Granddad's Partsman Award

I was straightening out some things at Mom's place while she's in the hospital, and I stumbled across this plaque. I've seen it before, of course, and I'm pretty sure Dad told me what his father's award-winning idea was . . . but I've forgotten. Sometimes it feels like some of the most important memories slip away. Was this one of them? I'll never know. 

 

83

Dad would have turned 83 today, had pancreatic cancer not taken him away in 2018. Here he is at left with his father, William Woods, sometime in the late 1950s. 

Happy birthday, Dad. I hope you're flying something cool. 

 

William Woods, 1956

Here's a photo of my paternal grandfather, shot back in October of1956. 

The Fading Stones

Old photographs fascinate me. Here we have what appears to be a stone fence connected to a round stone building. Who shot this? Where did they shoot it, and when? What's the significance of the building?

Based on the other negatives on the strip, I can  limit the "who" to my parents or Dad's parents. "When" could be anytime between the 1950s to the 1960s. Beyond that...a mystery captured in silver nitrate. Or, since this is a scan, in photons, inconstant as memory.

UPDATE: Mom says this could be Upper Fort Garry, north of Winnipeg, sometime in the late 1960s. 

Hope and William

Yesterday I scanned some very old black and white negatives for Mom, and among them was this photo of my paternal grandparents, Hope and William Woods. They both look quite young here, perhaps the youngest I've seen them; I have no idea where or when this photo might have been taken. 

Shut Up & Sit Down Reviews Crokinole

I really enjoy crokinole, and my dad and his dad were really good at it, playing in tournaments together. So in their honour, and to mark Canada Day, here's the Shut Up & Sit Down review of one of Canada's most popular gifts to the  world, crokinole. 

Dad and Granddad

Here's a nice shot of Dad and Granddad from 1959. In Dauphin, Manitoba? You can really see the father-son resemblance here. 

William and Robert

Here's a shot of Dad (right) and Granddad (left) in 1959. Dad would have been 17 in this shot. I believe this would have been in Aylsham, Saskatchewan, but it could also have been Dauphin, Manitoba. Note Dad's pipe.

Dad's father died young, at 54, and I believe he only met Mom once. You could tell that the loss deeply affected Dad, who I remember told me once that his father sometimes, as a ghostly vision or a dream, would come sit on the bed in the darkest hours of the night and ask Dad how he was doing. You could tell that Dad found these visits comforting. While I'm not a spiritual person, I honestly hope they're together now, maybe playing crokinole. 

Money Spent in 1941

While helping Dad with some stuff a couple of weekends ago, we came across this old record of the money his parents spent in 1941, a year before Dad was born. It looks like most of the spending supported their farm; they bought $55 worth of lumber, a $25 plough, a team of horses for $117, $23 for wages (a farm hand, perhaps?), two harnesses for $30, $15 in oats, $5 worth of nails, a $25 cow, and a $20 trip to Prince Albert, among other fascinating items. 

Dad and Granddad

For Father's Day, it seems appropriate to look back and see Dad with his Dad, back sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Today Dad looks a lot like his father did back then! Sadly, Sean and I never got to meet Granddad, but at least there are some photos. 

A Dog in the Shadows

By now everyone knows that I'm not a dog person, but I find this image strangely evocative. This would be the dog of my paternal grandparents, shot sometime in the early 1960s. 

Grandma and Granddad Woods

I don't have many photos of Dad's side of the family, so I was pretty happy to see these shots of his parents on what might be their farm near Dauphin, Manitoba. Judging by the vehicles, perhaps this is the late 1950s..?

Edited to add:

Dad confirmed that this is the old Woods farm four or five miles north of Dauphin. He thinks this was taken around 1961 or 1962. Dad's first car, a Fiat 600, is in the background; it had "suicide doors," that is, they opened at the front. It was red with a tan interior, 4-speed standard transmission. 

