My Life's Work and Life's Necessities

I wrote this article in October of 2014. It is now April of 2016 and we no longer live in the Ottawa Valley, but in Gander, Newfoundland. I completed the work for a certificate in Medical Transcription in December of 2014 and received my certificate a couple of months later.

It’s a drizzly day in October and I am sitting at my desk wondering what I should write about. I should have finished working on the Timberline over a week ago. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, my schedule for the last two weeks seemed to fly out of the window.

This year has been an extremely busy for me and it is not quite finished. Since January, I have been working on a certificate in Medical Transcription and I will be finished in December. I have been working online at home for all of the courses, nine in all. The reason that I have been doing this is that Veterans Affairs decided last year that it was time for me to prepare to return to full employment outside of my home. Since they are providing an income for me and were willing to pay for the education upgrading, I was obliged to cooperate.  Thus far, it had not interfered with the publication of the Timberline. I do not anticipate any other problems with working on the Timberline.

Other people have had to do similar. It’s just disappointing that I do not have the credentials to be able to work in the genealogy field. Maybe, someday I will have those credentials. It will take time, money and effort on my part in order to accomplish this. Right now, I have the interest in doing this but I don’t feel that this is the right time. I have said before that everything happens for a reason. I don’t presently know why I was to prepare for employment in the medical field. However, I know that when the time is right, I will know the reason. It might be as simple as eventually being able obtain a position with an online company and working from home. It could just as well be that there is someone out there somewhere that I will be able to either help, or influence in a positive way and this is the route that I need to take in order to do this.

My time in the Ottawa Valley is not finished yet. It may be that there is still work that I need to do here. It is my firm belief that I will be here until the right time comes that we are to move, whether it is because my husband needs to be in another location, or I have completed the work that I was to do.

I believe that family history is a major part of the reason why we came to the Ottawa Valley in the first place. If I had been in the Niagara Region when I retired from the Military, I may not have learned what health problems that I have. I may not have been at home as long as I have been. Being here has given me the opportunity to start to learn how to research thoroughly for my ancestors. It has also given me the opportunity to visit Lanark County looking for records on the family that four years ago I knew next to nothing about. I have also learned that I have a rich French Canadian heritage that I have just begun to research. Come the new year, I will need to learn to fit family history around the future employment schedule that I will have.

I still want to do the day trips to find the records that I need, but I will need to take my future employment into consideration. I will also need to learn to balance employment, family history responsibilities, church responsibilities, and personal downtime in a manner that allows me the most flexibility.

I enjoy working on my family history. It is refreshing to me that when my brother asks whether I have found anything new, I can say, “Yes”, and then be able to let him know what it is that I have found. It is my life’s work that I am doing when I work on family history. The employment will give me the financial ability to do so.

In this article, I mentioned about the purpose of our time in the Ottawa Valley. I would like to emphasis that EVERYTHING happens for a reason. We may not know what the reason was until much later in life. Sometimes, things happen for a number of reasons. For example, our move to Newfoundland was for more than one reason. There are records in St John’s that I need to access for my family history. I have a number of mariners in my family history and these records will explain things that happened. 

The second reason was that my husband needed to go to a job that was not as demanding as his job was before we left the Ottawa Valley.

The third reason was that my husband and I both have a number of years of experience as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and that we have skills that we have already put to use here. It was as if the Lord had said that He would give us Newfoundland so that I could do my research and in return, we would assist in the teaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am so thankful that I have already had the opportunity of doing some research in St John’s and I know that I will be able to go again. 

Winters of 1817 and 2014

I originally wrote this in February 2014.

The winter of 2014 was a colder winter in Petawawa than it had been for the previous couple of years.  Yes, in previous winters, there were a few days of minus 30 degree or lower temperatures in January.  In 2014, the colder temperatures started in December over the Christmas holidays.  My husband and I were in the Niagara Region for the holidays and came home to find that the battery in the vehicle left behind was frozen solid.

