took in washing, an exhausting enough task for her own family’s needs, let alone others. It was a trying comedown for her, living in a small town intent on making its mark financially. Its citizens did not extend much sympathy to the impoverished. Sarah kept her head up as best she could and dwelt on the achievements of George’s brothers, notably Samuel who was doing brilliantly in Germany, to uphold family pride.
A letter from Samuel was always eagerly received by George. On April 3, 1895, he sent a postcard to George from Schenkendorf Strasse, 27, Etage III, Leipsic, Germany:
My dear brother: —
It is so long since I heard from you. I shall only risk a postal this time. I made the examination March 6th with highest honor summa cum laude. This honor is seldom given to anybody and was never before given by the University of Jena to a foreigner. I am now settled at the above address. It took some time to find a comfortable room at a reasonable price but I have it very pleasant at last. Leipsic is a big city and things are not so simple as at Jena. I will study here till Aug. 1, partly in Philosophy and partly in Theology. There are lots of Americans here. I am located pretty well out of their way. Met the preacher however and am probably booked to preach on Easter Sunday in the American church. But for the language and the flags and the official forms one could hardly notice the difference between Leipsic and an American city of similar size. I will find a carry for Harry and send it as soon as you have written. Your address is about as uncertain as mine — Aff. Sam Weir.
George and Sarah had been living at 795 York Street for five years when Samuel’s post card arrived. There may well have been misgivings about the suitability of the neighbourhood on George’s part which gave Samuel the impression that they had moved. For the next few years however, the house on York Street was all the family could possibly afford. On August 12, 1898, Sarah gave birth to her second son, our Samuel Edward, called Samuel after his distinguished uncle.
Whether George was unable to find the cash to pay the realty taxes on the York Street property or whether he was forgetful or even resented paying taxes at all, the tax bill was overdue by the end of the year and was in arrears. Two years later, Samuel Edward’s brother, Charles Wilfred Paul, Sarah’s last child was born. Samuel Edward was known in the family as Ted and sometimes Teddie while Charles Wilfred Paul was called Paul. Later Ted chose to be known to friends and clients as Sam and Paul changed his name to Carl. However, within the household the boys were always Ted and Paul.
When Paul was a year old, George was superannuated by the Detroit Conference and thus was entitled to a pension which he refused to accept, saying that “others need it more than I.” The talk in London was that the Weirs were “poor and proud.” His self denying piety was hard on Sarah and the children.
Samuel Edward, born 1898, photograph taken circa 1901.
In 1902 a warrant was issued by the City of London for unpaid taxes on the York Street property and it was sold to A.E. Danks in two parcels, for $3.37 and $3.38 plus $1.80 each for costs of sale. This was a severe blow to Sarah’s pride. Friends of Samuel Edward’s remember their mothers saying that Sarah Weir seemed to be “always in tears.” With so much stress and worry it was not surprising that George’s health, never robust after the bout of malaria, gave him further trouble. After developing a severe pain in his abdomen and being unsatisfied with the doctors’ inabilities to relieve him, George decided to study medicine himself, with a doctor in London as was the custom. He persevered with his studies even though he had taken on work as a truant officer during the school year and as tram conductor when time permitted.
The following year, 1903, in a letter to his brother Samuel, he mentions “trying to hustle the boys off to school.” By then Samuel Edward was five, Carl three and George Harrison, or Harry, was fifteen. Sarah had travelled to Duluth to help Mary, her sister, in her first childbirth and had brought the baby back with her to London as Mary was considered too frail to care for the baby herself. In the meantime George’s father, Robert, now blind and unable to continue with his dairy farm and milk delivery, came to live with the Weirs and also was cared for by Sarah in the cramped quarters of York Street. Certainly Samuel Edward was given an example of service to others from his early childhood.
Martha Frances born 1886; Charles Paul born 1900; and Samuel Edward born in 1898. Photo taken on York Street in 1903. Sarah peeks around the door.
By December of 1903 the sale of York Street for unpaid taxes was completed. Early in 1904 George bought a larger house for $150.00 down at 197 Sherwood Avenue. Set on ten acres, the storey and a half dwelling with four bedrooms, a parlour, a kitchen and study, also had a long verandah with a rod for hanging fowl. The heat for this house was supplied by a fireplace. By August George had assumed a first mortgage of $900.00 and a second of $500.00. Odd jobs helped the family’s meagre income. Now that the Weirs lived on ten acres of land they acquired a cow, Stella’s Cream Cup. She is alleged to have produced milk with a butterfat content of 7.5%. It seems that everybody in London knew about the Weirs’ remarkable Stella.
Samuel Edward was sent off to school in Grade 1 with holes in his stockings and his clothing much the worse for wear. He was teased, laughed at and picked on by the other children and frequently had to defend himself physically. The area in the east end of London has been described as brutal, where fists and hard fighting determined the social pecking order. Fortunately, six year old Samuel was big for his age and strong, but the bitterness of those early years of extreme poverty, the hazing and having to look out for Paul left its mark on a proud and sensitive child. Paul became very ill in the same year with encephalitis, now known to be a viral infection, but at that time it was thought that encephalitis could be caused by a blow to the head. Samuel Edward, our young Teddie, now had even more responsibility for Paul, especially after his brother developed a permanent limp.
By 1905 the family finances showed a slight improvement, but the reason for the lessening of money troubles increased the tension in Teddie’s and Paul’s social lives. With both in the public school system where George, their father, was the truant officer, student life held other difficulties for the two boys. ‘Monkey Weir’ was the name given to George by a student faction more noted for its high spirited flouting of authority than for obedience and scholarship. Teddie’s soubriquet was, naturally, ‘Little Monkey,’ a name he detested. It was bad enough for a very intelligent high-minded proud child to turn up at school in torn and shabby clothes, but the taunt of ‘Little Monkey,’ attacking both the child and the father, laid the foundation for a certain resentment of the well to do and accepted children of his age.
Just as in his earlier days as a teacher, George Sutton Weir was a strict disciplinarian and an upholder of respect for the law as well as for himself as an embodiment of law. At this time Dr. John Dearness was a school inspector, well known and feared. With his approval, persistent cases of truancy and general mischief were put in detention rooms in the Children’s Shelter at George Sutton’s direction. Upon one occasion three unusually troublesome lads were placed in solitary detention overnight on George’s suggestion and under his control, but it was noted that in this instance he obtained the consent of the parents first. This sort of action may have given George and perhaps the parents some satisfaction, but it did nothing for the acceptance of Teddie and Paul into the society of their peers. Fisticuffs and torn clothing continued, much to the despair of Sarah.
It is interesting to note that in 1905 and the early years of the century no one thought to question children on their reason for fighting, or if they were questioned, some sort of personal pride forbade them telling their mothers of the situation. Telling their fathers would, of course, have made the whole situation even worse. There is no evidence that Ted’s Aunt Jennie, a teacher in London, ever interested herself in her cousin George’s
