LUKE o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2007-01-09 published
MacAINSH,
Harold
The family of the late Harold
MacAINSH wish to express their
sincere appreciation and heartfelt thanks to our family, Friends
and neighbours for their flowers, food, donations and support.
Special thanks to Doctor S.
LUKE and the nurses and doctors at Parkwood
Palliative Care Unit for their compassion and excellent care.
A special thanks to Father Phillip
UPTGROVE for his many visits
and support and for the beautiful service that captured the true
essence of Harold's life and sense of humour. Thanks to Dean
ARMITAGE for his kind words and our daughter Susan for all her
love and help during this difficult time. Special thanks to Shirley
ARMITAGE,
June and Peter
LANGDON for their support and caring
during these past months. Also, thanks to Saint_Jude's Women's
Guild for the lovely reception after the service. Thanks to Leon
GREGORY, the Westview Funeral Chapel staff and the pallbearers.
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LUKIANCHUK o@ca.on.grey_county.artemesia.flesherton.the_flesherton_advance 2007-06-20 published
An Essay on the Anniversary of my Father's Death
By Gary EDWARDS,
Page 6
David Francis
EDWARDS
(February 7, 1956-June 17, 2006.
Upon my father's death last June, one of the more pressing questions
we faced was a matter of two saddles. What to do with them? David
was, at best, an aspiring horseman and, from the beginning, his
equestrian ambitions were the topic of many (often nasty) arguments
in the Edwards household.
I was 15 when he brought, in conspiracy with my sister, the Arabs
home. Most might recoil at purchasing livestock without even
a few acres of land on which to stable it. My father's hallmark
practicality (he trained as a Certified Management Accountant,
let's not forget) was, how ever, voiceless against his unbridled
desire for a horse - or two We could have lived in a sewer on
the moon and would eventually find ourselves owning the beasts.
Of course, our horsies never ended up being more than lawn ornaments.
This is not to say David lost interest. He just never quite got
around to breaking them. One by one, a number of things accrued
around them: a lunge line used once or twice, bridles, a beautiful
30 acre farm, the most oddly painted barn in Grey Co., combs
and brushes, fencing books, magazines. And, of course the two
saddles. If we'd set them up in the living room and invited guests
to sit on them, they'd have seen more use.
I'm sure a lot of people, myself included, laughed at my father
for his flight of fancy. But we laugh when we ought meditate.
David didn't break the horses because he didn't need to. For
all of his account books, number crunching and shrewdness, he
was essentially a dreamer who could be just as easily satisfied
with what might be as with what is. He was a grasshopper masquerading
as an ant.
The memory of my father I put the highest price on is not my
own but one I inherited from him. When he was a little boy of
about four, still living at Edwards Lake in Singhampton, he was
very envious of his brothers and sisters simply because they
had the great privilege of attending school. Refusing to miss
out, he would head to the orchard to conduct his own mock-school.
I doubt Wordsworth could conceive a more beautiful image than
that of a little blonde boy making a schoolhouse out of the orchard.
David did make it to a real school where reality proved less
appetizing than fantasy. Unaware of the miniature hierarchies
that grow free as weeds where people are concerned, the young
boy made the great mistake of sitting in a desk regularly occupied
by a schoolmate of rather larger proportions. The two boys were
quite mystified by one another: the older boy at the nerve of
the younger and the younger at being ejected from his chosen
place. He quickly shed his orchard-nourished notions about schooling.
Daddy thereafter made a career out of running away from school.
Ellen DAVIDSON remembers his daily escapes. He would show up
and apparently, when he'd decided he'd learned enough for the
day, make for the road Poor Ellen, of course, would be in hot
pursuit. It was only after more "persuasive" discipline that
he managed to stay in his desk the entire day.
It did, as life often does, get better. In her eulogy - for my
father, Rosemary
DICKINSON told a story I shall carry to my own
death with pride. In those days, Rosemary liked to have her students
discuss current topics in formal debate. She would present the
topic, designate the "Yea" and "Nay" sides of the room and allow
students to choose their preferred positions. Only once did the
plan almost falter. While the class would usually sort themselves
into piles of "Yes" and "No", one day a topic (long-forgotten)
brought them all over to one side of the room. Rosemary looked,
probably with some distress, at the empty half and wondered aloud
if a debate would be possible. A lone boy emerged, offering to
take the opposing side, thus pitting himself against the rest
of the class. Other students eventually joined him but it was
my father who was willing to "do it" alone. This courage is a
quality from which my mother, my sister and I benefited our entire
lives.
David grew up in what was, even in the 50's and 60's, a large
family. His parents, Lillian (née
WINTERS) and Francis, managed
a grand total of 9 children: Bonnie, Bill, Jim, Marion, Joyce,
David, Paul, Kenny and Brian. To call the Edwards boys boisterous
would be putting it lightly. I have heard enough Dukes of Hazzard-esque
tales about my uncles to know why eyebrows raise when I inform
people I'm an Edwards. Of the boys, my father (along with his
younger brother Kenny) was considerably more docile. This is
not to say David couldn't be difficult&hellip
He had, for example, a tendency to know everything. Whether it
was on the matter of how to birth a calf, when to plant or the
state of the nation, young David was expert. Of course, he made
the mistake of sharing all his knowledge - which irritated his
own father to no end. Rare is the Edwards who cannot recall the
shouting matches and temper tantrums (approaching fisticuffs)
that would unravel between father and son at the kitchen table.
