Bill and Sadie

I showed this photo yesterday as part of my Candy Syrup post, but now I wish to say more about the people and also add a few more photos.

I said in that other post that the photo was circa 1952, but in now reading my mother's notes, I see that it was taken on January 29 1954. I was 6 years old and had a very bad haircut.

The occasion, also according to my mother's notes, was Bill's birthday, and apparently, this was an annual event — the celebration, I mean although, obviously this also applies to his birthday. I don't remember any other occasions although I do remember this one and Bill being funny (unless that was the year before). I must have been bobbing around excitedly, and he boomed, "For Pete's sake, sit down." I took it humorously and laughed a lot about it. By the next January, we had moved from my grandfather's house, and I don't know if they had another of these celebrations, but if they did, I wasn't involved.

But more about Bill and Sadie, particularly Bill.

They, Bill and Sadie, were both of the Robinson clan, as was my maternal grandmother, who was by now deceased. They were sibling-cousins who lived together their whole lives.

Bill was born without thumbs, so his mother wanted nothing to do with him. Sadie's parents took him in and raised him as their own, which is why I described them as sibling-cousins.

They both worked, even her as I recall, even though working women weren't as common in those days. He looks successful and apparently did alright in business.

Bill and Sadie lived together in an apartment in Montreal, and I vaguely recall dropping in once a few years later.

I last saw Bill and Sadie at their retirement cottage in Glen Robertson in 1963, near where the Robinson clan had lived in Eastern Ontario, not far from Cornwall. In the nine years between these photos and then, he aged quite a lot. (See colour photos at the end.)

I have a few more photos from that same page in that photo album. Judging from the clothes, the table setting, and my bad haircut, they were taken on the same evening.

And look, here are Grampa and me seemingly looking through a photo album. Maybe I became interested in photography at and early age. I would love to know what photos we were looking at.

My memory is that these next two photos are from that 1963 visit that I mentioned earlier. I was almost 16 years old and, thankfully, had a better haircut by this time. I am beside my mother in the first photo. We had visited Montreal after moving to Toronto a year earlier and dropped in to see them on our way home.

More than the folks, I recall that he had a stack of Montreal Gazette newspapers. Football season was beginning, and I scoured those papers for news of the Montreal Alouettes.

If I recall correctly, Bill lived longer than Sadie, and I remember my mother sharing a letter from him or just news from a letter some years later. I can even remember that he ended the letter writing, Myosotis, which is the Latin name for Forget-Me-Not flowers. Cute, eh?

Edit: I really should read my mother's notes more carefully. Sadie passed away on March 19 1976 and Bill on December 29 1976.