Searching for McGregor

 

                                      Searching for McGregor

 

I have an old black and white snapshot of my father.  It is winter and he is standing outdoors in the snow with a cigarette in his hand. In the background is an old tar papered building; a camp in the woods; and written on the back of the snapshot in my Grandmother's handwriting are the words:

 

"Fred... on the 'range' north of F'ton in the '30's, worked for bed and board for 10¢ a day... a feature of the hungry '30's"

 

But this story is not about my father; rather it is about my search for a P.McGregor. However, like my father, McGregor also lived in the hungry '30's and he spent some time at Fredericton Junction Junction for a while.  When I look at my father's picture I sometimes think of McGregor for they were of the same era.  My father had perhaps known him.  My father maybe even envied him; for McGregor was a travelling man. McGregor was also 'a feature of the hungry 30's.'

 

I never knew McGregor, but he interests me, and I have found him in several different places. Manysummers ago in 2001. I found him in  Cacouna, Quebec; the summer after that he was found in Pudding Bay, Nova Scotia. Just a few years ago I discovered him again and it was said that he had been located in Sussex, NB.  The first time I found him I was just a few miles from home at Hoyt.

 

McGregor was an itinerant artist during '30's and as he travelled around from place to place he painted pictures. I have one of a seascape that he had painted on the dining room wall of the old Canadian Hotel at Fredericton Junction..  Our village was a railroad center and  it is said that McGregor would sometimes come and stay at the hotel for a while and paint pictures for his keep; they have appeal. They were his "bed and board"

 

My daughter gave us the painting that McGregor had painted on the wall of the old Canadian Hotel in 1931 and it now hangs in our living room. As an antique dealer she had been given the opportunity to buy it, and recognizing the name of the artist, she immediately purchased it and then gave it to us as a gift. 

 

The first McGregor that I bought was at a local estate auction less than ten miles from home at Hoyt.  That painting was in a lot with two generic reprint landscapes in glass frames.  I guess the auctioneer thought that the value for the lot lay  in the glass frames for I bought all three pictures for $2.00.  True, the painting was not of the 'group of seven' genre; yet for me it held the lure of a local historical artifact, and I was more than happy to hold McGregor's, "In the Rockies, B.C.",  in my arms .That painting is the only McGregor I have seen that has a  'name' on it; or did McGregor write 'In the Rockies, B.C.' because he was in British Columbia  when he painted it?  I wonder?

 

An adventure awaited us with the purchase of the third addition to my McGregor collection.  My daughter and her husband had been browsing through antique shops along highway 132 in Quebec during the summer of 2001. When my son-in-law spied a familiar signature on a large landscape painting amongst others stacked against a wall in the basement of an old antique barn, he immediately knew he had found another McGregor! 

 

They both knew we would enjoy hearing about it!  But also, as they explained, they knew we wouldn't have wanted to spend that much money so they didn't buy it for us; but as they pointed out, wasn't it interesting that they had found a McGregor painting in Quebec!  My husband and I just looked at each other and smiled.  Our growing collection was about as obscure as the darkest corner of that old antique barn; but we were hooked on searching for McGregor. We both knew that we would be going to Quebec. 

 

We  kind of got lost on that trip for we were driving east from Riviere du Loup looking for an old antique barn along the highway toward Rimiouski.  We finally did find an old barn but it was closed and a sign nailed to the building said;  "Overt Verendrei, Samdi, Dimanche "; and since we were reading those words on a Lundi we were very disappointed; especially as we had made the trip purposely to buy a painting. However, we decided that the trip wasn't a total failure altogether, for at least we knew where the Antique barn was, and we decided  that we would return a few weeks later. We headed on back toward Riviere du Loup hoping that maybe we might find a good spot to do some birdwatching. It had started to rain at just about the same time we had spotted another antique barn; so we decided to go in there and browse around while waiting for the skies to clear.  And it was both fortunate and amazing that we did for it turned out that the McGregor we were searching for was actually in the basement of that antique barn; just waiting for us to find it! And I did!! And the bill of sale said, "Cacouna".. so that's where the McGregor had been hiding this time! 

This painting was a bit of a treasure find for it gave us a few more clues about McGregor. He had painted this landscape in "Toronto,1936", and it had a catalogue number on it!  So it had probably been part of an art collection somewhere at one time! Someone else must have valued his work too! Did this mean there might be more McGregors around that area? Where did this painting come from? There was yet another surprise about this painting.  It had looked very familiar to us and we discovered when we got it back home,  that it was a bigger and much better version of, "In the Rockies"; the first McGregor that I had bought just a few miles from home. Perhaps he often painted the same scene as he travelled around from place to place.

