Canadian vets thanked

South Korean president’s letter expresses ‘warmest gratitude and deepest respect

On June 1, 2010, the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of war in Korea, the President of the Republic of Korea, Lee Myung-bak, sent personal letters to Canadian veterans who served in his country.

The letter expresses the “warmest gratitude and deepest respect” of the Korean people. It was the first time such a letter has been sent to the veterans.

One Ramara veteran who received the letter is my husband, Major General (Retired) Douglas R. Baker CMM CD.

Born in Toronto, Baker has deep roots in the Sebright area. His family returned to Sebright and then to Orillia in the mid-1940s. He first put on a military uniform as an Army Cadet at Orillia Central school in 1944. He continued his keen interest in the Army Cadets throughout high school at Orillia Collegiate and was appointed commanding officer of the corps in his Grade 12 year.

During those years, Baker enlisted as a gunner in the local reserve battery of the 45th Anti-Tank Regiment (Grey and Simcoe Foresters). In the summer of 1950, he was sent to Camp Shilo for officer training with a view to attending the Royal Military College that fall. That was the road not taken.

Instead, when the Korean War broke out, the young officer cadets were given the opportunity to volunteer for active service and receive a reserve commission. Some of the cadets chose to do so and their training intensified until November. They became members of the 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery and were sent by troop train on their way to the West Coast for embarkation.

Their baptism of fire came early on the morning of Nov. 2, when their troop train collided head on with an oncoming passenger train in an isolated area near the Canoe River in B.C.

In an instant, the young men were faced with the task of putting into practice all the leadership training and skills they had just acquired. In the chaos of escaping steam, shifting wreckage and the ever-present risk of fire, the rescue efforts, finding survivors and caring for the injured, fell to those who were there, some of whom had never seen a dead person.

Seventeen soldiers and four train crew lost their lives in that incident.

After just a few days in Alberta to regroup, the troops boarded another train to continue the journey west for further training in Washington State and eventually to the port in Seattle. There they embarked on a troop ship for a rather nasty non-stop crossing of a very stormy Pacific, straight to Busan, South Korea, and then into the war zone.

The tour lasted one year, after which Baker returned to Canada to be trained as an artillery observation pilot. He pursued his career as an artillery officer, moving often with his family back and forth across Canada and several times to Europe. His career involved command postings at every level interspersed with military studies and administrative positions.

He achieved the rank of major general and, in 1981, was awarded the CMM (Commander of the Order of Military Merit) which is the military counterpart of the Order of Canada. His final posting was to Rome. Italy, as deputy commandant of the NATO Defence College. He retired to Ramara in 1988.

Old soldiers are reluctant to speak of their wartime experiences. They saw their duty and they did it, no thanks expected.

However, a word of appreciation is an unexpected pleasure. Over the recent past, there have been a few of these unexpected moments. The first was when a young woman representing Veterans Affairs Canada came to the Baker home to explain about the new benefits and plans for veterans. She began her remarks with an expression of “sincere thanks for your service to the country.”

Soon after that, a new family moved in down the street. One day, when the general was out walking, the young man approached and said, ”I understand that you are a veteran.”

“Yes, that’s correct,” was the reply. The young fellow snapped a smart salute and said, “I’d like to say thank you for all that you veterans have done for the rest of us.”

An even more touching event happened when granddaughter Becky went to Korea to visit a friend she had met at university. The girl took Becky to meet her grandmother, who had lost her husband in the war. The old lady made an impassioned speech asking Becky to be sure to tell her grandfather how much it meant to the Korean people that the Canadians had come to help them in their troubles.

Now, the Korean President has made it his business to obtain the current addresses of surviving Korea veterans in order to pay tribute to the Canadian veterans for their courage and commitment.

He refers to them as “our true heroes.”

Every year in November, the poppies remind the rest of us, “Lest we forget.”

The veterans can never forget.

This article was originally published in the November/December 2010 issue of the Ramara Chronicle.

They followed the trees

Pine-stump fences and cedar rails are among the remnants of the local logging industry

My father-in-law, Frederick C. Baker, was born in 1906 in a log home on the shores of the Head River. His family were pioneers in the Sebright area in the mid 1800s. The family oral history tells that Fred’s maternal grandfather, Robert Young, was the first white settler in the Sebright area and that he lived there for several years before discovering the lake that bears his name, Young’s Lake.

