never lacked for business. 

Myron and Irene went to work construction BC in 1967. They lived in Smithers and Merritt for 5 years, but something pulled him back to Dryden in 1972, where he worked for Sheridan as a heavy duty mechanic.

Myron died in the fall of 1976 when the truck in which we was riding was involved in an accident while driving to a job site, in the Township of Ignace, Ontario.  Myron didn’t like to drive, he would rather sleep, and a young fellow who didn’t know the road was driving.  At a curve at the top of the hill, he missed it, flipping the truck, Myron wasn’t wearing a seatbelt so he went out the door and the truck landed on him.

Myron was a good shot and he was a member of a gun club.  When hunting, he would come home with 4-5 turkeys.  When he died he had 37 rifles in his house.  He had a Winchester collection, and was only missing one of the series. 

After Myron’s death, Irene moved to Moosomin, Saskatchewan to be near her son Levi.   Later she moved to Esterhazy, Saskatchewan where she passed away on August 22, 2014 after a lengthy illness.  She fought a good fight and kept her sense of humour. Though quite feeble at the end, she read a book every couple of days and enjoyed crossword puzzles.

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Irene recently passed away August 22, 2014 and as a tribute to her life I post this history which she assisted me in writing some years ago.  She was a dear friend to many, including myself.

Brian 

Jim Master’s Blue Ribbon

Bob Clarkson’s Favourite

"No one could recite it as well as Bob"

Beatrice Radford Ames

You ask why I wear this ribbon

Such a faded strip of blue.

Though it’s faded I wouldn’t change it

For any fresh or new.

The fingers that pinned it here mates

Are folded in death’s deep sleep.

And this ribbon remains to remind me

Of a promise I have got to keep.

When I was a tall young fellow

Twenty years old or more

I grew too fond of the company

Inside of the tavern door.

I wasn’t to be called a drunkard

Like some of the chaps you meet,

But drink was becoming my master

And the taste of the cup was sweet.

I was courting then pretty Alice

The beauty of Derby Farm.

How proud I felt on Sunday

With her clinging to my arm.

Her hair like a cluster of sunbeams

Her face like a rose in June.

And weren’t we happy together

With our hearts singing loves old tune!

She was more than pretty my Alice.

She was good to the very core

And she wouldn’t give me peace mates

Till I promised to drink no more.

We almost came to quarrel

But Alice knew how to win

“Do you love me best.” She whispered

“Or that tavern with drink and sin?”

There was only one answer to that mates,

As you know if you love a lass.

So the end of it was I promised

I never would tough a glass.

Till Alice would give me leave to

She knew I would keep my word.

So our bans were read in Church mates

And the wedding bells were heard.

We two lived happy together

For seven short years or more

There was never a shadow of sorrow

Came across our cottage door.

We had one child, our little Rosie.

The light of our home was she.

If you’d wanted an angel on earth mates

It was she at the age of three.

But sorrow was waiting somewhere

And it didn’t forget to come.

Young Master, he got married

And brought his young bride home.

There were arches, banners, and feastings.

Supper for workmen and wives

A good sort of treat for the children,

The grandest of all of their lives.

We were all sitting round at our supper

When old Master rose from his chair

I wish to propose the health friends

To our newly married pair

So fill up your glasses high mates

And drink it with three times three

Good health and long life to man and wife

In the voyage of life’s long sea.

They came and filled up the glasses

With sparkling sherry wine,

But when they came towards me

I put my hand over mine.

“No wine for me sir, thank you.”

“No wine?  Why nonsense Jim

Not going to drink your Master’s health

And wish a long life to him?”

The end of it was they filled it

Tho’ it was sore against my will

To break my promise to Alice.

And somehow I couldn’t still

A sort of uneasy feeling

When I ought to of made a stand,

Stood up for the right and truth mates

And I couldn’t remove my hand.

We men stood round the table

When the women had all left that night

And I knew that me and the Devil

Were having a terrible fight.

He won, for I left that night mates

With the old love drink, newborn

And I staggered home drunk

In the early summer morn.

And many an evening after

Saw me at the tavern door.

And the wages went in at the till there

And our home grew bare and poor.

My Alice grew thin and careworn

My Rosie grew pale and weak.