 

The next find was during the summer of 2002 in Pudding Bay, N.S , and once again it was my daughter and son-in-law who found the painting in a shop. This time my daughter reasoned that as it was just a very small painting, with very little detail, she didn't think I would want to pay $50 for it. A week or so later after learning of the painting I located the shop on the internet; telephoned the owner and arranged to buy the painting  'sight unseen'.  That painting, our fourth McGregor, now hangs on our living room wall with the others.

A few years ago, I was helping my daughter at an Antique Show in Fredericton and was browsing the other dealer's tables before the show opened to the public; and what do you think I found?  Three of them!!  All McGregors!!  I could not believe my eyes!  I smiled as I wrote the checque. The antique dealer who was selling them said he had bought them at an estate auction in Sussex, NB, a year or so previously.

 

So who was P. McGregor? I don't know. DO YOU?  I don't even know his first name,( Peter? Patrick? Philip? Paul? Or Percy? Or?) nor where he was from; nor when he was born nor when he died. But I do know that he was a travelling man and I  have found proof of that! The trail of paintings he left behind him were his 'bed and board'  for P. McGregor was a 'feature of the hungry '30's'.  We now have  nine paintings of P. McGregor.

 

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After several honest attempts to draw a picture of my old home, I have come to the conclusion that I am NO artist, and though every detail of every part of each building and its location is very vivid in my mind I am unable to complete even an amateur drawing of them, that I would not want identified as the work of my hand.
So I shall endeavor to give you a word picture that will have to substitute for my lack of drawing artistry.

To start with the land in the area is all of an undulating nature, or none of it is entirely level in any large part. Our farm was approximately 1/4 mile wide and two miles long, one mile under cultivation and one mile of woods which were quite diverse in which grew spruce, fir, hemlock and cedar, alder, hackmatack, ash which was like oak, white birch from whose bark the Indians used to make their canoes. Silver birch and yellow birch that had a red core that was a perfect substitute for and even better than Mahoney, it was harder and took  a much better finish. Also Beech, real large deciduous trees that bore nuts that were very delicious when we were lucky enough to beat the squirrels to when ripe, also 3 different verities of maples including rock maple that produced the sap from which maple sugar and candy was made from, so you can readily see that our forests there provided not only wood to heat our homes and cook with but to provide a variety of goods to eat too.


There was also two streams, one across the back and one on the east side that were spring fed and never run dry in the summer and I could always go and in a very few minutes catch a mess of trout for our supper, so you can get the idea that we were well provided for in all the necessities for living.

The house was newly built when I was a baby. November 3, 1894 It was a full two stories plus a high attic that the only access to it was through a hatch in one of he four huge  upstairs bedrooms. Each of which could easily have plenty of space for four full size beds, which were often necessary when we had a crew of workers during harvest or when we had a portable sawmill sawing the logs that we cur during the winter months and making lumber that was shipped to England at that time. I almost forgot to mention the beautiful Birds Eye Maple that we used to cut down for wood to heat our furnace with as well as the cooking stove. What a horrible waste of that gorgeous lumber that is almost priceless today as some kind of blight in recent years has destroyed most all of the very prolific hard wood trees that were so evident in that area in my youth.

Now for the house, the major part  was a T-shape, contained four bedrooms upstairs and one down that we called the spare bedroom that was used only for very special guests, or when one of the family was ill needing a doctor, The downstairs or first floor included: A large entrance hall at least
nine foot wide. that included the stairs way up, also a large parlour, only used for very special occasions, a sitting room and a dining room where as many as 30 people could be seated at one time also where the dances were held after a harvest bee. or other happenings when friends and neighbours would gather The kitchen was a part extending off the main house and contained three parts known to us children as kitchen scullery and shed. The kitchen itself was  huge where all regular meals were served and everybody congregated in the evenings for acrobatics, and other games.  It had a large solid cast iron stove. and the oven was high up, it was truly an efficient baking arrangement for any kind of baking including the most delicate to huge fruit cakes, etc.
The cellar was not under the kitchens had a clay floor was as clean and solid as if it were cement, our food never mildewed and doughnuts lasted for over a year as did mustard pickles and other hings such as fruit cake, etc. that mother had baked us before leaving there for good that I do not think was her intention at that time, but the cellars in that part of the house were a marvellous thing. potatoes, all kinds of vegetables were stored in new bins and never spoiled all winter.There was a large furnace completely covered with brick that would take a birch log four feet long and eight inches thick and last all night with others of course and kept the house warm 24 hours a day during the coldest winters.
The  including rafters of the main part as well as kitchens, etc. Timbers were all hand hewn. My father , your great grandfather, could hew a hardwood log that was as straight as if sawn by a sawmill. Framework.

