Horn of Plenty

Thirty plus years of working, acquiring, finding his place produced a lot of comfort and some wonderful relationships with co-workers and neighbors.  I remember refugees and violinists, airline attendants and real estate brokers, jewelers and carpenters, and lots and lots of housewives.   I don’t know if all the neighbors’ moms’ were into politics, fashion, music, poker, German lessons and giant dahlias the size of your head.  I do know that my Dad invented, innovated, created, crafted and ‘gerry rigged’ anything necessary for Mom to have her home and her grand hospitality look and operate the best way.   He was a trial and error, self-taught kind of fix it person.   Sometimes that wasn’t very efficient but he was determined and full of confidence all the time.   Actually he shared with me recently that he wasn’t always full of confidence but he knew how to put on his game face.

He told a story about trying to make a special table for one of mother’s big plants (she had an enormous green thumb).  He went to the senior’s centre to use the tools there, but didn’t like the attitude of the manager (“The guy must have been 90!” he said.) so he went to Carson Graham high school, found the shop teacher who showed him how to do what he wanted.  A rare occasion of Peter Neufeld seeking help and advice.

One of the outward manifestations of their success was the purchase of recreational property at Green Lake in the Caribou.  Mom and I watched from the cold-beer-sunset- deck position as Dad fixed things.  We often pondered from our sewing, measuring and measuring again experience that geometry was pretty much the same for fabric and wood.   As you can imagine though, he was having none of our well-meaning advice about carpentry. That place was the scene of many interesting adventures, including the launching of my Uncle Boulter’s rowboat.  He built it in his basement and had no idea how to get it to water.  So Dad hauled it to the Caribou, along with a couple of brothers.  They fished and told stories and shared in the fruits of Dad’s success.   He was proud and happy about that.  Told that story several times in the last few years.

Going to Hawaii, Phoenix, Birch Bay and one African camera safari were the extent of his travels.  He said that after you spend a few years in North Africa trying to stay out of the way (of the bullets), one didn’t really need to explore much.  Home seemed like the best place.

I once unwittingly insulted him by writing an essay for a Sociology class at UBC.  His career journey fit some kind of theory or formula.  I failed to see how unique he felt.

He always had a great car, and so did Clare.  I always had something I could afford and didn’t think much about it.   Cars were everywhere in our lives and dinner conversations were all about the deals made that day.  It wasn’t till later that I realized it wasn’t like this for everybody.  Because he could, he did.  Get people cars in a pinch, give their children jobs, bail them out of jail, give them refuge, and manage their wills.  He was willing to help, shy to ask for it in later life, very grateful for it when it came unbidden and generously.  I think his wonderful neighbors on Palisade Drive including Linda, Bob, Dana, Bruce, Jeff, Sandy, Monica, John, Kathy and all the others who came before them made him feel cared for.  He was wealthy then, right to the end.

The Haircut

In the month before my Father’s passing, he was very interested in getting a haircut, but not so interested in mustering the strength and courage that it would take to endure the journey to the barber and being stuck in the chair.  I thought we could solve this problem du jour by inviting a barber to come to the house and give him a haircut.   I asked my hair stylist, Alison Alexander Heyes if she could recommend someone and she promptly volunteered herself.   I have known Alison almost 10 years now and have discussed many personal and family transitions of  big and small import but in that time, she never asked me this question: “What did your father do?”   Until today.

As we know, this question was no small thing to men of my father’s generation.  Their identity was often completely tied to their occupation.  My Dad’s career journey was impressive I think because he created all of his own luck, with enthusiastic pushes from behind from my mom.

He tells the story of working as a mechanic for Dueck on Broadway and musing about taking his natural skills to the sales floor in the used car department.  Co-workers did not encourage this sort of breaking ranks, but Dad had done some diesel yacht repair favors for the vice president and he told my mother that when his suit was missing from the closet, then he had gone to ask for an interview.