And somehow I never heeded

Or missed the bloom from their cheeks.

Two years passed by like that Mates

And I never stopped to think

Of the sorrow at home in my cottage

And I was the slave of drink.

I never went with my darling

The blessings of God to seek

For who dare to go to church on Sunday

When they had been drinking all week?

One morning before I started to work

Little Rosie ran

And put her thin arms around me

And whispered “I’ve got a plan”

Oh such a happy evening

For you and Mother and me

If you come straight home from work Dad.

Oh say you’ll be home for tea?”

“Do Dad” she pleaded.

Her thin arms held me tight.

I couldn’t resist her winning ways

“I’ll be home my lass alright”

I meant it and started homeward

As soon as my work was done,

But again I fought with the tyrant

And again the tyrant won.

There was waiting in at the tavern

A dozen fellows or more.

They bullied and jaunted and jeered me

Till they got me inside the door

We men sat and drank that evening

Till a boy rushed in the like mad.

“Jim Master you Rosie is dying. 

She is pining to see her Dad”

Dying – my Rosie dying?

Oh mates that sobered me

I ran to our house like a mad man

And entered it silently.

I crept to the little chamber

Where Rosie lay still and white

She opened her eyes when she heard me

“I knew you’d come home tonight”

She whispered but oh so faintly

We scarce could hear what she said

The doctor beaconed me nearer

And I bent o’er the little bed

I couldn’t speak or kiss her

My tears fell down like rain

“I was coming to meet you Daddy

When the horses tore down the lane.”

She stopped and we thought she was going.

“But Daddy I wanted you

Just to write your name in my Pledge Book

And to wear this bit of blue.”

“I meant to ask you sooner

When the book was given me

But I darest not, and I planned it

To ask you tonight at tea.”

“You’ll do it now, won’t you Daddy.”

Here’s pen and ink to write

And I shall be ever so happy

When I know you’ve signed tonight.

And then when I get to Heaven

And the dear Lord asks for you

I’ll be able to say ‘He’s coming

For he’ll keep his promise true.’”

I wrote my name in the pledge book

Though I couldn’t see what I wrote

And with tiny trembling fingers

She pinned the blue on my coat.

“Oh, Daddy say you’ll promise”

Again her voice was heard

“I’ll promise my lass.  I’ll swear it.

God help me to keep my word.”

“Oh Mother” she said to Alice

She was holding her golden head

“Don’t you think the angels will be happy

When they’ve heard what Daddy said?”

“I’ll be waiting and watching in Heaven

Until the day God calls you to come

For without Father and Mother

It wouldn’t seem much like home.”

We watched and prayed and waited

Until just in the morning dawn

The angels came for Rosie

And left us there to mourn.

I’ve kept and God help me in keeping

My promise right firm and true

So you know why I wouldn’t part for the world

With this little bit of blue.

To Beatrice Radford Ames, Mary Clarkson Baskier wrote:

“Really!  This is such a lovely poem, but oh so sad – I’ve had a time to finish writing it out!”

Annie Waller's Recitation of Jim Master's Blue Ribbon

A half century ago, Jack Douglas Waller  recorded Granny Waller’s recitation of this Temperance Society poem on his Philips cassette recorder.   The moment and the message are as dear to him, as they are to many of us.  He has kindly shared it with us.

click on this link.
http://amesdale.org/brian/JimMasterBlueRibbon_AnnieWaller.mp3

The player icon below doesn't seem to work.

Santa's Workshop

by Earla Haukness

Earla Trist Haukness, the daughter of Grace Henderson Trist who lived in Amesdale in the 1930's, remembers Christmas at Amesdale.  When she was young, every year her family would walk out to Larry Sward's home.  It was the one which was further in the woods, and such a long walk for the children's little legs.  Nevertheless, the children would get so excited going there because they were sure it was Santa's work shop!   It was filled with saw dust, tools, and wooden toys.   It even smelled like Santa's workshop!   

Amesdale and the North Pole are geographically distant, but the Spirit of Christmas was present in equal proportions.   At the annual Christmas concert, then performed in the school, each child received a gift.  But one year the sack of gifts turned up one gift short..... so the youngest Henderson sister got the doll, and the older one had to do without.   Larry, who had been present at the concert and felt badly for the girl with no gift, so over the following weeks made her a doll and delivered it to her! 

