“The months that followed Royce’s death were excruciating, to say the least. His death took a huge toll on all of us. The tone of our household turned from a happy jovial atmosphere to one that was very sad and somber. We were struggling to keep things going around the farm. Murray and I tried to help with the milking and other barn chores, but my absence from the house put the responsibility of Chase and Charity on Mary Beth and Grandma Coalter. They had their hands full. We all missed Royce’s presence beyond belief. Things just weren’t running smooth at all.
Royce’s father really had a hard time dealing with Royce’s death. It was such a huge blow to him. He and Royce had really enjoyed working the farm together. They had been great partners and had shared a close bond. Royce had been young and strong and had been the muscle needed to sustain such a physically demanding lifestyle. Now Mr. Coalter was struggling to keep things going. I wasn’t sure what would become of us.
Come seeding time at the end of May, I could see that Mr. Coalter was looking thin and haggard. He was wearing himself out. I was worried about his health. I suggested hiring my brother, Newton, to come and help for the summer. Newton was still at home on the farm with Ma and Pa. He had never married. His health had never totally recuperated after he had returned from war. Pa had lots of hands. My brother Colt and his family had moved there to help quite a few years before, and their children were of an age to be able to pitch in. I felt that Pa could spare Newt’s help for a while until we could get things caught up.
Well, as things turned out, Royce’s father never had to make that decision. He died in his sleep a few days later. The doctor said he had a heart attack. I think he died of a broken heart. We waked him in the living room at home. Then we had a funeral service at the church down the road. He was buried in the church graveyard beside Royce where we had laid him to rest just four months before.
Ned and his family came north, once again, to attend his father’s funeral. This time they could drive their car to our farm. After the funeral, Ned drove his wife, Emma, and their daughters into town and put them on the train back to Toronto. He said he would stay on with us until we figured out what we were going to do.
Ned thought the farm should be sold, and he’d take his mother back to Toronto to live with him. He felt that if the farm sold, I could take some of the money and buy a small house in town for me and the children. He suggested that I could get a job to support us.
His mother was horrified at the thought of moving to Toronto. She wouldn’t hear tell of it. She said she had lived there on the farm for over thirty years, and it was her home. She and Allen, Mr. Coalter, had put their life blood into it. They had built it from the ground up. There was no convincing her she was going anywhere. She made it quite clear to Ned that he should pack up his things and head back to Toronto without her.
She told me in secret that she wouldn’t abandon me and the children. She wanted the farm to go to Murray and Chase someday. She felt the children had all been through an awful lot, and uprooting them just wouldn’t be stood for. The farm was their home and mine, and she wasn’t going to leave and abandon her family.
I wasn’t sure whether I had the right to voice my opinion on the subject. With Royce and his father gone, I felt it was her farm and her decision. I knew Royce would have been heartbroken to know his children were being put out of their home. I just wasn’t so sure we’d be able to manage and make a living elsewhere. We had some savings, but I wasn’t sure how far we’d be able to stretch them. I had forfeited my government Dependents Pension when I married Royce.
After a couple of weeks, Ned knew his mother wasn’t about to change her mind. She was staying, and so were we. He said he’d leave it go for awhile, but he’d be back in the fall to see if his mother had come to her senses. He was sure we’d be ready to give up then. It would take a lot of doing for two women to keep the farm going and get prepared for the winter.
After Ned’s departure, Mother Coalter told me she was sure Ned just wanted the money. He had never taken to the hard labour of running a farm. Royce had been the one who loved the land and had wanted to farm. It broke her heart to see how things had turned out. There was no way she was going to sell the farm so Ned and Emma could line their pockets with money we’d all worked mighty hard to get. They’d never have any appreciation for a nickel of it. She thought that we needed to sit tight and make plans to keep things going until the boys were old enough to take over.
The first thing we did was sell off four of the milk cows. There was no way we could milk six cows morning and night by hand. We kept the rest of the stock, though. Then we hired Newton to come and help put the crops in and do the field work. Royce and his father had ploughed up ten acres of land the previous fall. That land had to be seeded, or otherwise, it would just grow up into a patch of weeds. We needed the oats and straw for the coming winter. If we had a good crop, we would sell some.
Well, with the help of Newt, the co-operation of Mother Nature, and some very kind and hardworking neighbours, we faired out pretty good that summer. We had enough hay and grain put up to sustain the livestock for the winter. Our garden did really good, and we had lots of food put down to keep us for the winter, as well.
The chickens were paying their way. We sold eggs at the store to buy flour and sugar. There were excess vegetables that we sold, too. Newton butchered a beef cow and the hogs we’d fattened all summer. We kept what we needed and sold the rest to pay his wages and put a little cash aside. We had all worked so very hard, and thanks to Newton, we would make it for another year.
Ned came back north in late September as he had promised. He wasn’t prepared to see how well we were making out. I think he was almost disappointed. He only stayed for a few days and went back home. Mother Coalter was glad to see him go, but I don’t think she was as relieved as I was. He was such an unkind man and had no consideration for his mother’s feelings. It upset me to listen to the arrogant tone he used when he spoke to his poor mother. It was just hard for me to think that he was even related to Royce. They were so different.
Murray and Mary Beth started grade three that fall. They were nine at Thanksgiving. Royce’s death had put a lot of responsibility on them to shoulder, but they seemed to be taking it fine. Charity turned three in December. Chase was two come January. Life was moving forward. The children were all growing. We had a good roof overhead and food to eat. We certainly weren’t the happy household that we had been the previous year, but we were getting by. In those times that was all that could be expected.
