December 17: After a relatively balmy autumn, the weather has turned frigid. The overnight temperatures are in the low minus-teens and the day-time highs not much warmer. It was -10C for my run this morning and, given these extremes of climate, I often wonder what possessed people to emigrate to this country in the first place. Thoughts turn to my paternal grandparents who emigrated from Scotland in the early 1900’s.
We really only have a very sketchy outline of how that came to pass. Grandma(Mary) and Grandpa (James) were both born in Scotland in 1881. As a young woman, Grandma emigrated to South Africa. I believe that she may have been married there, and perhaps even have had a child. From there, she emigrated to Canada. Grandpa was trained as a machinist. He worked for a time with the Scottish railway and then left that country for Jamaica. My Dad suggested that this may have been due to his involvement with the union movement.
While in Jamaica, he was in touch with his 2 brothers, some of whom may also have been there. At that time, the sole method of semi-reliable communication would have been the mail, and the brothers were using the address of a rooming house as an informal post office. In time, the mail dwindled and contacts were lost. Now all we have left is the knowledge that there are several other branches to the McKillop family, but no way of knowing who they might be. (Many years ago my Dad told this story to an acquaintance from Jamaica and asked him if he knew anyone named McKillop. “I do indeed”, he said. “Of course, they’re all black….”)
Grandma and Grandpa were married in Toronto in 1909; they were both 18. My Father was the youngest of 5 children by a considerable margin, and he was born in 1922. Grandpa was a machinist with the CNR and I have an abiding memory of visiting the roundhouse and climbing aboard steam locomotives with him and my Dad. Strangely though, while I remember specific sayings or events related to all of my other grandparents, I don’t remember much more about him. I don’t remember him ever actually saying anything to me.
The family lived in a small house on Sackville Street, north of Wellesley Street, in what is now Cabbagetown. It can’t have been easy for them, yet each of the children went on to have families and a successful life. Many of my relatives from that side of the family are now in Prince Edward County and I have not seen them for many years. It seems that we can lose touch without the help of Her Majesty’s Post.
And so the McKillop clan established itself in Ontario. As snowflakes drift by the window, I wonder what they must have felt as they arrived and spent their first winter here. Perhaps, had things been different, we all might have found ourselves on a beach in Jamaica and permanently avoided Ontario winters.