Other buildings included, a former house that my father was born in plus the 11 other children in his family, that we used for  a wood shed and upstairs rooms for grain, storage bins and other articles also  rwo very large barns, one for cows and hay storage to feed them. One for horses and several head sometimes as many as 40 young cattle that had to be housed through the long, cold winter months.Then the sheep barn for 100 sheep, also the hay to feed them in winter. It was 90 feet long, then the carriage house that housed the many and various vehicles. , it was huge as was the hen house for 100 hens [plus a place for turkeys, geese and ducks, even the Ice House where the three foot thick blocks of ice was stored packed in sawdust and provided the family and hired men and visitors with

lemonade, ice cream or cold buttermilk all through the hot summers and was a treat in winters on occasions, that is a part manage that was at that time in my life that kept the wheels turning and made ife very pleasant for all concerned in my childhood on the farm and as good a word picture and all 100% true of my childhood life on the farm. , but much changed after my 10th year when so much of the afore mentioned went out of my life, hope you get the real picture of what used to be

Mystery Prints in Bird Alley!

This morning I have found a mystery in Bird Alley! Three white paw prints on the walking stones leading to our bridge.

A clue found! David observed that white lines had been painted at the parking lot at the store. Perhaps a wandering cat walked through the paint  and then came to our yard. About a block’s distance away. If so, the paint must have been long lasting, not to dry or get rubbed off! I hope the paw prints are long lasting as they are rather sweet looking.!looked around the store’s parking lot and did not see any white paw prints.

Quilting through the winter

Although it’s not yet officially winter, the snow on the ground has influenced me an I have been spending much time recently on a quilting project. The focus of my work in progress is cats and the name of the pattern is Patchwork Cat with borders..

When the real winter season sets in I plan on making a Dresden Plate quilt.I will be so involved in its making then perhaps I will not even notice the blowing snow and the fierce winds. As Shelly remarked in one of his beautiful poems... “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” And so this is my plan for getting through  the cold, dreaded season.

butterfly quilt, a work in progress

A work in progress. A ‘quilt as you go ‘approach. The butterfly block sources are varied. The top row are quilt blocks from a yard sale or flea market quilt and the quilt was showing wear and tear so I saved the better blocks to recycle. The brown butterflies and other embroidered blocks were cut from a jacket David had bought for me at a thrift store. The large orange butterfly is a pieced block that I had made and the photo of the folded butterfly within its chrysalis. Is of a Monarch butterfly I had raised from a caterpillar. The orange sashing is a fabric showing many Monarch butterflys.I have several more rows to add but I find it is too hot and muggy to work at it today. I find quilt making is better suited to the cooler winter months.

S is for Snow for abcwednesday Round #21

Brrrr., no we don't have any yet and I do not happily anticipate its arrival.  Snow can be wet, messy, cold and cause hazardous driving conditions. Thankfully we have been preparing and yesterday my winter tires were put on my car.  Snow can be beautiful and exciting (when as a child it is anticipated happily.) In my province we get lots of snow and in the past couple of years kids have had many snowdays , when schools are closed due to hazardous driving conditions or very large snowfalls which makes driving almost impossible.  But first a couple of photos to remind ourselves what I am talking about. Our first snowstorm might look a bit like the first picture. I have titled the picture "a snowy flurry".

The second photo is after much snow has fallen but not a lot.. I think it looks rather beautiful in this picture! But first a couple of photos to show you what I am talking about.

Sometimes however your eyes may deceive you and what you think is snow in the air is not but in reality this next picture is of a group of Snow Buntings flying over a field.  We call these birds Snowbirds

I have included a picture below to show you what a real Snow Bunting looks like,

it has quite a bit of white on it and when flying in s group , it is mostly the white on these birds which are seen.  I love finding a flock of snow Buntings ( locally we call them Snowbirds.

 If you are in the province of Quebec you might think that you are seeing a field with a large amount of snow in it. Actually it could be a flock of Snowgeese that you are watching.  These large geese are mostly all white and I think they are beautiful birds.  Sometimes we see snowgeese in my province of New Brunswick but it not a sight often seen. Below is a picture of a blanket of snow? No, it is a flock of Snowgeese in a field.

Now lets get a closer view of these snowgeese.

Above you can see the whiteness of these snowgeese.

Once I took a picture of a snowgoose in flight and after I downloaded it at home I decided to  make a copy of it and turn it into a wooden decoration. Every winter around Christmas time we put our snowgoose out in a yard as a decoration for the snowy season.

In the picture above to the right is an actual flying snowgoose and to the left  in the insert,is the wooden decoration of the snowgoose we made.

Above is Our own wooden  snowgoose on our yard fence.

So as you can surmise there are a few things that I like about winter and snow, but not too many.  I am linking today to abcwednesday which can be found at sbcwednesday.com