Ruth Welburn

I only knew one of my grandparents, my mother’s father, Quinn – John Quincy, to be exact, but he was called Quinn or JQ. He died of a heart attack while singing a hymn in church one Sunday evening, just two days before Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. He was 70. My mother remarked that if he had lived another couple of days, he would have lived through the reign of five monarchs. Victoria was the queen of England when Grampa was born. She was Queen Elizabeth II’s great-great-grandmother. I liked Grampa.

Both my grandmothers died when my parents were young, and I never met Dad’s father. He lived in Quebec all through my life. So that’s why having the opportunity to know my own grandchildren and great-grandchildren is so special.

My mother’s mother was a school teacher. She came to Calgary from the States to visit a relative and got stranded there. She took a job at Lane’s Studio to earn enough money to return home. The studio was owned by Grampa’s brother. That’s how she met Grandpa. She never did get home; she married Grandpa. Apparently, my grandmother was a saint, or so her family thought. I, being Mom’s oldest girl, am named after her, as were three of my cousins. One of my mother’s sisters had two boys, and the other named both her two daughters Ruth. Her first baby girl was born during the depression years, and my aunt, even though she was married, was a single mom and not able to look after her baby girl, so she gave her up for adoption to one of her step-sisters. The adopted mother, Lulu, changed the little girl’s name to Margaret. Although a second uncle has two daughters, his wife’s mother is Grampa’s second wife. Anyway, my mother so cherished her mother’s memory that she did not allow us to call Grampa’s second wife Gramma.

But I wanted to tell you a bit about my grandfather. As a boy, he moved from Ontario to Calgary with his family in 1903, at a time when Calgary was still a fort and before Alberta became a province. Alberta and Saskatchewan were still part of the NWT until 1905.

John Quincy Lane served in the army reserve before the First World War, later became a tinsmith, and likely got involved with aviation through his brother Ray, who was an aerial photographer in the First World War. During the Second World War, JQ served as a civilian airframe mechanics instructor with the RCAF in Calgary.

On July 9, 1918, Grandpa was called out to fix an aircraft on its maiden voyage to deliver mail from Calgary to Edmonton. Katherine Stinson was preparing to fly the first mail delivery from Calgary to Edmonton, a mailbag containing 259 letters, when she had fuel problems and had to land to have the aircraft serviced. Grandpa was called.

Grampa raised his family in central and southern Alberta. They lived mostly in Calgary, but they also lived in small towns like Three Hills and Delia. In Delia, he was a well-known figure, serving as the tinsmith, undertaker, and town policeman all at the same time.

I have fond memories of Grandpa. He always had time for us kids. He told us jokes, showed us tricks and had us solving problems.

I show the photo below because it shows Grampa on the left with his mother beside him. The photo came out of my mother’s photo album and has written on the back: Quinn; (–?); Vess; Jim; (–?); Gramma and Rene. My mother knew whose house it was, but I can’t remember. If anyone can shed some light on this photo, I would love to hear from you.

Grandpa remarried several years after his first wife died. He met his new wife at church. She had been a widow for several years and had many children. My uncle Jim met one of her daughters at their parents’ wedding, and they married. That meant that Grandpa and his new wife were both biological grandparents to their children.

Grandpa’s second wife was not my real grandmother, but she certainly filled the bill. She came out to stay with us many times after Mom came home with a new baby. She helped Mom with the housework and took care of the rest of us children. She was very grandmotherly. I remember one time when I was helping her hang laundry out on the line. I had just turned five and was handing her the clothespins. She remarked that it was a windy day, so the clothes would be dry in no time. I asked why the wind had anything to do with how fast the clothes dried. In her usual loving way, she explained. It’s funny how such small acts of kindness matter to a child.

When Grampa and his wife came to visit us in Jasper Place, she was so proud of the fashionable fur stole she wore over her shoulders. It looked like the actual animal with its head, tail and feet still attached! The mouth clasped its hind quarters to hold it together. We, children, were horrified by this. I can’t imagine what bright fashion mogul thought that would be classy! Even royalty wore these monstrosities.

Anyway, Grampa’s wife has a special place in my heart. She and Grampa lived in Calgary, and when Mom took my sister and me there, we stayed with them. She always made a picnic lunch and took my sister and me to the Zoo on Saint George’s Island in Calgary. Getting there was half the fun as we took the streetcar. At the time, Calgary’s zoo rivalled the one in London, England. After seeing the animals, we sat on Dinny’s tail to eat our lunch. Dinny was the first dinosaur replica built at the zoo. Today, there is a whole Dinosaur theme park next to the zoo. If it wasn’t for the Calgary skyline in the distance, one could imagine they were actually walking with the Dinosaurs.

As pleasant as Grampa’s wife made our visits to Calgary, it was what she did for my little brother that really made her our true grandmother. My little brother, Joe, went to live in the Red Cross Cripple Children’s Hospital in Calgary when he was three and a half. He was just five when he died. Gramma walked over to the hospital almost every day with a Dixie cup of ice cream. When there was a lightning storm in Calgary, she went to the hospital to be with Joe, even if the storm was at night – she knew Joe was afraid of lightning and thunder. I’m not sure if the picture below is the right picture, but it is the one that most closely represents the hospital as I remember it. If anyone has a picture of the Red Cross Cripple Children’s Hospital in the late 1940’s, early 1950s, I would love to see it.

I hope these pictures and information might be of interest to somebody in my family, now or at a later date.

It is so exciting to look forward to the birth of a new baby. There is something so special about a new entry into the family. The newcomers have no idea just how much joy they bring with their pending arrival.