I missed Royce and the wonderful life we had shared. My love for him was forever present. Not a day went by without me thinking of him or longing for his companionship. I knew I couldn’t allow myself to dwell on his death as that would have made me go plum crazy. He was gone. There was nothing that could be done to bring him back. I had to remind myself how fortunate I had been to have shared the love we had had for each other and for the time we had had together. Some days that was easier than others.
Considering how labour-intensive our daily life had become, I was pleased how well we made out that winter, me and Mother Coalter and the children. We had Newt and the Harmons to thank. They’d just drop by every once in a while to help us out. Newt and I had been close growing up, and I think he felt somewhat responsible for me since he had returned from war and Jed hadn’t. I know he bore a lot of guilt over that. And now Royce was gone too. I know that weighed heavy on his mind.
March came in like a lion in the spring of 1925. It turned real mild and rained for two days. Then we got a flash freeze-up. Everything was icy and slick outside. We put down wood ashes to help, but the path to the barn became treacherous, and poor Mother Coalter slipped on the ice. She had been on her way to the stable to help with the evening chores. She went down hard. Murray was in the barn cleaning out the gutters when he heard her yelling. He dropped his shovel and went to see what was going on. He found Grandma Coalter on the ground, crying in agony. She couldn’t get up. He knew right off something bad was wrong. He came to the house to fetch me. Between the two of us, we managed to carry Mother Coalter into the house and get her up to her room. I knew that she must have broken her leg. There was already bruising to her upper thigh and hip. I just wasn’t sure how bad it was.
I left Mary Beth in charge of Grandma and the two little ones. Murray finished the chores alone, and I headed down the icy road to our neighbours a mile away. That was the closest place with a phone for me to use to call the doctor and get some help. The doctor told me that the roads were too bad for him to head out right away. He’d come in the morning if they were passable. In the meantime we needed to keep Mother Coalter’s hip and thigh packed with ice to keep the swelling down and help with pain. It was two days later before the doctor could make the trip from town to our farm.
The doctor confirmed my fears. Mother Coalter had broken her hip. He didn’t think she would be able to walk again. He gave her morphine for the pain and said we had to keep turning her to prevent bed sores. There was nothing more that he could do. He’d be back in a week to check on her.
We were in quite a pickle. Mother Coalter was bedridden and required a lot of care. It was all I could do to look after her by myself. The morphine helped to dull the pain somewhat, but every time I turned her, she screamed out in agony. It was just pitiful to see her like that. It seemed as if things were spinning out of control.
Newt came to our rescue once again. His help was invaluable. It was too much for Murray to have to do all the chores alone, and it was too much for Mary Beth to be left in charge of Charity, Chase, and Grandma Coalter if I went out to help him. I’m not sure how we would have ever coped without him. The weeks that followed Mother Coalter’s accident were harrowing.
Now I must say, Mother Coalter was a tough lady, but the trauma was too much for her to bear. She suffered terribly. With each week that passed I saw her condition deteriorate. She became ghastly thin and pale. After weeks in bed, pneumonia set in. By May she was in grave condition. Jane Coalter passed away exactly one year, to the day, after her husband Allen had. Within a year we had lost three loved ones. Sometimes, life is just so very hard, and fate is cruel. The cross was almost too tough to bear.
Ned and his family came home to his mother’s funeral. I had called him a couple of weeks before her death to let him know her condition. I thought that maybe he would want to come and see her. He hadn’t taken the opportunity. Now she was gone.
From the time Ned arrived, he made it quite clear that he thought that he was in charge. He informed me of his intentions. The farm was being sold and I needed to make new living arrangements. He made it known that he thought that the farm’s rightful ownership had become his after the death of his father. His mother was no longer around to hamper his plans of selling. Ned had only humoured his mother’s wishes not to move. He really hadn’t wanted the burden of looking after her anyway. He knew his wife Emma and his mother would never have been able to live together. Now she was gone, and the farm would be sold.
He was such an ass. Ned and Royce were such different people. It was hard to believe that they were brothers, or that he was Jane and Allen Coalter’s son. Ned was so arrogant and condescending. He had absolutely no consideration for me or the children whatsoever. We were his kin, but he didn’t even think of that. His mother had been right. All he wanted was the money that the farm sale would give him. That’s all that mattered to him.
After Mother Coalter’s funeral, she was buried next to her husband, Allen, and her son Royce, in the graveyard at the church down the road. It was just a little over a year before since we had all attended church there together, as a family. Life was so cruel sometimes. They were all gone. I was alone once again with four children to raise, and soon not even a house for us all to live in. What tumultuous times. How would I ever deal with it all? Whatever would become of us?”
Beth sniffles and I look up, “You got me crying, again, Gran. You’ve had to endure so much! I knew that you lost Royce, but I had no idea that your troubles didn’t end there. I can’t believe that life has been so unfair to you and your kids.”
“No one ever said that life was fair, Beth, and bad things just happened. Those were dark days for me, for sure. They were some of the hardest months that I ever had to put in. Royce’s death almost crippled me emotionally, and then, to deal with losing Mr. and Mrs. Coalter so soon after, and then the farm, too. I was surely at my wits end! It had been hard enough to try and raise the twins on my own after Jed’s demise, but we had the house, and his family was there to help support us. This time I had four children to care for and no home to do it in. Royce would have turned over in his grave had he known what his brother had done.
I remember feeling very distant and numb. Everything I did just seemed mechanical. I was so, so, very sad. Actually, I would probably have been diagnosed as being clinically depressed by doctors nowadays. In those times, though, no one had really heard tell of depression, or if they did they would never have talked about it. No one wanted to be “sick in the head” so to speak. All I could do was keep going and try to survive.”