Our supply of cedar came from the local farmers who sometimes had large cedar snags or windfalls on their treed farms. We would cut these into cedar bolts twenty-six inches long and then into a two and an eighth inch thick blank from which four resawn shingles would be cut.
Every couple of weeks, Big Joe, a Chinaman, would come with his flat-deck, to haul them to a mill in Vancouver. This was tough work but it was our family’s only income as my father had not yet begun his new life as a fisherman and it was our only means of support.
The weather had now turned foul as one might expect for late fall and I had given up any hope of attending school. My goal now was to stay home and help dad with the business and hopefully save for the coming school year.
We were now well into November and this particular day was especially cold with the threat of snow. As the morning passed I began to feel quite ill so I took the car and left my dad with Lindley Jacobson, intending to come by for dad after work.
The day passed very quickly and before we realized it, it was starting to get dark. As I was feeling better, my mom and I immediately left to get dad. The weather had been turning worse throughout the day and we were now driving in heavy wet snow with plenty of slush on the road.
We had left late and got further held up because of an accident. There were police and an ambulance attending to an overturned car on the road, because of the slushy snow. They finally let us through and we impatiently carried on to where my dad and Lindley had been splitting blanks. We were very puzzled as no one was anywhere around and we looked everywhere but to no avail. The only thing we could do was to go back home and wait with uncertainty until we could figure out what to do.
We hadn’t waited very long before the phone rang and the police told us that there had been an accident. It seems as the weather had turned foul Lindley and my dad had decided to quit a bit early. Not having a car my dad started walking along the highway expecting us to soon come by and pick him up. He had only walked a short distance when a car losing control in the slush, slammed into him from behind, breaking his left leg in three places and just about dislocating his ribs. This sent my dad flying into the ditch, lucky to be alive, with the car sliding to a stop on its side not far from where he lay in agony. Not knowing it was my dad in the ditch we had driven by just minutes after the police had arrived.
We immediately left for St Joseph’s Hospital in Comox where my dad was now coming out of surgery after having his leg set. They had placed a steel rod through the marrow of his tibia to hold the broken piece in place until it healed. We didn’t realize that my dad would be unable to work for over a year, as six month later the tibia had not yet healed and they had to graft bone from his hip to start the healing process.
It is times like these that show the metal that a family is made of, and how a trust in God can sustain and bring you out the other side better, because of what you went through.
Every couple of weeks, Big Joe, a Chinaman, would come with his flat-deck, to haul them to a mill in Vancouver. This was tough work but it was our family’s only income as my father had not yet begun his new life as a fisherman and it was our only means of support.
The weather had now turned foul as one might expect for late fall and I had given up any hope of attending school. My goal now was to stay home and help dad with the business and hopefully save for the coming school year.
We were now well into November and this particular day was especially cold with the threat of snow. As the morning passed I began to feel quite ill so I took the car and left my dad with Lindley Jacobson, intending to come by for dad after work.
The day passed very quickly and before we realized it, it was starting to get dark. As I was feeling better, my mom and I immediately left to get dad. The weather had been turning worse throughout the day and we were now driving in heavy wet snow with plenty of slush on the road.
We had left late and got further held up because of an accident. There were police and an ambulance attending to an overturned car on the road, because of the slushy snow. They finally let us through and we impatiently carried on to where my dad and Lindley had been splitting blanks. We were very puzzled as no one was anywhere around and we looked everywhere but to no avail. The only thing we could do was to go back home and wait with uncertainty until we could figure out what to do.
We hadn’t waited very long before the phone rang and the police told us that there had been an accident. It seems as the weather had turned foul Lindley and my dad had decided to quit a bit early. Not having a car my dad started walking along the highway expecting us to soon come by and pick him up. He had only walked a short distance when a car losing control in the slush, slammed into him from behind, breaking his left leg in three places and just about dislocating his ribs. This sent my dad flying into the ditch, lucky to be alive, with the car sliding to a stop on its side not far from where he lay in agony. Not knowing it was my dad in the ditch we had driven by just minutes after the police had arrived.
We immediately left for St Joseph’s Hospital in Comox where my dad was now coming out of surgery after having his leg set. They had placed a steel rod through the marrow of his tibia to hold the broken piece in place until it healed. We didn’t realize that my dad would be unable to work for over a year, as six month later the tibia had not yet healed and they had to graft bone from his hip to start the healing process.
It is times like these that show the metal that a family is made of, and how a trust in God can sustain and bring you out the other side better, because of what you went through.
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