Larry Sward

In the aftermath of the Great War, a decade long global party began, the “Roaring Twenties”.   In the flight to hedonism, everyone sought to forget what they suffered during the war.  In North America, but also in London, Paris and Berlin, in the wake of World War I, normalcy returned to politics, jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined modern womanhood, and Art Deco peaked.  Speakeasies, cinema, short skirts, cocktails, cigarettes, and convertible cars offered pleasures to forget the pain.  Marlene Dietrich, the star of the movies Blue Angel, Desire, and Shanghai Express, exemplified the glamour.

But life wasn’t glamorous for all.  The “good-times” may have been “rolling” for the wealthy and glamorous elite, but the farmers and trade unionists were decimated.  After the booming wheat economy of the early part of the century, the Prairie Provinces were impoverished by low wheat prices.   In the U.S., trade unions that had grown rapidly during the war years were weakened after a series of failed strikes in steel, meatpacking and other industries.  These failed in large part due to U.S. Federal Government repression of radical unionism during World War I.

Farmers, frustrated with the major political parties’ opposition to free trade, which resulted in their paying high prices for equipment, and getting low prices for their produce, turned to Progressivism and Fabian socialist political ideas.  This played an important role in the development of Canada's first highly successful third party, the Progressive Party of Canada that won the second most seats in the 1921 national election.  

Although the Dow Jones Industrial index increased by a factor of 4.4 between 1921 and 1929, and the US economy grew at an annual rate of 6%, 40 percent of American wealth was in the hands of the top 1 percent of American households.  The 1920s meant poverty for farmers as commodity prices tumbled.  The price of wheat fell from wartime highs of 294 cents a bushel in 1920, to 182 cents a bushel in 1925, to 102 cents a bushel in 1929.  Farmers were ruined, factories closed, and unemployment rose to 25% in the US.  (Paraphrased from Niall Ferguson, 2006, The War of the World).  Meanwhile, the governing Liberal Party of Canada under William Lyon Mackenzie King, reduced spending, as it struggled to pay off the large debts amassed during the war and during the era of railway over-expansion.   

With the “Crash of 1929”, the “Roaring Twenties” shuddered to a halt.  It was against this backdrop of economic turmoil and social unrest that Larry Swardfager appeared in Amesdale.  Like so many of the bachelors who came to Amesdale, Larry was an enigma.  Nothing was known of his past, and little was said; yet he carried within his heart convictions born in the aftermath of the "Crash of 1929”.  

Over the years, it has been learned that Larry was originally from Southern Ontario, the son of a farmer whose first name is believed to have been Amaziah Schwardfagger.  Amaziah, who was from Lindsay, Ontario, married a woman from Agincourt, Ontario¹ and had four sons, Edward, Neil, Fred, and Larry, and three daughters, Bertha, Grace, and Marguerite².  Born about 1900, Larry was 21 years younger than his oldest brother Edward.

The family was poor, eking out a subsistence living on what his brother Edward referred to as a “poor excuse of a farm” with lots of rocks, which the boys were expected to pick out of the field.  His father, who seemed to be only half-heartedly committed to farming, was one of the early Methodist ministers in the Lindsay area, and as such dedicated a considerable amount of time on horseback visiting and preaching, while his sons worked the farm.  From photos he is remembered as a stern looking man, with a long white beard.  The harshness of the man seems to have been a factor in Larry’s choice to abandon the family farm at a very early age, possibly as young as 14 or 15 years.³ 

Larry found work in Detroit as a pipe fitter.⁴ His eldest brother, Neil remained down east and eventually became an engineer.  At some point both Larry and his older brother Neil chose to change their names to "Sward", a less “German-sounding” name, in order to avoid anti-German sentiments during and after WW1.  Although a product of a German-Canadian father and an Irish-Canadian mother, discrimination apparently extended to Canadian-born families like that of Amaziah Schwardfager, whose closest connection to Germany was a grandfather who had emigrated before Confederation.  Edward kept the family name of Swardfager and moved west to Winnipeg where he was employed by the CNR.

