“Uncle Gillis!” Dad exclaimed as his elderly uncle descended from the train stairs at the Coquitlam Station,” What are you doing with that shot gun?”
It was Christmas in the early 1960’s and Uncle Gillis was arriving from Tabor or Fort Mcleod, Alberta, for his annual visit to the West Coast family.
Uncle Gillis talked through his nose, so if telling the story orally, you have to imitate his voice. “I’m going to shoot that son of a bitch, Bud Christmas!” Uncle Gillis explained. Bud Christmas was Uncle Gillis’ niece’s husband, who we all considered to be a con man. The fortune left to his sister Lot and her two adult children, Aunt Jean and Uncle Borden, appeared to be rapidly disappearing and we all thought Bud was responsible.
“Uncle Gillis, give me the shotgun!” Dad insisted. “Let me take it for you.” What is in your suitcase, Uncle Gillis?” There was a red liquid that looked like blood dripping from his old worn suitcase.
“Buffalo steaks,” he replied. He had brought them for a treat, but they hadn’t been frozen or packed on ice during the overnight train trip.
I can’t remember if it was the same trip or another one, when Uncle Gillis, muttered as we passed the Fraser River while driving home to Haney, “Nice river, the Bow River. I’ve always liked it.” We were not sure if he remembered he was in BC.
In fact, I can’t even remember if I was actually there that time he turned up with the shotgun. Maybe I just heard the story so many times from Dad that I came to think I had been there. Mom says she wasn’t there, but she remembers another time we met Uncle Gillis at the train, and he insisted on knowing, “Where am I? What city is this? Which way is North?” before any official greetings or hugs could proceed.
I don’t know what became of the shot gun, but Bud lived to invest more money in risky stocks on the Vancouver stock market, or so it was rumoured.
Gillis Macaulay was the youngest son of the second family of my great grandparents. Their first seven children died in diphtheria epidemics of the 1870’s and 80’s. Raised in Cape Breton, he could speak Gaelic and enjoyed finnon haddie (Scottish smoked haddock) for breakfast when he visited our grandmother. Educated as a mine engineer at Dalhousie, he was also reputed to have been able to quote Shakespeare eloquently. In the First World War, he rose to the rank of Major in the still existing Canadian Army Cavalry. He had reddish hair, I believe, although I only knew him as a stout bald elderly man. We have a letter written to him in French in 1918 by a mademoiselle in France. He must have once been a dashing figure.
Sometime before or after the First World War, Gillis ended up In Drumheller, Alberta, using his engineering skills in the coal mining industry. He probably went to work with Uncle Dan, who was a coal mine owner. One story from the 1920’s involves Gillis trying to deposit some mining related money in a bank in Montana but arriving too late. He pounded on the door insisting they open it so he could deposit the money, which they did, but the next morning, (this was 1929) the bank failed.
Mine engineer, Gillis Macaulay, brother-in-law of the more conventionally behaving Mayor Dan Macaulay and his mining partner, my grandfather, “M M McDonald”, was undoubtedly a town character. Dad recounted how Uncle Gillis, who had a habit of driving his car down the middle of the road, would sometimes have car trouble. At that point, he would start kicking the car and swearing at it with a litany of curses, which at some point would begin to sound like angry prayers, “Merciful Christ! Mary, Mother of God!” After he had kicked and cursed the car long enough, he’d get in it and miraculously the engine would start because it had probably been flooded.
Uncle Gillis never had much money. There was a tragic reason for this. Sometime in the 1920’s, he killed a young man in a car accident. He was at fault. Maybe he had been drinking because he was definitely a drinker, but so were many of the other people we heard stories about. As a result of the accident, his mine engineer’s salary was garnisheed for life, so he could never own property.
Gillis’ inability to buy a house of his own or support a wife may have been why he didn’t marry. He was known to visit a female friend in Banff, among many, one Miss Brewster, the wealthy daughter of the founder of the Banff bus company. Miss Brewster never married either. Years later, Mom remembers visiting Miss Brewster while in Banff and seeing on her mantlepiece a picture of Uncle Gillis in the major’s uniform of his youth.
Uncle Gillis lived in a little house on the side of our grandparents’ property with his mother and her menagerie of pets, which included a clever parrot called Polly. Gillis’ mother, our great grandmother, taught Polly to sing a hymn; Gillis taught it to swear, no doubt by swearing at it. The parrot also learned to imitate all the neighbourhood mothers calling their children. Ways the parrot might have combined that repertoire could have been really amusing.
