dual personalities

I woke up this morning from a vivid dream in which I had composed a brilliantly insightful blog post. Unfortunately, waking drove my stellar plan away, and all I remember now is something vague about historical novels. On the upside, that experience got me thinking about how time eventually reduces our lives to a series of random snippets, like a dream that other people — not the dreamer — must somehow remember. Inevitably, those who study the past make a coherent story out of incomplete evidence. It’s important to remember that, try as we might to be objective and find “the truth,” those who tell the story, shape it.

Consider our great grandfather, Daniel Cameron, about whom we know so little. Day in and day out, from 1857 to 1929, Daniel lived and worked; he traveled from London to South Africa, back to Scotland, and thence to Canada and the United States. He married and had four children. He worked for the same company from the moment he landed a job in Canada, until a month before his death in 1929. But what do we really know about him? Bits and pieces –some tantalizing (what happened to those medals?),

some of them rather humorous,

and some more mundane.

By the way, the medals article appeared in the Montpelier Morning Post of January, 1910, while the other two stories ran in the Burlington Free Press. The car-fire occurred in January, 1928 and the election in March, 1918. When Daniel died in May, 1929, his obituary appeared in the Burlington Free Press.

Alas, newspapers often contain errors: DHC was not born in Edinburgh, though he might have thought it was his birthplace, and he lived in Rockland (not Rodsland), Ontario. His father did die in South Africa, but the likelihood of his earning a commission in the regiment (he had transferred to the 10th Lincolnshire by that time ) is effectively nil. All this goes to show that it is vital to verify information!

Since I get to “frame the story”, I’d say that our great grandfather was a Christian gentleman, who managed to maintain his good character even in the darkest of times: in a Scottish orphanage; during WWI when his son served and his nephew was killed; when his daughter died soon after, and when he lost his job. He was a dependable, intelligent, honest, and honorable man, strict with his sons and a pushover with his daughters, and devoted to his wife — a man who would not have approved this public attention to his private life, but whose example we are in need of these days.

Meanwhile, in my small corner of the North Country, the ground is still frozen but the amaryllis is blooming!

I can’t tell you what a morale boost beautiful flowers are, especially at this time of year, when the snow and ice still lie thick on the ground and the wind bites. Thank you CDC and JRP for such a lovely gift!

* The Tragically Hip, “A Beautiful Thing”