Talking with Frank

Talking with Frank (from notes from a tape Katherine Made)

Questions from Katherine Punch answers from Frank Gallivan

Q: What was the very first memory of Mother that you had?

A: In the carriage I think once being pushed in a carriage in Lethbridge.

Q: First one of Dad?

A: That’s a problem! I think it was with me looking around being on that horse in the barn and having him stand beside me as I was terrified! Him coming home with some toys and going around with him with some milk delivering it out of a toy milk wagon.

Q: I remember that too it was very impressive. What else do you remember?

A: The other memory I have of Mother is being in church with her and going up and down the seats and pews back and forth.

Q: What do you remember about Grandma?

A: I remember her sending Eddy out to get a pail of bran for the cow. I really don’t remember Grandma much until Ottawa.

Q: Do you remember her tucking you into bed every night?

A: Yeah

Q: Do you remember her telling me I would never amount to anything because I didn’t let her tuck me in or about how they threw your bottle out of the train on the way to Thunder Bay and that the seagulls had it?

A: Yes I remember that I was done with it. The seagulls had it.

Q: Do you remember making ice cream out in the back in Lethbridge with Eddy turning it? I never remember Vincent in Lethbridge he must have been away at school.

A: Vincent went to boarding school in Edmonton and I remember Eddy turning a thing that had icy salt around the outside and a metal thing in the middle and him turning and turning it. I also have a memory of Dad coming home from work and I told him Mother swept the floor with his curling broom! I remember a rooster in Lethbridge and a lattice playhouse. The rooster corralled me in the playhouse.

Q: Do you remember living on Third Avenue in Ottawa?

A: Yes it was kitty corner from the school and Blessed Sacrament Church.

Q: Do you remember that the teachers and Mother smiled to one another because you would run across the street at recess to go to the bathroom because you wouldn’t use the one at the school and you had to check on Mother. Do you remember that you didn’t want to go into a new class so they let you stay in the old class because the nun that was teaching you said that you were talking badly and reading the thing different as you had your own language?

A: I remember I was mixed up and read thing backwards.

Q: Another thing I remember about school was that the nuns used to trust us at First Communion. They had a big suitcase with all the prayer beads and the little prayer books for First Communion in it and we would bring it home and keep it there so they wouldn’t have to carry it back and forth. Mother would go through it immediately and pick out the one she wanted me to have and I remember her telling me to describe the picture on the front of the prayer book. And I remember the nun saying to me “Now I wonder how you knew that”!

 I remember Mother burning Dad’s name off a government suitcase so that I could take it to school! Do you remember the rage when Dad saw it and him saying he would be fired!

Q: What do you remember of Grandma in Ottawa other than watching her change the bandages? (She had a large open ulcer on her ankle)

A: I remember a black dress black and grey top and waiting for the mailman for mail from Ireland and then getting tea and having her sit down and read up all about Ireland. I remember once in a while she’d let us look in her trunk and in her drawer with holy medals in it and sometimes I would find a dime.

Q: Do you remember the prayer book she had all sewed together. She had sewn leaflets together and had an elastic around it and she prayed by the hour and hour. Id I remember the beach we all went to Palm Beach past Britannia to Graham Bay. The only time I can remember her going out of the house except to go to church. She was watching us swimming sitting there like the queen in her bonnet that was like Queen Victoria a little frilled bonnet tied under her chin.

A: I don’t remember her going to church. The priest would come to her. I remember carrying candles up the stairs when the priest came to see her. I remember being behind the priest and he had his lace whatever it was lace over his Cassock and every time he would move the candle was about a quarter of an inch from it. I remember mother having fits at the bottom of the stairs and her saying you almost put him on fire. I remember the thing in the picture of the crucifix that she had that we opened up to get things out for the sick call. The bottom opened up and there were candle holders and everything you needed in it.

Q: Do you remember that you would call at night for Mother to “Don’t forget to put mentholatum on my nose?”

A: Laughter

Q: Do you remember when you fell in the Rideau River walking beside the shore and Mother grabbed you out and when she got you out how she shook you until your teeth rattled she was so mad at you. Also on St Joes Island when you coaxed her into a boat and said you wouldn’t go anywhere with her and you took her out and she was so mad at you? Do you remember when Mother you and I went with a crowd of people in a launch from Morrisburg to Brooder’s Island for a picnic. There were great whirlpools in that part of the St Lawrence at that time pre 1930 seaway, and when the launch hit the whirlpool’s it racked madly and mother screamed and shouted “OH Sacred Heart save us Mother of God!” And we were horribly embarrassed by her roaring and prayers in front of an amused crowd of passengers!

Q: What do you remember of the Sand Pit?

A: The sand pit was the greatest thing especially when the ice got frozen the rubber ice got frozen and we walked on it and fell through it.  I had one friend that always played cowboys and Indians in the sand pit and then once in a while I would let you play too. His name was Kingsley, Kingsley Moreland, I didn’t like him he had a funny name and I really didn’t like him.

Q: Do you remember the big toboggan slide at Precious Blood? Going down and hearing Mother screaming at Dad “Who put them on that?” She thought she would never see us again and all I remember is the snow in our faces. Do you remember the Experimental Farm hill when Dad put her on a toboggan once and gave it a shove with his foot and she went down the hill? She screamed bloody murder all the way down. He had reassured her that she wouldn’t go down and then he gave it a shove!

A: I remember Mother went down in the canal when the snow was high and she got stuck in it. I was raging I didn’t know what to do. I was trying to peel her out and I think she panicked. You laughed at her and I got so mad I pounded you out.

Q: Do you remember falling in the river at Hogs Bay? You were trying to see the fish by walking on the rocks.

A: I was walking on the rocks and they were slimy and slippery and I slipped and started to go down river and Mother had to grab me and she was roaring. She really shook me when I got on shore.