Nursing seemed to be Ruth’s avenue of escape from Sherwood Avenue. The next day she wrote, “I have a patient who weighs 400 lbs — hemiplegia and aphasia. A Catholic priest came to see her, a very handsome young priest. Another patient, typhoid, is going home. She is an actress and a widow by courtesy. She is a lady friend of the night city editor of The Sun and we are going to have dinner together.” Sarah’s reply to this has not been preserved so we can only conjecture what the reaction of Sarah might be and particularly of George, to their daughter’s hobnobbing with handsome young Catholic priests and her friendship with an actress of questionable reputation indeed. From both their backgrounds, there must have been misgivings about her exposure to sinful temptations.
With a growing worldliness, Ruth refers to her patients as “old frauds,” but she writes that she is pleased that the family is having gas illumination installed. “I suppose you will be turning night into day when the gas is installed — hope you don’t get in too deep. We have just been entertaining Father Walsh, the finest looking young priest.” Did she mean to provoke them, or was she letting them know in subtle ways that she was her own person now? Ruth continued to send postcards and short notes to Martha and the boys, always keeping in touch with their progress in school and their interests…to Martha, “How’s the French coming along?”… to Paul, “I will look after the watch and the gun and the shot. But you know I will not be home for a long time. Maybe not till a year from Christmas.” — to Ted, “Thanks for the Easter card.” Sometimes there was no message, just “Dear Ted” on a postcard.
By now the family’s finances had improved to the extent that the Sherwood Avenue home contained a piano. Both Ted and Paul were given lessons by a Miss Northcott who came to the house. Ted continued to love playing baseball although at various times there was concern that he had some sort of heart trouble. When he was almost twelve, Sarah went to Duluth to be with her sister Mary in her second childbirth. She stayed with Mary until she felt her sister could cope and sent a postcard of a laker to Paul with the message, ‘How would you like to see a sight like this, Paul?” The boat was laden with 150,000 tons of coal. To “Teddie dear,” she wrote, “We will soon be home so keep your courage up. Uncle (Will) says he will send something beside the ball for the ‘little boys.’” Sarah brought the baby, Shirley, back to London in June of 1910. In October, Ruth took Shirley back to her mother in Duluth, writing to Sarah that, “Baby was fine all the way. Mary is pretty tired and so am I. Uncle Will is as fresh as a daisy.” Ruth remained in Duluth to do private nursing for a period of time.
Sarah’s remark to Teddie on courage may well have been occasioned by the effects of an attack of George’s ulcer in her absence. More than likely it was a recurrent ulcer disease caused by an infection which resulted in a chronic and painful inflammation for which there was no real help or cure until antibiotics. George suffered periodically and his family suffered along with him.
Ted worked hard at his studies, but it was Martha who stood first in her class year after year and it was Martha whom the family considered the ‘real student.’ Paul was not inclined to excel at school work, his injuries and illness from earliest childhood no doubt contributed to his difficulties. As well as delivering papers, Ted began to work in the Post Office as soon as he was fourteen. During rush seasons, he brought a little money from the sorting departments in to the household. “Letters,” he later wrote to an art dealer in England who had sent him an etching which had arrived rather bent, “are handled rather respectfully but packages are thrown all over the offices, sometimes as far as fifty or seventy five feet. The mail sorters get a good skill at throwing things into bags a long distance away and they won’t bother to walk with them.” This first hand information doubtless accounted for the detailed instructions Sam gave to various art dealers later on and his fury when his instructions were not carried out.
It was while Ted, or Sam as he now wanted to be known to the world at large, was working in the Post Office that he noticed a lithograph in a shop window. He passed it by many times and finally decided to part with fifty cents, a not inconsiderable sum of money in 1912, and take it home. It was the first acquisition, a lithograph of Sir Wilfred Laurier from the J.W.L. Forster portrait, in what was to become the consuming passion of his life, amassing a remarkable and significant collection of Canadian art and artifacts, along with an extensive library.
During this period George Sutton was able to acquire a ten acre property on Oxford Street West. The Sherwood Avenue property was sold and the family moved in to 139 Oxford Street. This would be home to Sam until his retirement from his law practice and the move to River Brink at Queenston. There were fruit trees on the property and room for the children to indulge their separate loves. Paul was the young farmer on a modest scale. Sam was the horticulturist. A love of beautiful, unusual and exotic plants and flowers remained an absorbing interest to Sam all his life. Although there had been difficulties with the tax department as George Sutton either had a bad memory or intentionally ignored the notices, but here at last the family could settle down. However, the house was anything but luxurious, without a furnace and dependent on coal oil lamps for light.
When World War I was declared in August of 1914, Sam was still at Central Collegiate High School with one more year to go, a teenager with a passion for baseball and a growing interest in the garden and the flowers it produced. Paul was still a problem, given to attacks of irritability, a legacy in all probability of the encephalitis as well as pain from an arthritic condition of the spine. He seems to have been very much the baby of the family, being given extra consideration by all, but was more interested in taking care of the livestock than in doing well at school. In such a situation, it can be understood that serious minded Ted was taken for granted and sometimes his achievements were passed over lightly in the family.
Paul received a Christmas letter from Ruth on Roosevelt Hospital stationery, dated January 3 on the envelope. Ruth never dated her correspondence, but fortunately her letters to her family were preserved in their envelopes, the cancellation marks revealing when they were written.
“How was the New Year’s goose? I suppose the Weir family did not get much of the Christmas one. How are Pat and Buster and the cows? Is Buttercup giving good milk? It was too bad about the poor chickens. Did you save any of them? (I think you are a regular Shylock.)”
Perhaps a cold snap was too much for the hen house. It would seem that Paul had a little business venture going in the back yard.
At some period before Sam graduated from the collegiate, possibly in the Easter holidays or on weekends in early 1915, he found work in a wartime factory producing explosives. Sam was fascinated by the processes and told his father he wanted to study chemistry and work in that field. George was opposed and persuaded Sam to stay in school, graduate and get himself articled in a law firm. A career in chemistry for Sam would mean that two of his children would be living at home and pursuing degrees. At this time Martha was working part time in Dr. Hadley Williams’ office while studying at the University of Western Ontario for a degree in English and History. Sam reluctantly agreed to abandon his hopes for a degree in chemistry or chemical engineering and, immediately after his graduation with honours from the collegiate in June of 1915, started working as an articled clerk at Meredith and Meredith, a very highly respected law firm, for the sum of $2.00 a week.
Samuel Edward, after high school, while he articled with Meredith and Meredith.
Early in 1915, Ruth apparently left the staff of Roosevelt Hospital and went into private nursing. She sent postcards home to the boys with views of her whereabouts: Larchmont, New York; Allenhurst, New Jersey. Sam received a postcard in June, “How are the exams?” By August the adventurous Ruth Weir R.N. had volunteered to go overseas with the American Red Cross and on October 27 she wrote to her mother, “Just sailing, La Touraine.” For the remainder of the year Ruth sent cards to everyone in the family at the rate of two or three times a week. No doubt her tidbits of news were received