Grandfather Young did not start out as a lumberman. His occupation was to ride what was locally referred to as The Pony Express. He travelled on horseback from the County Town of Whitby, bringing the mail to the Atherley area. As a sideline, he often carried small items for sale to the families along the way, like a country pedlar. It was his custom to break his journey with an overnight stay with a family near Uxbridge. Eventually, he married the daughter of the house, one Elizabeth Ann Smith, and brought her to live in Sebright.

Lumbering was the business of the day, so Young became a lumberman. He saw an opportunity to take advantage of the lumber being harvested and he built a sawmill in the village. After the trees had been cut, more settlers moved into the area to begin farming. Here was another opportunity, so Young established a cheese factory to use up the excess milk. While I could find no document to support it, the family’s oral history suggests it was Young who, in the late 1870s, donated the land on which the Sebright Church and its neighbouring cemetery are located. His gravestone is to be found in that cemetery.

Around the turn of the century, one of Grandfather Young’s daughters, Mary Alberta, married another member of the brotherhood of lumbermen, Charles Baker. Baker was a “timber cruiser,” a specialist in the field of lumbering. It was his task to go out by canoe and assess the potential of new areas for harvest. One of his favourite stories was of finding an area along the Head River where there was a single magnificent black cherry tree. The land was for sale, so he made the purchase, cut down the tree, took it to Orillia and sold it to Rolland Boat Works to be used for one of the beautiful wooden boats that were built there. The profit from the lumber in that one tree was enough to pay for the land on which it had grown.

Charles and Min, as she was called, lived in a log home near the Head River bridge. They raised a family of three boys and three girls. Their son Fred was the only one who followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather to become a lumberjack. Fred had attended the one-room school in Sebright, where his duties included carrying wood for the furnace and carrying water from the nearby spring for drinking. With only one teacher for all grades, it was also the duty of the older students to coach the little ones with their reading and arithmetic.

Only a few years later, Fred went to work in the bush. Lumbering was a hard and dangerous life. Not only did these youngsters have to learn to use the risky tools of their trade, but they found that there were horses to be handled, falling trees to be avoided and, perhaps most perilous of all, riding the logs that were floated down the river, dodging hazards, breaking up log jams and always avoiding what they termed “widow makers” of one sort or another. At the end of the season, when the young men came out of the bush with high spirits and full pockets, there were rivalries with the town boys and hijinx that are perhaps better left to our imagination.

After a few years of life as a lumberjack, Fred decided to head for the city for a change. There he met the love of his life, Caroline Hudson. Carrie was born in London, England and had recently emigrated to Toronto with her family. They were married in 1927 and started a family of four boys.

Fred’s heart never left the country. He loved the outdoors, fishing, hunting and spending time in the familiar woods. Carrie was a city girl who for years complained that they never went anywhere on holiday except “Sebright, Sebright, Sebright!”

Their young sons shared their father’s views and enjoyed carefree, barefoot summers with their grandparents— in Sebright. One of those boys, my husband, now nearly 80 himself, can still remember those summers and the huge piles of sawdust left from his great grandfather’s sawmill. Nowadays we can still see remnants of the logging industry in the pine-stump fences and cedar rails in the area.

Near the end of the Second World War, the family moved back to Sebright and lived for a year in a log house without electricity or indoor plumbing. That was not Carrie’s best year.

The boys, however, thought it was great. They attended the same one-room school that their father had attended and one of their duties was still to carry water from the spring. That spring still flows today, but it now bears a sign saying that it is contaminated and unfit for drinking.

None of the boys continued in the lumbering tradition, but Fred never lost his love for the joys of nature. He was a gentleman of the old school, one who always removed his hat indoors and, if ever one of the boys use an expletive or any rough language, they’d hear a sharp rebuke: “Watch your language. There’s ladies present!”

Fred was a wise man, quiet and well-read. He was a great confidant and if he ever gave advice, it was carefully reasoned and spoken with kindness.

He often asked me when I was going to write my book. I know he wanted me to write of the family history but I was young and busy and impressed with academia’s insistence upon empirical evidence and documentary proof. How sad that I wasted the opportunity to record the tales and recollections that this wonderful man could have shared.