The Bushmasters

On the Victoria Day long weekend of 1974, the Woods of Leaf Rapids (Mom, Dad, me and Dad's cousin Hugh, his wife Diane and their children William and Carol Ann) decided to drive down the ramshackle trail that led to the Suwannee River for a weekend of camping. It was our first trip to what eventually became the Suwannee River campground, and it was a memorable one.

In these days there wasn't actually a formal campground yet, nor a proper road, just a trail carved through the trees. As we approached the river, we ran into a formidable obstacle: the trail had been washed out. There was no way our cars could get through.

Fortunately, living in the north had honed everyone's survival skills (or at least our "I still want to go camping" skills). Everyone climbed out of our cars and we ventured into the forest for deadfall, collecting tree trunks and logs and then lining them up across the washed out section of trail to create our own makeshift bridge. Being only five years old I wasn't much help, but I vividly remember stomping around in the mud and tossing a few sticks onto the growing pile.

I don't remember how long it took us to build our bridge, but as a child it seemed like a very long time indeed. But eventually Dad and Hugh declared the deed done and we re-entered our cars. Would the bridge hold, or would the old, dead wood split and splinter, sending our cars sinking into the quagmire? I stood up on the seat and pressed my hands to the window, eyes wide, watching as Hugh and Diane's Datsun bumped and bounced along the bridge, flattening the logs into the hungry mud. But at last they made it to the other side, and it was our turn to cross the sticky chasm.

Our vehicle was larger and heavier than the Datsun, and I watched wide eyed, bones rattling as our wheels jounced and wobbled on the span. It felt as though we were sinking, but I wasn't afraid; this was a great adventure. Perhaps the bridge would collapse and we'd slowly sink into the earth, saved only by the intervention of our cousins, hauling us out through the Plymouth's windows at the last possible second!

It didn't happen that way. In a matter of seconds we, too, had safely crossed, and minutes later we were at the campsite - really just a few clearings for vehicles and a rather disgusting outhouse.

After all that work, of course, it began to snow. The tent trailer had no heater and we spent three chilly days shivering in our sleeping blankets. (Late May, of course, is far too early to start camping in northern Manitoba if you expect a snow-free experience.)

But though we had to BBQ with our mittens on, it was still a pretty good weekend. In later years the people of Leaf Rapids would build a real campground, with proper washrooms, picnic tables and fire pits, only to abandon these facilities in the late 90s as the town slowly withered. Nature has long since reclaimed the site, so visitors attempting to visit the original Suwanee campground today (there is today another, much smaller campground at another spot on the river) might very well have to do what we did back then - engineer your own means of making your way down to the river.

But you might find the destination well worth the journey.

Two Stories About William Woods

Hope and William Woods, July 1957

Today Sean and I took our parents out to Huckleberry's restaurant in Wetaskiwin to celebrate Father's Day and a belated Mother's Day. On our way back to Leduc, Dad related two stories about his own father, William Woods.

The first story is one of Dad's earliest memories. It takes place in 1945 or 46, when Dad was three or four years old and his family was working their farm in Moose Range, Saskatchewan. Granddad was attempting to assemble a stovepipe within a granary to provide warmth for some chicks. But however Granddad struggled, he couldn't make the pipe sections fit together. His temper slowly simmered and finally burst, and he heaved the stovepipe to the floor. "If you don't want to go in, you son of a bitch, you don't have to!" he declared, leaping into the air and flattening the pipe with one mighty stomp. Sweet revenge!

Later, when Dad was 17 and helping his father on their second farm in Dauphin, Manitoba, Granddad's tractor wouldn't start. The elder Woods' strong hands twisted the choke and cranked the key over and over to no avail, until finally Granddad - who was "5'2" and built like a box" according to Dad - leaped from the tractor's seat, delivered a spinning kick to the tire on the way down, and with balletic grace flung his felt hat upon the ground the moment his feet touched the earth. Dad was paralyzed with laughter, and indeed his driving became a little shaky as he related the tale, laughing still. The Woods temper is somewhat infamous, but luckily it's always vented against inanimate objects!