  

Detroit was hard-hit by the stock market crashed of 1929.  By 1932 only half the automobile workers who were employed in 1929 were still employed, and at half the wages.⁵ Frustrated by capitalism, the dispossessed of the Depression had had enough.  On 7 March 1932 five thousand unemployed workers laid off by the Ford Motor Company marched through central Detroit to demand relief.  Scuffles broke out at the River Rouge plant in Dearborn and armed police and security men fired into the crowd, and the Hunger March of March 1932 ended with five workers killed.  Days later, at their funeral 60,000 people sang ‘L'Internationale’, anthem of the socialist, the communist, and the anarchist.⁶

         The Internationale

        (American version)

Arise, you prisoners of starvation!

Arise, you wretched of the earth!

For justice thunders condemnation:

A better world's in birth!

No more tradition's chains shall bind us,

Arise you slaves, no more in thrall!

The earth shall rise on new foundations:

We have been nought, we shall be all!

Chorus

'Tis the final conflict,

 Let each stand in his place.

 The international soviet

 Shall be the human race

 'Tis the final conflict,

 Let each stand in his place.

 The international working class

 Shall be the human race

We want no condescending saviors

To rule us from their judgment hall,

We workers ask not for their favors

Let us consult for all:

To make the thief disgorge his booty

To free the spirit from its cell,

We must ourselves decide our duty,

We must decide, and do it well.

Chorus

Larry’s life traversed revolutions of the impoverished against the privileged, socialism against capitalism, and unprecedented global violence.  Nineteen-hundred, the year of his birth, and the year determined by the Astronomer Royal to mark the dawn of the new century, rather than 1899, ended the most hope-fill century the world had ever experienced.  Within months of his birth, the Victorian era, characterised by long peace and economic growth, ended with the death of Queen Victoria; the assassination of US President McKinley, at the hands of an American-born anarchist, and subsequent inauguration of President Theodore Roosevelt marked a shift toward Progressivism in North America; Adolf Hitler was born and Vladimir Lenin came out of exile to visit Russia. 

Larry’s formative years coincided with the end of an era, and the beginning of an era of unprecedented global upheaval; the bloody death of the “Great Powers”, and the dawn of new world powers.⁷ In his formative years the economic models of capitalism, communism, and fascism were pitted against each other.  The Great Powers fell, the Bolsheviks gained control of Russia, and the Nazis of Germany. Indeed, Larry may have been among the 60,000 that in an expression of solidarity, strength and defiance sung ‘L'Internationale’, with arms raised in the clenched fist salute of leftist activists, including Marxists, anarchists, communists, pacifists, and trade unionists.

When times got tough in Detroit, the Canadian workers were the first to go.  Larry was laid-off.  Thrown out of work at a very difficult time, he calculated that his chances of finding work down east were slim.  Having lost faith in governments and capitalism, he reasoned that a life of self-sufficiency in a less populated area was the answer for him, so he headed north.   

He found work doing fire tower patrol with the Forestry Department, north of the north-western Ontario town of Sioux Lookout.  There he developed a life-long friendship with Raymond Sugden, who then knew him as Larry Swartz.⁸ He arrived at the recently organised town of Amesdale in the mid ‘30s.  There he acquired a homestead at the north end of Pelican Lake (now Rugby Lake), probably the one later held by L. J. Fraser. This homestead, located on a sheltered south facing bay, had a nice dock and was often the embarkation point for many a canoe trip out on the lake.

Years later, Larry confessed that his first few years as a homesteader in Amesdale, were bitterly tough. However, he maintained that his existence during the "Dirty 30's" was much better than some people's. In a newspaper article, the Dryden Observer recorded his personal observations on the plight of the millions of Canadians, unemployed or driven off the land by drought and low wheat prices:

"He (Larry Sward) watched many friends and acquaintances, usually older, die from starvation or freeze to death in their weakened condition.

Families from the west drifted through, in search of work and a square meal for their children. In the meantime, dust that had once been the soil blew east as the drought intensified, turning the prairies into a dustbowl.