This article was originally published in the September/October 2010 issue of the Ramara Chronicle.

Atherley United marks 115 years

Photo credit: Rod Brazier

As the Atherley United Church celebrates its 115th anniversary this year, a congregation member takes a look back at the history of the church.

They worked hard all that summer of 1895. We can picture farmers hurrying away after morning milking, to work for a few hours as they waited for the hay to be dry enough to cut; businessmen might have a quick supper in order to work through the long hours of early dusk, all working cheerfully under the direction of the architect and the stone mason.

Labouring with the unsophisticated tools of the day, they were building a dream, those Atherley Methodists.

 

The previous year they had collected $115 to purchase the plot of land on the corner of Balsam Road and Courtland Street. There they would build a church and a Sunday school for their children. Now they were determined to have the building ready for the beginning of the school year. And they did. On Sept. 12, 1895, the Atherley Methodist Church was officially dedicated. Descendants of some of the founding fathers still worship in the church today.

In those early days of strict Sabbath laws and large families, the church became a thriving centre both spiritually and socially. We can only imagine the despair when the tall, “straight and narrow” steeple was destroyed in a hurricane in 1908. The steeple was rebuilt to a lesser height, but the congregation continued to increase, to a total, in 1931, of 239 souls with 69 children in the Sunday School.

Through the war years and the Great Depression, the church proved to be “a very present help in time of trouble.” After the Second World War, times changed and families changed as well. The strict Lord’s Day laws relaxed and Sunday became more of a day of recreation. For a while, there were still active groups and organizations for all ages.

In 1925 there was a great union of churches, and the Atherley Methodist Church became the Atherley United Church. In 2010, we celebrate the 85th anniversary of the United Church of Canada as well as our own 115th anniversary.

The building itself has undergone many changes and improvements, many of which were funded by generous financial donations as well as hard work. Gifts of beauty, such as the Good Shepherd stained glass window, the communion table and baptismal font have been donated in memory of loved ones. When the Udney United Church closed, many of its memorial treasures found a new home in Atherley.

From time to time, Atherley has worshipped in partnership with other local churches, including Fairvalley, Udney, Uptergrove and Brechin. At present, Atherley and Brechin form a two-point charge under the leadership of Reverend Robin Thomson, the latest in a line of 33 ministers ably supported by 14 volunteers at the organ or piano.

The steeple required repairs and was again reduced in height in 1988.

Like our steeple, our congregation is aging and ailing, and steadily reducing in size. On any given Sunday, attendance may be fewer than 20, and our Sunday School has become a matter of “where two or three are gathered.” Gone are the formal meetings of United Church Women and the groups devoted to youth and children, yet there is still a will to keep the doors open and the church community alive.

As we celebrate this 115th anniversary year, special events each month offer food and fellowship. The Century of Bridal Gowns and Wedding Theme weekend in June gave us an opportunity to look back on our heritage.

More events are in store, with the main event being our 115th anniversary service on Sunday, Sept. 12th at 11a.m.

This article was originally published in the Ramara Chronicle in July 2010.

At home afloat

Our aquatic adventures began at a London boat show in 1975.

Retirement comes especially early to members of the Armed Forces, and with that time on the horizon, my husband and I were fortunate to find a challenging new way of life. We discovered it in plenty of time to give it a good try before com- mitting on a long-term basis.

Our new love was boating, and we have never looked back.

Our aquatic adventures began with a visit to the fabulous London Boat Show at Earlscourt in 1975. There we collected the usual shopping bag full of brochures and a wealth of boating ideas. We learned of a flotilla sailing holiday in the Greek Islands, which sounded most appealing. To join their flotilla, at least one crew member had to have a helmsman’s certificate. So we signed up for a dinghy sailing course, which was given on a huge, flooded gravel pit in very cold weather in March, in England.

The cruise took place the following July, when we flew from London to Athens and were taken by bus to Epidavros, where we were assigned to a 25-foot sailboat, of which there were 13 in the fleet. There were 12 guest boats and one other, which carried a crew consisting of a captain, who was in overall charge, and a mechanic, who thor- oughly checked one boat a day and took care of any problems. The third crew member was Rosie, the hostess, who rowed around to every boat at the end of the day and gave us hints on where to eat or get water. Every evening, the captain held a meeting with the other captains, one from each boat. He outlined the course for the following day, any hazards to watch out for and any special instructions for mooring at the next destination. Most days finished with dinner at a local taverna with plenty of retsina and ouzo.

