Every family has a history filled with stories, recollections, and memories. Over time, these reminisces take on a life of their own, but a note of caution: they will only remain alive as long as someone in the family remembers and shares. Over the course of decades, leaves begin to fall from every family tree, and eventually, only bare branches remain. My parents passed away over 25 years ago, and in the intervening years, three of my sisters departed Dodge too soon and are with them. As the writer and historian in the family, I am putting the proverbial pen to paper to bring back to life one of the central stories my siblings and I were raised with. In fact, it is the genesis of our familial history, when two saplings met and created a new family tree.
Our parents were indeed an attractive couple. As a young man, Dad was one handsome dude, and Mom was beautiful, with high cheekbones. My sisters, brother, and I learned from our parents that Dad had a motorcycle as a young man and that our mother had met him in Vineland, in the Niagara area, when she worked there as a young Farmerette. This was after WWII when there was a need for produce, but in a world where many young men, formerly farmers, had given up their lives. Thus, the Farmerettes came into being, and many young women from the countryside joined to do their part at the Vineland Farmerette Camp and other places in the province. Mom was only 16 that summer, and it was her first time away from home for such a long duration. Dad was six years older than our mother and undoubtedly cut a dashing figure on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle that summer day. As children, we knew the bare bones of this seminal family history, but I now wish we had fleshed out more details and asked more questions.
When did Dad buy his motorcycle? When did he get rid of it, and why? Did Mom want to work as a Farmerette, or had her parents convinced her to go? Was it love at first sight when Dad and Mom met in Vineland? Did they date for the next four years until they married, or did it take time for our parents to fall in love? Were our maternal grandparents concerned that their daughter was interested in a man six years older than her? Why did our father ask our mother to
go on the motorcycle that fateful day in Vineland?; why not one of the other girls? Was it just for a spin around Vineland or a ride of a longer duration? How did The Clanging Pistons originate?
Yes, that was the name of the group of young men and their motorcycles: The Clanging Pistons. Dad would smile when telling us about the group’s name and fondly recall memories of how he and his friends would drive around the countryside on their motorcycles. Of course, the culminating story would be about the group travelling to Vineland to see some local girls from the Clinton area who were working at the Vineland Farmerette Camp. A few of the girls were either sisters or sweethearts of these dashing young, motorcycle-riding men.
Even as a child, when I heard about The Clanging Pistons and the Vineland Farmerette Camp, it seemed to me to belong to a gentler, kinder, and more romantic time. That story, the genesis of our family, took on a rather fabled and folkloric aspect over the years, particularly when, over time, it was apparent that our parents did not have a fairy-tale marriage. It was a
typical marriage of the era: hardworking parents, a large family, and children who grew up during radical societal change. Our parents loved each other but did not have much in common and were sometimes at odds. However, they stayed together for their children; that is the greatest gift they could give us. As our parents aged, they became closer, and due to my mother’s ill health, Dad became her caregiver.
For a long time, I had not thought about Dad being part of The Clanging Pistons and that Mom had been a Farmerette after the war. Then my sister sent an email to me with a link to an article in the local news about the Farmerettes and their central role during and post-WWII in tending and harvesting vegetables and fruit in the Niagara region. A new Canada Post stamp would be issued to recognize their services. The article highlighted the contributions of local girls who became Farmerettes from the early ‘40s to the early ‘50s, mostly in Ontario’s Niagara and Windsor regions. A few months earlier, the Blyth Festival had also staged a play about the Farmerettes. They were getting their long-deserved recognition.
Some of the women who were formerly Farmerettes are still alive, in their 90s, and have been interviewed. When my mother passed away in 1996, I was asked to give her eulogy. In one part of the eulogy, I referred to how our parents had met on a fateful, fairy-tale day in Vineland in the late ‘40s. I mentioned that our father had taken my mother on a motorcycle ride that lasted for almost 50 years. I said that I could imagine the two of them on our father’s motorcycle that day in Vineland: Dad, cutting a handsome and dashing figure on his beloved Harley-Davidson, and our youthful, beautiful mother sitting behind him, hanging on for dear life. I described how I pictured them that day: Mom’s glossy hair blowing back in the breeze, and I quipped that Dad’s hair was probably blowing in the wind, too, because he still had a good head of hair back then.
Due to the renewed interest in the Farmerettes recently, my brother sent a photo to my sisters and me that had been posted on Facebook years before. It is one that I remember from our youth; it had probably been in our mother’s photo album for years. It was in the local paper in 1948 and depicted five young men who had gone to the Vineland Farmerette Camp to visit local girls working there. The Clanging Pistons is not mentioned, but Dad and his four motorcycle buddies are in the photo, proudly sitting astride their Harley-Davidsons and presenting a dashing group. This may have been after their triumphant return to Clinton from Vineland; these vibrant young men had their whole lives ahead of them, and there was the promise of other anticipated adventures along the way.
John RC Potter is an international educator from Canada who lives in Istanbul. The author’s poems, stories, essays, articles, and reviews have been published in various magazines and journals. His story, ‘Ruth’s World’ was a Pushcart Prize nominee, and his poem, ‘Tomato Heart’ was nominated for the Best of the Net Award. The author’s gay-themed children’s picture book, The First Adventures of Walli and Magoo, is scheduled for publication.
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