'Talk of your eclipse!’, says Mr. Sward. "For days on end, the dust obliterated, blocked out the sun altogether, like no eclipse you could ever imagine.' "

(Dryden Observer)

In the North he encountered injustices, but this time he answered them with his own form of justice.  The story goes that one year, while working for the CNR, the foreman who happened to be Ukrainian, informed him that work was slowing down and he would have to lay Larry off. The following week, when Larry passed by the gang, he counted the same number of men on the track as there had been when he was there. Inquiring, he learned that his spot had been filled by a Ukrainian, coincidentally the brother-in-law to the foreman. So he found the foreman, and exercising some backwoods justice, grabbed the foreman by the collar and looking him straight in the eyes, with two swift and well directed blows, blackened both of them. Larry was strong.  Boy was he strong!

Having been laid off in Detroit, and then again on the Canadian National Railway, together with other experiences, clearly illustrated the vulnerability of the working man, who in those days was subject to the will of the corporations. In an interview with the Dryden Observer, he later commented on certain labour practices employed by the Canadian National Railway, saying he'd get 25 cents an hour (for laying ties). After three months, employees were supposed to get a three-cent-an-hour increase. But what the train company did was fire their employees as soon as they reached that plateau. "You could usually get rehired" he said, "but you'd have to start at the bottom again".

Larry had an aversion to working for a wage. Besides being unwilling to be in the employ of another, apparently he also had an aversion to paying taxes to the government. He had seen the introduction of personal income tax in 1917. Originally, presented as a temporary measure to fund the war, it later became a permanent feature of the Canadian tax system. By the end of the Second World War, direct taxation and income taxation had grown from providing 10% of Canadian government revenue, to an astonishing 90%.

A great number of changes occurred during Larry’s life. Having lived through two world wars, and the Great Depression, he observed a lot of human suffering. He personally suffered through the lean years after the "Crash", experienced unemployment, observed the impact of grinding poverty's impact on men and families, and the devastation of both wars. These events left a lasting impression on Larry's view of the world, and he formed strong opinions. He stated that he had no desire to return east, nor did he demonstrate any interest in rejoining mainstream society.  His experiences with business and politics apparently caused him to consider the merits of alternate economic models to imperialism and capitalism. Like many people of his day, in both North America and Europe, Larry was hopeful that the political changes that were occurring in Russia and Germany might offer the world alternative economic and political models.

At the time Larry wasn’t alone in his hope for a new world order.  The playwright and ardent socialist, George Bernard Shaw, had written many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society.  On his return trip from Moscow in 1931, after an audience with Stalin, he stated: 

“If this great communistic experiment spreads over the whole world, we shall have a new era in history....If the future is the future as Lenis foresaw it, then we may all smile and look forward to a future without fear’.  So captivated was Shaw by the dream of state socialism, the he claimed “Were I only 18 years of age, I would settle in Moscow tomorrow.  Stalin has delivered the goods to an extent that seemed impossible ten years ago.  Jesus Christ has come down to earth.  He is no longer an idol.  People are gaining some sort of idea of what would happen if He lived now”⁹

Based upon the Great Depression, apparently the defunct capitalist model had failed.  Globalisation was over.   Free trade was dead, and protectionism swept across the world.  John Maynard Keynes wrote that “The theory of output as a whole...is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of the production and distribution of a given output produced under conditions of free consumption and a large laissez-faire.”  The American Dream had turned into a nightmare, and totalitarian regimes with planned economies offered an alternative to the vagaries of a market based economy. (Paraphrased from Niall Ferguson, 2006, The War of the World ) 

Through the war years, Larry’s endorsement of the totalitarian regimes of German and Russian put him at odds with some of the local residents of Amesdale, whose boys were posted overseas during the Second World War.

The life in the bush that he chose for himself wasn't an easy one. As he approached his 78th birthday, he confessed that upon arriving in Amesdale, he "was a little green then. No gun, no snowshoes, no knowledge of the land." Nevertheless, he learned to survive. He learned the craft of snowshoe making, how to hunt and live off the land, to make bannock, can his own food, and could fry fish fillets so they didn't curl up in the pan - all in preparation against a depression he was convinced was in the offing. His decision to live independently in the bush was apparently a calculated one, but he clearly loved that life, and "continued to maintain a zest for life matched by few".

