Emmett sisters had a friend in elderly neighbour

The story about Alf Holmes that follows is taken mainly from my sister Ruth’s memoirs. I liked Alf too but I believe Ruth felt a stronger attachment to him than I. Our mother told us about the days when Ruth was a toddler. Alf would come by and settle in the comfortable chair we had in the kitchen. Ruth would climb on his knee. Alf would bounce her and make funny noises and faces to entertain her and in return Ruth would stick her little fist into his toothless mouth. That made Alf laugh and laugh. Here is the story about Alf:

Alf was one of those out-of-work men who came through our area during the Depression. He was happy to have odd jobs on farms or anywhere. His background was never known, except that he had once lived in Toronto and had a wife. No one knew why they went their separate ways.

Perhaps he had saved a little money from his work. He was able to buy a derelict house on a small lot near my childhood home. Or perhaps he didn’t buy it. Maybe no one else wanted it and he just moved in.

Alf was not a big man nor did he appear to be strong. He had white hair, a deeply lined face and was never seen without a healthy growth of white stubble. He wore a pair of black army boots with thick grey socks. Heavy navy trousers, a nondescript shirt and an old cap completed his wardrobe. A wide black belt held everything snugly in place in winter and summer. I do not recall a washing ever being hung out while Alf batched it. Laundry did not appear high on Alf’s list of priorities.

At ages five and seven my sister and I were able to walk down the road to his house for visits. The weathered wood-sided house that he lived in was set close to the gravel road. A pathway edged with tall grass led to his house and passed through a gate held up by a fence in similar disrepair as the house. A door and two windows faced north with one window on the west.

Indoors, the living, kitchen and bedroom areas were contained in one room. The windows were tinted a smokey creosote colour with patterns of darker brown streaks caused by leaks in rainy weather. A cast iron Quebec heater was attached to a long line of stovepipes. Alf would sit by the stove and was able to keep a steady feed of wood going into the stove, to ward off the cold that seeped through the cracks in the house.

A sideboard of sorts stood against the south wall and held his food, condiments and dishes. His diet consisted mainly of tea, white bread and bologna spiced up with a bit of mustard. Tattered curtains hung at the windows. They had adopted the same colour scheme as the window glass. A collection of wooden chairs, a table, a couch used as a bed and a few odds and ends made up Alf’s living quarters. A woodshed on the south and a backhouse beyond the shed completed his home environment.

Alf seemed to enjoy our visits. I don’t remember what our conversations consisted of, likely little girl chatter about kittens and dolls and the games we played. As Alf became older he would send us off to Creemore two miles away to buy his supply of bread and bologna. On one or two occasions on hot summer days he sent me off on my bicycle to buy a brick of ice cream. I peddled the bike as hard as I could but before I returned home the ice cream was leaking out. But never mind. Before the days of refrigerators half melted ice cream was a big treat. Alf always understood the psychology of reward. We always received a nickel or a dime for our effort, a huge amount of money in our eyes.

One of Alf’s favourite stories was about a large, partly rusted safety pin. He claimed his wife had used it to hold up her bloomers. My sister and I always wondered about his affection for his wife that shone through this story while he never revealed her name or anything about her.

The winters proved difficult for Alf as he aged and grew senile. For several winters he stayed with us and slept on our couch in the front room. He was a pleasant man but my mother had to prepare food that he could eat as he had no teeth. It was necessary to buy him white bakeshop bread as he did not like my mother’s homemade bread.

He rolled his own cigarettes and the area where he sat was littered with fragments of tobacco. One thing my mother insisted on was that he should change his underwear weekly. I remember my mother saying to my father, “You get Alf upstairs and make certain he puts on clean underwear.”

However, there were more serious worries. Twice he lit newspapers on fire in the night while on the couch in the front room.

When he returned to his home one spring he was proving unable to look after himself. One night he stored his army boots in his Quebec heater and could not remember where he had left them. In the morning he lit a fire for his tea before he realized where his boots were.

In the nights, he took to wandering. My parents would receive calls from Dunedin to go and pick him up. It became necessary for my father to make arrangements for him to go to Beeton Manor, what was also then called the Poor House, a name taken from the work houses in England where people with no income were placed. At the time there were no nursing homes or seniors’ apartments.

The day arrived when Alf was told he would be living at Beeton Manor. Our safety was in peril if he lived with us so it was no option.

Alf cried. All he could say was “the poor house” over and over again.

Whatever he had to take with him was minimal and of no value. It is a sad thing that after a lifetime he had nothing. Alf did not live long after. My parents received news of his death. To this day his tears and his saying over and over, “the poor house” still breaks my heart.

Helen Blackburn is a retired teacher, avid gardener and a long-time contributor to The Creemore Echo. She writes about local history.