Long story, shorter, he made that jump and was extremely successful at sales during a time when car dealerships were very high profile in Vancouver and everybody needed a car.  We are talking the 50’s and everyone was ‘movin’ up’.  Dad had no way of predicting, and felt that most of his family was surprised, when he retired as vice president of Duecks in his 60’s.  His departure was abrupt.  He took offence to someone’s joke about him becoming ‘long in the tooth’ and that was it.  Out the door.   Quite in character.  I can see it in my mind but was totally unaware of the drama at the time, already distracted by my own career in the 80’s.

The picture below shows the typical over the top design of the dealerships of the day.  In that stretch of Broadway, there were other big contenders with Bow Mac and  Lawson Oates  among them and right across the street from Dueck.

Back to the haircut.  Pete’s last haircut never happened, I am sorry to say,  and one of my last memories will be brushing his hair on the night we said goodbye.  Around Christmas time his good days and Alison’s schedule just never came together.  He died with his long white locks.

Today, in the chair at the hair salon getting my own hair cut, I discover that Alison is the daughter of John Lawson Oates from the dealership across the road.  He married the receptionist from Dueck on Broadway, Louise Eperson.   We are the children of that

crazy competitive time.  What a conversation his haircut would have produced!  

Becoming a Veteran: Served in the Royal Navy 1942 - 1945

In the last years of Dad’s life, Veterans Affairs Canada became a very important benefactor.  They paid for all kinds of services, gear and medications that would have been cash out of pocket to people with civilian status.  They were bureaucratic, difficult to communicate with sometimes and slow but very, very generous.  We often marveled at the quality of life he was able to lead with their support in keeping him in his house.

So it was all because he sweated out the war in the engine room of diesel fuelled landing craft, keeping the vessels going in various ports in North Africa in preparation for the assault on Italy.  They had arrived at Gibraltar in one of those craft, after crossing the Atlantic, from Virginia I think, – 25 of them bouncing around with no military escort.  It was an experiment to see if it was possible, rather than sending the vessels in parts to be assembled.  These men were expendable I guess but lived through it only to be stalled by the King’s ship that had just docked! So the bullets were not coming straight at him, he had a skill that kept him safe, and served him well in later years in the auto industry.

 Military records state that he served as a stoker 1^st class motor mechanic and demobilized as a leading stoker with 578 days on the high seas.  He talked about ports with exotic names like Djeli and Bougi and the perils of the British 8^th army combined operations.

His brothers Dave, Hank and Bill were all in the army.  He said he wanted to sail over and save them!  There is collection of medals that he was very proud of celebrating that mission.

The ships had great names like “Dinosaur”, “Copra”, “Peregrine”,”Naden” and “Discovery”

When he returned, he entertained his sisters by teaching them the ‘North African Shuffle’, a dance he totally made up.   He also remembers playing pool with brother Bill and exchanging war stories.  Bill was in the trenches in France and the battle at Dieppe – quite a different perspective that seeing it from the ocean!

Peter Neufeld is a Star

Andromeda, also known as M31 in the Messier catalogue of deep sky objects, is the closest galaxy to our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Still, it is 2.3 million light years away. In about five billion years, the Andromeda and Milky Way are expected to collide, but, need I say it, that's not really our concern yet. Here is Space.com’s page on Andromeda. 

In our sky you can find Andromeda by locating it in relation to known visible stars and named constellations. Find the "W" of Cassiopeia and then hold you closed fist in the air under the right hand bottom point of the "W" and the elongated blurry smudge on the other side of your fist, on a clear moonless night, will be Andromeda.

There's an organization known as The International Star Registry. Somehow, in the early 1980s, only a few years after its inception and years before the devil's tool known as the World Wide Web, Dianne found out about the Registry and for Peter's birthday one year, had a star named for him. It can't be seen with the naked eye because it's located in what's known as the halo of Andromeda, which is that blazing spiral ring of stars surrounding the core.

I've borrowed this star chart and using the coordinates I was given by a lovely person named Jane at the Canadian offices of the Star Registry (00 07 05 +33 36) I've located the approximate location of the star names Neufeld. I typed the name and planted the red arrow myself.

Or, as seen in the sky with the boundaries of Andromeda overlaid.

Or, as seen in the sky, or should I say as not see, but with a crosshair locating the coordinates.