Larry Sward certainly wasn't your typical homesteader, or backwoods bachelor. Nevertheless, he established himself in the community and learned the necessary survival skills, and gained a reputation as a fine hunting guide, although he didn't care much for fishing. During hunting season he would take American hunters on long canoe trips into the bush to find game. Some of his clients were guests of MacDonald Lodge in Quibell, Ontario, but he also did freelance guiding for clients obtained through connections. As a fine backwoods artisan, he supplemented his income with the construction of snowshoes, which he sold for a dollar a pair, and the cutting of cordwood for 60 cents a cord, after expenses.

After the depression, Larry moved further into the bush. Perhaps there was too much traffic through his homestead on the north end of Pelican Lake, or possibly he just saw an opportunity.  During the Depression, faced with thirty percent unemployment, the Conservative Federal Government of R.B. Bennett, initiated construction of an airport at the south-east end of what came to be known as Airport Lake. In the mid-1930's, upon completion of the construction project by men housed in a 5-dollar a month Relief Camp, Larry moved out to that lake. The camp had been abandoned, so Larry took over the cabin which had housed Larry Pinkerton of Dryden, the foreman for the project. There he lived in semi-seclusion on a picturesque rock point overlooking the south-west corner of Airport Lake. He preferred to be alone, to the hustle and bustle of the community which encroached on him.

Larry's cabin was very close to the lake, beyond a creek that flooded every spring, took out the foot bridge.  The cabin was constructed of large logs with a white chinking between each log.  It was a long structure, reminiscent of an Iroquois longhouse; there were no interior walls, just one large room.  The entrance was on one end of a side.  To the left of the entrance there were windows, and around the right corner of the entrance was the end of the cabin that faced the lake.  The inside of the cabin housed two large table saws placed side by side, 12 feet long and 8 feet wide.  One had a 2-3’ diameter blade that was for ripping rough cuts, and the other had a blade for fine cuts.  There were snowshoes on the wall, and some canoe paddles. There was a sink for dishes, and a bed at the other end of the cabin.  The roof was a low pitch so he could easily scrape the snow off in the winter. ¹⁰ 

The saws must have been transported by rail to a certain point, then by team to the lake, and freighter canoe to the cabin.  Owing to the sheer weight and size of the saw tables, he would have required help to transport them.  He must have had an old generator to power the saws.  Knowing Larry he would have built the generator himself. ¹¹ 

Never wishing to spend money on train fare, as was commonplace during the depression and long afterward, Larry would “ride-the-rails”.  The destination was often Winnipeg where he greet his brother Edward and family with a characteristic salute of defiance and solidarity; both arms in the air, and fists clenched.¹²   Somehow, he managed to transport washtubs or blueberries for Edward’s wife Annie May, would then spend days cleaning and preserving the berries.  Thanks to Larry there was never any shortage of blueberry jam in the Swardfager home. 

Visits from this colourful character from the backwoods of North-western Ontario delighted some and were tolerated by others.  Larry’s young teenage grand-niece Donna Hutchens, who lived at her grandparents home with her mother, Myrtle, was awestruck.  She remembers him as an extremely attractive man with delightful stories of the wilds from whence he came.  These were stories of survival in the bush, as well as humorous stories of a pet pig capable of  balancing on a tottery stump, and pet snakes that ate dead insects from Larry’s hand.  She also recalls him attracting the uninvited attention of Myrtle’s single girlfriends every time he came to town.  He was a social man, self-assured and very comfortable with himself, and very intelligent.  Myrtle was somewhat of an intellectual, being employed at the University of Manitoba.  Consequently political discussions would ensue with Larry being quite capable of clearly articulating his views on democracy, and making speeches on government.  On the other hand, his sister-in-law Annie tolerated him; her conservativeness and his colourfulness didn’t mix real well.

Larry and mainstream society had parted company years earlier when he learned he couldn’t change society, so chose to live life his way in Amesdale instead.  He was a back-woodsman at heart, never quite at ease in the city.  He didn’t do well with traffic lights or broad streets like Portage Avenue, which he perilously jaywalked, with his young niece in tow.  Payphones were complicated.  History, personal circumstances and considerable thought had shaped Larry’s view of the world and he equipped himself for what he viewed as the most likely outcome. Convinced that capitalism would fail, he took measures to prepare.  He suggested that Annie keep a reserve of food in the basement just in case things went bad, and he had a stash of food in the bush, just in case.  He may have seemed a bit eccentric, but wasn’t “bushed” in anyway. 