This year was our first winter in Gander. I had been told to expect warmer winter temperatures than Petawawa, but the winter was longer, there was much more snow, and the summer shorter and cooler than what I had experienced in the upper Ottawa Valley.

2014’s cold weather has made me think about how my ancestors may have coped with similar weather. 

My fourth-great-grandfather, Edward Farrell, arrived in Canada and received his land assignment in August of 1817.  He had to build a cabin before winter.  He was fortunate that he had two sons with him as well as his wife.  They also had to be sure of their fuel supply.  Edward had been in the British Army for at least the previous 10 years and spent time on mainland Europe involved with the Napoleonic wars.  I haven’t looked for his military records yet or the regiment’s records, but I am relatively sure that he would have been involved with scrounging for necessities.

Another fourth-great-grandfather, Joseph Armstrong, had a different situation in 1817.  Joseph was a farmer in Cumberland, England, and had been on the same land for over twenty years and all of his children had been born there.  The Napoleonic Wars were over and the British economy had taken a down turn.  Farmers could not sell their crops and, therefore, some of them could not meet their financial obligations.  Joseph was one of them.  He did not lose his farm until 1819, but things would have been tight except for any help the older children could give.

I think of Edward and his family in a cabin that they built themselves, which may have had a lot of drafts and not enough fuel.  I also think of Joseph and his wife, Mary, and the children not old enough to be on their own, facing the cold winters of the Borderlands, with not enough money to be certain of keeping their relatively comfortable home.  Edward’s situation did nothing but improve, while Joseph’s degraded to loss of his farm.  My ancestors did survive the cold winters.  So can I.

The Drive Home

Earlier today, I drove into Grand Falls-Windsor from Gander. It usually takes approximately an hour to do so. I had a number of things that I needed to attend to, the last of which was to watch a recording of the women’s session of General Conference for church which took place last Saturday. If there is a broadcast slated for anything after 6 pm Central Time, we make arrangements to get together within a few days to watch the video. Since today was the day that we planned to do this, I decided to go into Grand Falls-Windsor to do the other things that I had to do. A couple of them did not take very long, but another visit that I wanted to do would take perhaps an hour, maybe more. I was able to complete the smaller tasks, but, unfortunately, I was not able to do the last task. Someone else was to be involved with it and, because I had a problem contacting this person, I was not able have a meeting with her.

In the meantime, Samantha called me to see if I could give her a ride to the Chapel on my way in. She did not realize that I was already there and we made arrangements for me to meet her at her house.

Because we have a member that lives in Gander but spends part of her workweek in Grand Falls-Windsor, the decision was made to have a potluck supper before watching the video so that Evelyn would not have to go all the way to Gander and back. Evelyn was looking forward to this activity. However, something came up so that she was unable to attend.

Samantha and I had a good visit while we were waiting for others to arrive. We had five women ready to sit down when we received confirmation of Cathy coming. We felt that we would not have enough for all of us, so the decision was made to order in a pizza. Cathy arrived just as we were ready to eat, so we started with what we had and the pizza arrived about 15 minutes later. We finished our meal with banana bread, maple mini cupcakes, and apple pie.

Within 15 to 20 minutes, we had everything cleaned so that we wouldn’t have to do it late and started the video. It was agreed that all of us enjoyed it. It was worth the effort that we made.

We walked out of the door about 8:30 pm and were greeted with about a half inch of snow on the ground. The car had to be cleaned off. I took Cathy and Samantha home, which was easy as they live on the same street. Then Henriette and I started the drive back to Gander. That’s when the “fun” started. It was dark. The snow was blowing. The road was potentially slippery. Most of the trip was done at less than 80 kilometers per hour with a good chunk of time at just under 70 kilometers per hour. There was a couple of spots that I could go as high as 95 to 100 kilometers per hour. What should have taken approximately an hour took at least 90 minutes to do. We finally reached Gander and both gave a sigh of relief. We were blessed.

The next time this happens, I am going to a motel and calling my husband to tell him not expect us back until the next day.