Here is a video from NASA that shows beautiful images of Andromeda as seen in three different ultraviolet wave lengths.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWxBTHVhc3I

As you watch, remember that one of those millions of points of light is named for Peter Neufeld and always will be right up until Andromeda and The Milky Way collide in about five billion years.

~ Dana Still

Adventures Before War: The Depression & Peter

Going to Vancouver in 1936 – riding the rails, moving horses, making telephone poles, stacking wood for food outside the bakery, sleeping alongside hobos.

1939 returning to Walsh to work in the munitions plant, arranged by his father so he could avoid going overseas to join his brothers.   He belonged to the Home Guard.

He tells a funny story about going to a meeting of the Home Guard and his hat.  He was living with his sister, Sue and her husband, Boulter.  above  the tinsmith’s shop.  He had a uniform and liked to polish the badge on his hat because it was “important”.  To steady it while polishing, he put a table fork underneath it.  One night, he was leaving for his duty and glanced at this reflection in the tinsmith’s darkened window, probably to check his jaunty uniform.  That was when he noticed the fork – still stuck in his hat!

He first told me this story in June 2010 after I told him about going to his bank to pay the bills and realizing later that I had roller in my hair!

So motors and war, they sealed Dad’s fate.   He joined the Navy in 1942, escaping his father’s thoughtful plan to keep him out of trouble.  HMCS Discovery on Deadman’s Island in Vancouver was his place of enrolment.   Then diesel mechanic training back east and then on to the Royal Navy and the adventure with the landing craft industry.

Next came the story of crossing the Atlantic in one of those flat crafts, because they wanted to test the possibility to save time!  Up until then, the parts were shipped and they were assembled closer to the war theatre.   Amazingly, they survived the Atlantic perils.

And the on again, off again romance with Clare Borth, who by now was working by day in the Department of Defence in Ottawa,  and dancing  at night with the prairie boys  who were getting ready to go over seas.  She wrote letters.   She expected some back.  That didn’t happen.   But I found some poems written by Dad.   I don’t think he wants me to put them out in public but he was clearly smitten and determined.

~ Dianne

Early Training

Peter's Parents; Early Life

While re reading Dad’s book of stories, randomly recorded during the last 4 years whenever I could get him going, it is clear that his most colourful early memories are about his father and his jobs, and how the former often influenced the latter.

To set the context, David Neufeld was born in Russia in 1875, came to Canada when he was approximately 18 years old, spoke 7 languages. The family had been in Russia for three generations but along with many other Mennonites, had been kicked out of many countries since their origin in Holland.   He was literate, wrote many letters and owned an encyclopedia.   He insisted they all go to church even though the Mennonite church had not been established yet in Alberta.   He taught his kids carols in German and made them perform for guests.   Most of the kids refused to speak German back to him because they were suffering from “DP” discrimination at school.  David Neufeld senior retired from working at the grain elevator in Walsh, Alberta in 1938 and died suddenly in the potatoe garden behind the Grand Café (the venue of many adventures and events in Walsh)

So Peter was the youngest boy.  There were two more sons after him, Abraham and Robert but they died in infancy.  Dad lamented the position of being the youngest son and having to sit in the last place on the bench.  “I wanted to get out of there and get my own bench!”, he said.   He says he suffered the usual younger brother abuse from Dave, Bill and Hank.   Dad was usually in some kind of hot water for mischief. (school class picture good here). 

How Dad’s Dad connects to early jobs is a testament to Pete’s independence and determination to prove he was worthy and different than the expectations created for him. The boys were supposed to pull the weeds around the grain elevator but not get paid.  Pete broke ranks and went to work for Mr. Reinhardt who paid him a dollar to pull his weeds.   Pete loved annoying his father in small and big ways “because he was harsh”.

The blacksmith seems to be an early influence.  Dad started going there to replenish the alcohol needed to run a toy engine that he had.  He started going there every day to turn the forge (?) for Mr. Murray.   We found a page of newspaper from 1928 when he would have been still a boy and the only thing on it that makes any connection is all of the car ads.   He loved the idea of motors.

Dianne