 Larry may have lived a solitary life, but life was not entirely without romance.  In Winnipeg, Larry had made a lady friend named Marie.  A lady remembered as attractive in her flowing mauve dress and huge mauve picture hat¹³.  She may have been a school teacher, as each summer she would spent much of July and August with him at the lake.  Larry reciprocated with visits to Winnipeg as well.  However, there seems to have been a falling out at some point, and apparently on one of her visits Larry heard her coming and headed out the door of his cabin, into the bush, where he hid out for a few days.

Originally, guiding was his profession, but as he grew older he focussed more of his energies on his recognised skills as a backwoods craftsman. He added an extension to one end of his cabin which became his woodworking shop. He made a variety of wooden crafts, and acquired quite a reputation for his beautiful woodwork. To the construction of snowshoes which had long been his specialty, he added furniture, brick moulding, toys, and sleighs out of red-rock elm. However, his most remembered s crafts were his "sausage dogs". These wheeled double-articulated dachshund-like dogs-on-a-string, linger in the memories of every Amesdale child; they all had one.

He also had a soft spot for Harriet Radford, his "neighbour", who lived just east of the road leading from the airport to town.  One day he commented to the widow, who was then in her late sixties, that she needed a good pair of snowshoes. He commented that a woman of her age shouldn't be trudging through deep snow, one and a half miles, twice a week, to do her shopping at the general store without snowshoes. Harriet, always willing to try something new, took him up on the offer, and Larry made her a fine pair of lightweight wooden snowshoes, perfect for a senior. For the next ten years Harriet put those shoes to good use. They not only transported her on her weekly shopping trips to "town", but she also used them for recreation, right up until the year of her death at 84 years. Whether it was snowshoes or dogs-on-a-string, Larry’s crafts made a difference in the lives of people living in the area. 

He also crafted a rifle he referred to as an "over and under".  The upper barrel was a 22 cal., and the bottom barrel was a shotgun.  He could use either barrel depending on what game he was hunting. 

Harriet Radford's young niece from Dauphin, Irene Abrey, fondly recalls her visits to Larry's immaculate cabin. When down visiting family in Amesdale, Irene and her cousin Fred Radford, would be invited to dinner and walk to Larry's cabin around the lake. “He was a good cook! Larry was an interesting man, who besides making fine meals and snowshoes, made canoe paddles, and even canned his own meat, vegetables and fruits”.¹⁴

Certain risks accompanied the solitary life of the backwoods bachelor. Contrasted against the lives of the other members of this closely knit community, these men of undisclosed pasts and guarded presents lived solitary existences. In communities where families became intertwined through marriage and social interaction, the "bachelors" were always somewhat on the periphery; never alienated by the local community, but rather by personal choice. Cold winters and long northern nights and perhaps ghosts of undisclosed pasts caused some to turn inward, distancing them others. Some turned to drink, while others went mad. Occasionally they died alone, their frozen bodies discovered by a conscientious passer-by. Larry seemed to keep busy; actively engaged in a number of industrious projects.

Being busy and alone presented its risks set of hazards.  After a long winter, Larry suffering from a hardy dose of spring fever, undertook the construction of a new structure on his place.  It was to be a building with an upper level of some sort.  Fred Radford, interested to see how the work was coming along decided to check in on Larry.   He found him prostrate in his cabin suffering with broken ribs and other injuries associated with the fall from the upper level.  He was in so much pain that he couldn’t rescue himself.   With Larry in considerable pain, Fred hauled him down the path and out to the road’s nearest approach to the lake, where he had managed to manoeuvre his truck.   Upon reaching the station, the dispatcher was called to send a doctor to tend to the injured.  With a shot of morphine, the doctor shipped Larry off to Winnipeg to recover.  He was indeed a fortunate bachelor to have someone looked in on him that spring day.   

Following the accident, a period of convalescence was spent in Winnipeg at the home of his brother Edward, a loving and gentle man, Larry’s nearest relative and the one to whom Larry turned.  When time passed with no word from Larry, as it often did, Edward worried for the safety of his younger brother.  Although content with the life he had chosen for himself, perhaps envied Larry’s independent lifestyle.  He was always there for Larry, as he was on the occasion of his accident.   Due to the severity of the injury and his lack of mobility due to heavily bandaged ribs, Edward fussed over him, which of course would annoy an independent sort like Larry, to no end. 