Gillis Macaulay must have been the life of the party, a popular guest, in his heyday. Sandra’s Aunt Isabel told about how Gillis had turned up a day late for her wedding, but on Gillis’ arrival, they decided to carry on the wedding reception party for a second day. His car was often seen by Fanny’s establishment down the river on the outskirts of town. But then so was the car of the police chief, who later married one of the madams. Apparently, the brothels doubled as dining establishments and bars for men of the town.
There is a story from the early days about Uncle Gillis, former cavalry officer, dashing down into the coal mine during a fire to successfully rescue the mine ponies. Later day stories I’ve heard were more about close calls caused by Uncle Gillis. Mom said he tried to share his French fries with me when I was a baby in Drumheller, but luckily, she was able to save me from choking. Mom also tells that around that time, Dad and Uncle Sandy were helping Uncle Gillis set off a dynamite charge while prospecting for coal. Gillis lit the fuse and then stood around muttering out loud trying to remember the time/distance formula until Dad and Uncle Sandy yelled,” Run!!” They all barely escaped exploding rocks falling on their heads.
Gillis stayed on in Drumheller after most of the family left. He ended his work life living in Tabor and Fort Macleod and spent his last years in Calgary.
Uncle Gillis was one of the more memorable characters of my youth even though I mostly remember him sitting with a drink in hand with his Nova Scotia siblings. In my earlier years, his arrival on the train, signaled the start of the family Christmas season: presents, fun with our Alberta cousins, parties at our grandparents, Aunt Lot playing Christmas carols and hymns and Uncle Borden singing ribald army songs to the background noise of clinking glasses, the kids helping themselves to pop from the fridge. Uncle Gillis’ departure after new years from the CPR station in Vancouver marked that the close of the holidays. In later years after my grandmother was gone, like the shotgun Christmas, the party, a more sedate one, must have been in Haney with us.
The last time I saw Uncle Gillis was in the summer, 1966, when I was visiting the Calgary relatives. He came over for dinner, and on leaving, insisted that he would return on Monday and take me to the Legion with him. “No, Uncle Gillis,” I said, “they won’t let me in. I’m only eighteen!” (legal was 21). “Oh, yes, they will,” he insisted. “Everyone knows me at the Legion!”. I had no doubt they did, but he didn’t take me, perhaps Uncle Sandy told him he couldn’t take me or more likely, given his state of mind by then, he forgot.
A year or two after, he was buried in Banff as he had wished, a special privilege for a non-resident. Although usually not one to go to graveyards, in 1969, I wandered through the cemetery when passing through Banff. I did not find his grave, nor that of Miss Brewster.
Many relatives disappear from memory after their time. After my generation, who will have heard of Great Uncles Sam, Peter or Andrew? Aunts Catherine or Lot? But Uncle Gillis’ fame lives on into another generation, one that never met him. Who knows? Maybe even longer when stories are written down.
(In the 1980’s, Dad also wrote a story about him “Requiem for the Major”)
If there is an upper limit on the number of interesting stories that one family can have, then I think you are rapidly approaching that limit. If there are any more, perhaps you could quietly slip it to someone else, so we could pretend it was our story.
No, I haven’t nearly finished, but let me assure you, some stories are more interesting or funny in retrospect. It’s called survivor’s humour.
Well Ken…perhaps we can dig into our past and find some interesting relatives. Mom had some pretty eccentric sisters but sadly, I can’t remember much about them.
Anne, I enjoyed your story. What a cast of characters. Surprising that you and your siblings are mostly normal given your heritage.
Radiance’s comment reminds me of a postcard I sent to some friends. It showed a large auditorium with a banner at the back, “Adult Children of Normal Parents, Welcome Delegates.” In the middle of the auditorium was one lone individual.
They showed it to a young neighbour. He did not get a laugh out of it and was anxious to assure them that his parents were entirely normal.
Exactly, Ken, and the young neighbour obviously didn’t have the sense of humour that can develop from coping with a ‘normal dysfunctional” family and realizing what they are. (A severely dysfunctional family is another matter altogether.) If your family didn’t have as many “interesting” relatives, it could be because it had fewer bi-polar alcoholics and fewer PTSD-damaged veterans. However, I think I could write stories about some of your family members just from what I’ve seen and mostly heard. But I won’t. They aren’t my stories to interpret. It’s all in the perspective and details.