It was a memorable holiday and led to us buy- ing a 28-foot Grampian sailboat, which we named Chinook, upon our return to Canada the following year. We sailed mostly on Lake On- tario until my husband was posted to New Brunswick in 1979. Then we sailed across Lake Ontario, took the boat down the Oswego and Erie canals, down the Hudson River to New York, up Long Island Sound, the Cape Cod Canal, up the east coast to New Brunswick, through the Re- versing Falls and on up the St. John River to Fredericton. We enjoyed the boating life so much that we decided to buy a slightly larger boat for our retirement, which began in 1986.

We chose an Albin 36-foot trawler, which has a displacement hull and does not go very fast, but is very comfortable and roomy. Once again we did the Lake Ontario/ Erie Canal/Hudson River route to New York. Little did we suspect, taking photos of the Twin Towers as we passed by, what disaster lay a few years ahead for those spectacular structures.

Our journey continued south from New York via the Intracoastal Waterway to Florida. A popular departure point for small craft making the journey across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas is Lake Worth, roughly half way between Cape Canaveral and Fort Lauderdale. Boaters anchor in the lake to wait for the best possible wind and weather conditions for the crossing, which can take five or six hours out of sight of land. Crossing from Lake Worth Inlet to Freeport is the shortest route, about 55 miles, to the Bahamas.

We went island hopping when we first arrived there, but once we found Green Turtle Cay in the Abacos, we put the anchor down and stayed, re- turning every winter for seven years until 1993, when health problems forced us ashore. The boat was stored over the summers at Titusville, Florida, just north of Cape Canaveral. While we were laying up the boat in the spring and fitting out in the fall, we were able to watch several launches from the Space Centre.

There are many familiar sayings about boating. “A yacht is a hole in the water that you pour money in,” or, “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.” Such sayings only become old and familiar because there is a certain element of truth in them. Another familiar boating syndrome is “two foot-itis,” which refers to boat owners to want a boat just a bit bigger than the one they have. Boats are indeed expensive, and become more so with every improvement in electronics or boating accessories. However, the return on investment is measured in pure pleasure and pride of ownership.

Of course, boating is not all pleasure. There is always maintenance, both mechanical, to keep the engine going dependably, and the very demanding work of keeping fibreglass gleaming, or varnishing teak to keep the brightwork shipshape.

It would be unfair to would-be boaters not to speak of training. So far I have only mentioned the day sailing course, taken in small dinghies to prepare for the sailboat cruise. Before setting out on a major trip like the Intracoastal Waterway or crossing the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas, it is essential to undergo some sort of training. It’s not anything like using a road map and following the signs along the way.

The Canadian Power and Sail Squadron is a non-profit organization which for more than 70 years has provided recreational boaters with instruction and advice to improve their boating knowledge, safety, vessel handling and navigational skills. Courses include marine radio opera- tion, astral navigation, piloting, navigating with GPS, electronic navigating, radar for pleasure craft, celestial navigation, weather, extended cruising, marine maintenance and more. Since September 2009, all operators of a motorized pleasure craft have to show proof of competence in the form of a CPS Pleasure Craft Operator Card (PCOC). Students successfully completing the CPS boating courses or the PCOC exam receive a one-year complimentary membership in the Canadian Power and Sail Squadron. More in- formation about the CPS and the PCOC exam can be obtained at 1-888-277-2628.

When failing health ended our cruising days in 1993, we set off on the long trip home, reversing our route up the Intracoastal, which seemed very long, especially with the delays caused by spring flooding. Once we had crossed Lake Ontario, we traveled to Trenton and made our way up the Trent-Severn Waterway all the way to Lagoon City, where we said goodbye to our beloved boat, the MV Barbara.

We now spend our winters on the west coast of Florida, in our “land yacht” — a fifth-wheel RV. The boat we have now is a G3 tunnel boat, which is perfect for fishing in the shallow waters of the Crystal River area and the inshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Our latest concern is the BP oil spill disaster, and how it will affect our boating playground.

This article was originally published in the Ramara Chronicle in July 2010.