During his recuperation and afterwards, Larry would sit out in the yard with Edward and his grand-niece, Donna Hitchens, telling stories of his life in Amesdale, and Edward would look rather wistful.  It must have seemed an adventurous life of freedom to the settled family man that Edward had become.  To a young girl like Donna, this uncle, who would show up periodically to stay a few days in Winnipeg, was certainly a colourful figure.  He endeared himself to the children with gifts of double-jointed wiener dogs and to sister-in-law Annie May with huge crates of blueberries.  Then when the city noise became too much for him, he would again disappear into the Bush.

Everyone in Amesdale liked Larry.  He like has privacy and independence, but he enjoyed people.  He especially liked young people, and always had time for them; stopping as he would on his way to the store, just to visit with them.   He received a beautiful plaque from the government for a donation of over $10,000 to the Shriner Hospital for Sick Kids.  Perhaps, he became aware of the hospital and developed a fondness of the project through is brother, Edward, who like many of his family were Masons or Shriners; or perhaps he simply did it out of his love for children.  Interestingly, the money was an accumulation of Old Age Pension cheques which Larry felt he didn’t deserve, reluctantly received, but refused to spend.   Out of principal, having never worked long enough to pay taxes, he would not use it for his own benefit.¹⁵

To the folks living in Amesdale, Larry was an enigma.  To a degree, he was a recluse, but a recluse very different from the many bachelors who lived their solitary lives in the bush of north-western Ontario.  In the words of his niece, he was a social man, self-assured and very comfortable with himself, and very intelligent.¹⁶ “Larry was a fortunate man; he was one of the few men in this world who lived his life just as he wanted to”¹⁷.

Much later, when the community of Amesdale was little more than a memory and Larry's fame had spread, he moved closer to Dryden.  In the nearby community of Richan, he bought the old Women's Institute Building. There he established his home, again creating his workshop in one end of the building. From that location he continued to specialise in children's toys and furniture. However, the Dryden Observer reported that he'd never taken the old Women's Institute sign down.  “I guess you could say I'm the last of the girls.” Larry grins.

Larry lost his brother in 1960, and Larry passed away himself in 1990.  Ironically, born in a year and an age when anarchists dreamed of “a stateless society, without government, without law, without ownership of property, in which, corrupt institutions having been swept away, man would be free to be good as God intended”¹⁸; Larry died the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the demise of the Soviet Union, and the triumph of capitalism.

(Written by Brian Ames, from memories of stories told to him by his mother Beatrice Radford Ames, an article from the Dryden Observer, considerable research, together with valued contributions from several individuals, in particular, Fred Radford.)

References:

1. Swardfager, Anne, wife of Walter Swardfager Sr., personal communication

2. Canada, Ontario, Victoria South County, Lindsay 1891 and 1901 Census.

3. Hutchens, Donna, Larry’s niece, Larry Swardfagger’s grandniece, brother Edward’s granddaughter.

4. Dryden Observer, abt. 1978, from Larry’s great grandnephew Walter Swardfage Jr., email 1 October 2006

5. Ferguson, Niall, The Ascent Of Money, pp243

6. Ferguson, Niall, The Ascent Of Money, pp243

7. Tuchman, Barbara W., The Proud Tower, pp98

8. MacFarlane, Bruce A., email correspondence,

9. Shaw, George Bernard, Rationalization of Russia, 1931.

10. MacFarlane, Bruce A., personal email communication, 8 January 2010

11. MacFarlane, Bruce A., personal email communication, 8 January 2010

12. Hutchens, Donna, Larry’s niece, Larry Swardfagger’s grandniece, brother Edward’s granddaughter.

13. Hutchens, Donna, Larry’s niece, Larry Swardfagger’s grandniece, brother Edward’s granddaughter.

14. Durston, Irene Abrey, personal communication 

15. Radford, Fred, personal communication, dated 5 February 2010

16. Hutchens, Donna, Larry’s niece, Larry Swardfagger’s grandniece, brother Edward’s granddaughter.

17. Thompson, Irene Paradis, personal communication

18. Tuchman, Barbara W., The Proud Tower, 1962, pp. 63.