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The Dales

  MEMORANDUM FROM GEOF. DALE: 26 April 1982

Because I couldn't remember of what his father was Professor and why he left Montreal I wrote Geof. Dale to ask him. I also asked him if he could remember how it was on Lake Memphremagog. This is how he replied:

Father was Professor of Education at McGill from 1908--1920. He took leave of absence in 1918 to organize the Khaki University in England and stayed there until 1920. He felt there was an understanding that he would be the next Dean of Arts at McGill, but Moyse had the job when he returned from overseas. So father started to look around for new jobs finally settling on the U. of Toronto where he established the School of Social Science, starting in 1921. He had an old house with an Assistant, a secretary and a janitor. Now the School is a block long and four storeys high.

I have been trying to think of anecdotes and coming up dry. I remember a long string of distinguished visitors at the Howard's and the Murray's and the Dale's. We should have kept a list. I remember us walking through the bush with your father carrying a peculiar instrument --- bill hook on one side and cleaver on the other --- and telling us about the plants and trees, and the uses the Indians used tomake of them. I remember going down the Lake in the `Lady Jane' on velvet black nights, with your father telling us about the stars, naming the constellations as he pointed them out to us. And the lectures on fishing --- where and how to catch each variety and how to cook them. [You and I got up at 4 a.m. once to go fishing and didn't catch one!] I was entranced with the Judge's lectures, but I seem to remember that you girls were occasionally disenchanted. I wish I could remember all the things he told us.

How discerning of Geof.! I used to feel terribly guilty not always listening to Daddy --- I was so longing to run and explore on my own and there never seemed a way, without being rude, of interrupting him: in fact, no way whatever. However, Astronomy was another thing. That always fascinated me.

Daddy had an astounding memory. I remember marching along the road the the beat of ``Marmion'' as he recited great hunks of it.

Ethemary Cartwright was the Director of the School of Physical Education, McGill University, and spent a lot of time with the Dales. Geof. remembers her

Graecian dances on the 'sward --- in bare feet and tunic, with lighted torches. As far as I can remember the tunic caught fire only once. Father was entranced. Mother was not. The time the tunic caught fire was at a bonfire party either at your place or the Murray's. The dance was the cultural event of the evening. I imagine that we also had one of Howard Murray's ghost stories, and that the Judge led us in singing `Excelsior' and `Abdul the Bulbul Ameer'

Indeed I do remember Howard Murray's ghost stories, particularly one told in the upper room of our boat house to the accompaniment of a flashing thunderstorm which had wiped out the picnic. It ended: ``It floats, it floats'' (in sepulchral tones) and the scared audience asking: ``what floats?'' ``Ivory soap'' says Howard Murray. Roars of laughter --- every time!

Geof. ends his letter with a couple of P.Ss.

  1. ``Were you with us the night we slept on the top of Owl's Head and our breakfast fire started to get out of control? We had to rush water up from the Spring half way down to put it out.'' (I don't think I remember this, so perhaps it was a Dale adventure. A Howard wouldn't have been so careless!)
  2. ``Once Alma and I teamed up in the mixed doubles rowing event at one of your Regattas. I broke my oar. Alma won the mixed doubles event unassisted.'' (Which reminds me (Hazel) that Dr. Penfield and I won the mixed doubles canoe race in one of the Regattas. He, of course, was stern and set the pace --- and what a pace!)

Geof. also asks if I remember going to his father for help in translating ``Oh my darling Clementine'' into Latin. This was for a school performance all in Latin. Miss Bryan, the Senior Mistress at Traf. and a superb teacher, translated gif ``Pyramus and Thisbe'' from `the tedious brief scene' played by Bottom and his friends in ``A Midsummer Night's Dream''. I was the lioness and roared, it was said, most convincingly from inside a marvellous costume with eyes I could flash by pressing a button on a battery. Two girls were the wall holding their fingers to form a chink through which Pyramus and Thisbe exchanged their vows. The only other thing I can remember is the woeful chorus at the end which we all chanted: ``Hei, Mihi! Lachramatae omnes! cum Pyramus et Thisbe mortui sint!'' And then came the singing of which I can remember only two lines. They sounded like this: ``Oh, deliciae! Oh, amores! oh fermosa Claudia/ In aeternum periaeste, valde plore, Claudia!'' (Perhaps some Latin scholar can correct it.)

The last quote from Geof's letter is this: ``I think I have told you that roses remind me of your mother. It was one of my privileges to help her when she was gathering them in the garden, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and gloves, and looking serene and beautiful.''

Daddy was really interested in and knowledgeable about Astronomy. Not only did he teach us children --- waking us at any old time of night to see the aurora borealis or some infrequent planet --- he also gave lectures for the general public in the Physics Building at McGill. To these we were taken just as automatically as we were taken to performances of the d'Oyley Carte Company or The Messiah or Harry Lauder. Once, I remember, he lectured to the deaf and dumb patients at the MacKay Institute on Sherbrooke Street West. That was fascinating because an Interpreter stood beside Daddy translating into sign language all that Daddy was saying. We also attended Dr. A. S. Eve's public lectures in Physics (Dr. Eve was Rutherford Professor of Physics at McGill)

At the Farm we had a fairly high-powered telescope. Sadly the 50 mag. lens was lost in the grass, we thought. (I think Evelyn, or one of her children, now has it). I remember vividly the moment I grasped the meaning of what 400 light years (which is the distance between Arcturus and the Earth) meant. I was about 12 and the realization of this vastness was a shock beyond imagination which stayed with me for weeks.

About the Eclipse
A total eclipse of the Sun took place in the afternoon of August 31 1932 for which a lot of important people gathered at the Hermitage Country Club (Magog). I seem to remember that Daddy had something to do with the arrangements and in his files there is a folder of clippings and articles, etc. The very sad thing was that the event was almost a tragedy since the sky was pretty well obliterated by a cloud. Daddy writes about it in a letter to Alma --- then at Leamington.

ABOUT THE HANCOCKS
Geof. Dale tells me that Prof. Hancock was a friend of Mr. Davis whose camp was just south of ``Cedar Lodge''. Mr. Davis, Geof. thinks, was perhaps a publisher in New York, or a writer of some sort. The Hancocks camped with the Davis' and the Dales, as wellas the Howards, on several occasions. Some of their experiences were pretty rough, such as the time when they were camping in the Dales' pasture with cows present. The Campers folded open making the sides into two large beds: Mr. and Mrs on one side and the three girls on the other. The cows found the bottom of the beds excellent back-scratching boards and one night scratched the beds into complete collapse tumbling everyone onto the ground!

? In 1922 and again in 1922 Professor Charles Hancock, his wife and daughters Harriet (who had the most enviable red hair), Dora & Lucy canme from the University of Virginia, Charlotteville, Va. to spend two months camping on the Farm. They made use of South Home as well as their tent.

I think 1924 may have been a year in which there was an eclipse of the sun and Prof. Hancock was one of the many visitors to the Farm on that occasion. (Must check) Not so

Correction --- Aug. 1983.

Alma has sent me from England files of our father's containing a letter from Prof. Hancock dated 8 Sept. 1919 in which he tells of their trip back to Virginia and thanks Daddy for the Howard hospitality at the Farm. Perhaps they came again but I don't think so. Anyway, Evelyn remembers Mrs Hancock making Harriet's curls by brushing her long hair around a broom handle! [Ours were done on a finger.]



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Prof. T.H. MERRETT
Fri Oct 17 12:03:53 EDT 1997