Years later, seeing my own infallible knowledge set against my
father's, my grandmother would note "just like old times". The
continuity pleased her.
Though a bit enraptured with his own intelligence, David was
clearly a very smart young man, as former teacher Edna
LUKIANCHUK
has it, "a silver tongue". Becoming a management accountant,
he found an outlet for his combination.
I cannot imagine how difficult life must have been for my father.
To be in school with a pretty wife and two young children is
unthinkable to me. While most students in their early-to-mid
twenties are preoccupied with the flutterings of the heart, making
the rent and maybe passing the odd exam, my father had a stay-at-home
wife, an infant daughter with an enchanting smile and a toddler
son whose favourite game was, "Let's bother Daddy while he's
studying." When all of that was finally finished and the diploma
was mounted on the wall, David had to figure out just what to
do with his family. And so, like all good sons of Osprey, he
moved home.
It wasn't long before David and his wife
Sandra (née
BERRIAULT)
were building their house on Inglis Drive just off the 8th Line.
For their home, they selected a ravine lot with a spectacular
view of the Beaver River behind.
Meanwhile, David served Craigleith Ski Club as Chief Financial
Officer. There, he made a number of lasting Friendships, most
notably with his dear cousin Lois
PARKS.
Dad was a kind and capable,
though volatile, boss, were there a thermometer measuring emotional
temperatures in the office, it would have burst many times. Despite
the heated arguments (perhaps because of them), David and his
staff retained exceptional solidarity. At Devil's Glen (where
David became General Manager in 2003), he began to develop similar
bonds.
It was, however, as a community leader that David made his most
resounding public success. Those days of community work were
tireless. There was the Feversham Fair Board, the Hospital Board
(first Markdale and then on to Owen Sound), Municipal politics,
Heritage Celebrations, Hall Boards and so forth. All of these
civic projects meant little sleep and much stress but also a
feeling that he was contributing to the thing he cared about
(after his family) most: the community his ancestors built 150 years
before. David particularly distinguished himself on Osprey Council
where his terrier-like tenacity, know-how with numbers and lathe-like
tongue made him darling to some, pest to others. This, I am learning
as I grow older, is another family trait. Indeed, when asked
why he would vote for David in one election, an older gentleman
(perhaps remembering David's grandfather's tenure as Deputy Reeve)
said, "Well he's an Edwards and they don't take orders from nobody."
Whether or not this quality is a mark of integrity or sheer contrariness
only heaven will say.
The more shoes Jennifer and I outgrew, the less involved Daddy
became in civic life. His interests slowly turned to more personal
passions: his horses, hobby farming and reading. Shortly after
the horses, there came a farm near Rob Roy at the end of a blind
sideroad. This was, with neighbours almost 1 km away, a lonely
place where passing cars provided heart-racing excitement and
endless speculation. He and Mother, however, found immense peace
here.
For David, if not for me, there was always something to do on
the farm. Jennifer, my sister, saw these jobs as a source of
amusement that (to me) bordered on the perverse. They performed
the tasks joking and chattering away like jaybirds - staging
mock executions with the chainsaw, performing elaborate imitations,
teasing the dog. For me, each task was a race against time. David,
conversely, considered a job worth doing was worth doing thoroughly.
My experiments with "time conservation" were not appreciated.
There were also the famous trees. Over the years, hundreds of
them - ranging from costly maples and mountain ash to little
pine seedlings - made their way into the soil. They were all
placed, planted and maintained with a clock-maker's precision.
Reading, however, was a thing over which we could bond. Like
many readers, Daddy was greedy with time. "Oh", he would moan
and wail, "why can't everyone just leave me alone to finish my
book." Only Mother could pry his hands from the covers.
One can't talk about my father without mentioning a tendency
to a little innocent gossip. "What's the scoop?" he would ask,
hurling himself into conversation. Hearing and telling little
stories of minor misdeeds was the lifeblood of our family. This
is not to say we're a malicious bunch -curious (I hope) is a
better adjective.
Up until the death of David's mother in July, 2005, my father
and I would regularly head over to the home farm to hear gossip
that was recent, twenty years old or even one hundred years past.
Together, they would talk about people I'd never met, sometimes
my father had never met and occasionally people my grandmother
never met. Yet, these little narratives (these gossips) were
so intricately woven as to appear life-like. There are times
when my Great-Great-Grandmother (who disappeared in the Huckleberry
Marsh in 1915 and may or may not have been murdered) seems more
real to me than the people I spend hours with each day. Perhaps
this is because many of the most intimate relationships have
always formed around gossip and story -- around memory.
On the night my father died, we went for a drive - our habit
on summer evenings. The week had been busy: I was in the throes
of an essay on Milton and terrorism and recovering from food
poisoning; my sister graduated days before; he and Mother had
just planted a number of trees; there were lots of things to
worry about at work. We went down to Tim Horton's where he (for
once) denied his famed sweet tooth and chose a tea biscuit. I
had yogurt. We had a quiet drive home.
In the morning, we had a pair of saddles.
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