I Smell a Love Story
It started with a phone call. My grandmother, Mary Ann Sparks Ralston Schofield had died a few months earlier at 90 years old and my mother was just getting around to going through her personal papers. At the time Gramma’s name was legally Ralston but there was no marriage certificate with this name to be found. Mom called me to say that “Gramma’s name was not ‘Schofield’, my grandfather’s name. A murmur ran through my body, “I smell a love story”!
I was travelling for work at the time and had plenty of air miles points, “We’re going to England to find the love story”, I declared. My daughter, Jane, my mom and I were going on a “three generational family journey of discovery”. We contacted both my grandparents’ families to say we were planning a trip to England, could we see them? All of them welcomed us warmly.
My grandparents, Mary Ann and Joseph Schofield had emigrated to Canada in 1919, immediately after the First World War. They had met in a hospital; Mary Ann was a nurse and Joseph (after whom I am named) was a soldier who had shrapnel in his hip and mustard gas in his lungs and was very ill. Gramma, who was married, tenderly looked after him and love was in the air. She wanted children but no babies were coming with John… then after some time, she was pregnant!
After the war when Joe was fairly well healed, there were no jobs and no real prospects in England, Joe’s brother Harry who had emigrated to Canada earlier had written to him and said, “The streets are paved with gold. It’s a wonderful place to be”. Joe was the first to come and arrived in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. It was not as described! It was a barren landscape if you had come from the lush marshlands of Norfolk. Gramma followed by ship to Montreal eight months pregnant.
I am a big fan of the Salvation Army and have supported them in many ways because they were so good to my grandmother in Montreal. They helped her find her way to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) station and for her to get on the right car. It was a wooden bench for the five-day journey across the country. The ‘Sally Ann’ had given her a pillow, a blanket, and enough food to make the journey as comfortable as you can be when you’re eight months pregnant.
Gramma told me that when she arrived at the bleak landscape she sat under the only tree in Swift Current with her new baby and cried for three months. That didn’t help at all, so she pulled up her bootstraps and made a life and it unfolded. They fit in and made friends. Children were born and raised. Their youngest child, Norma died in a schoolyard accident, but my mother and her brother, Harry, had childhoods running for miles on the flat landscape, always close to home when you could see your house from miles away. Life wasn’t easy but it was home. Gramma looked like she would be more comfortable in New York City than Swift Current, Saskatchewan.
Fiftieth anniversaries were big events; I vividly remembered my dad’s parents fiftieth anniversary in Regina and I wanted my mom’s parents to celebrate theirs, but my grandmother was emphatic there would be no big party to mark their important anniversaries. I was crushed. As a kid I had loved the wonderful times at other family parties.
About that time in the 1950s there was great excitement when my grandparents were going to fly to England from Regina (see photos). My parents packed us up in the car with the four kids and took our grandparents to catch their flight in Regina. It was a very big deal for my family.
Flash forward to the phone call from my mom about Gramma’s name not being Schofield (my grandfather’s name) on the immigration paperwork. My mind raced to the original thought about a love story.
When we arrived in London, England we went immediately to East Dereham. Blanche Cartwright, who was now 93, was a friend of Grammas from school days and had written to Gramma weekly for over 50 years. She told us the story. My grandparents fell deeply in love while he was her patient, and she abandoned her marriage to John Ralston. They left England to escape the scandal and to be free to live the lives they dreamed of together. Ah ha! I was right!
My grandmother’s cousins, John and Ida Sparks were also in their 90s and still alive. We went to visit them. John and Ida had been their witnesses when they married, after living together for 50 years. Ida was reluctant to speak, as if she was betraying a secret but John was filled with stories. We were very clear about supporting the love story and were not judgemental in any way – it’s how life is!
We wanted to know all the details of the English wedding. Did Gramma wear a hat? Was there a reception? Who attended? Was it an afternoon affair?
There was an afternoon tea for family and friends. We found their marriage recorded in the church registry 50 years after they had left England.
My grandparents’ trip to England had been because Blanche had written to them to say that John had died, and they were finally free to marry each other.
Life for our English family had not been easy. There were fewer educational opportunities. Jobs were hard to come by. Council housing was all they could afford. But our English family were so welcoming, generous beyond belief and so kind to their Canadian cousins. We loved them and have been back to visit them again.
As we drove out of East Dereham, the three of us at the same time said, “Let’s raise a (metaphorical) glass of wine to toast Mary Ann and Joe for finding their way to Canada so that we could have this glorious opportunity to be Canadians”. We were deeply grateful to this closet of rattling skeletons.
Every July 1 we say, “Happy Birthday Canada” and thank heavens that this love story caused us to be born in this glorious country. We are grateful, for the accidental early 20th century immigrants. “Raise your glass – here’s to Canada”:
Joey Stewart loves love stories and goes far and wide in pursuit of them. Thank you to the Government of Canada and the Salvation Army for the use of their icons. Family photo from the Joey Stewart Collection.
Tell her about your love stories at [email protected].
Photos: Joey Stewart family albums
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