Yesterday was Father’s day, the second one since my dad’s passing April 11th, at 11 am, 2011. He went peacefully after getting up and suffering repertory failure. He loved his dear wife of 53 years who passed on July 18, 2003 after having a stroke. I remember both days like they were yesterday... this is my story, the one I remember conceived and coming into this world born to two people who were different yet compatible.
They say opposites attract and that must have been true. Once my dad had passed on I found an address book with all the important dates and contact information, banking information etc. at the bottom of page one it says: “Betty Alberta Hall born Dec 23, 1928, Married me April 4th, 1949, passed on July 18, 2003, not one day of regret.”
Dad was a kind, fun loving soul who always had a joke and a prayer for everyone no matter what. He was born April 7, 1926 from 2 Irish parents off the boat from Warren Point Ireland, a small fishing village in the north. His father was James Henry the 1st, he was the 2nd, my brother the 3rd and my nephew the 4th. His dad came first on the freighter from Ireland in 1913 and his soon to be bride, Edith McCabe soon followed him in 1914. They were married September 8th, 1914.
I always thought that dad was an only child but latter discovered that there was an older sister who was born 5 years previous. She only lived a year. For some reason the story was that dad was an only child.
Truly he was as it was another 5 years before he was conceived, the one and only child from this union who was raised as the only son. I never met either Grandfather that I know of as they both passed on before the grandmothers. My grandma stoops, yes I remember her well as I was 12 when she fell and broke her arm and went in a cast at 86 to see her two sisters, May and Lilly, her two older sisters who lived in the homestead until their 90’s.
My mom was one of 10 or 11 kids if you count the child that Bessy Hall raised when his parents were killed in a fire and Bessy and Albert took him in. There was always a place at the table for who ever was seeing who in that family. My dad said that the Halls wanted to fatten him up as he was pretty skinny in those early days. He and mom met at a church service. One of his friends said, Jim there are a lot of nice girls at the Army, why don’t we go and check it out? My dad smiled and said let’s go.
It was so different than the Anglican church, he said, drums, clapping, tambourines and lots of music, singing and a brass band indoors. People actually smiled like they enjoyed themselves. That is where he met my mom.
The officer at the time, Elsie Cunningham went to the house and asked Grandma Hall if she might want a break on Sunday morning b y sending the kids to Sunday school. She assured them that they would learn some things and sing and have some fun and it would give her some time to herself.
When my mom passed away, Elsie, who was well into her 90’s had become a life long friend of mom and dad’s. She was in a seniors home and my dad would visit and go for tea and take her for ice-cream. She sent a plant that read: to my favourite Junior Soldier, a junior member of the church that can happen when you turn seven.
You might wonder what Army I am talking about. My parents met and married in the Salvation Army, were both converted and called to become Salvation Army Officers.
My dad had ideas of running a dry cleaning business at one time and my mom worked at a boot making factory during the war when kids were allowed to leave school to work in the factory, the war effort they called it. Being from a big family, my mom, Betty, had no problem organizing and helping to get things done, done right that is. She was also head cashier at Dominion Store down town Toronto and enjoyed the work and the people.
Dad enlisted and did 2 years and luckily did not see any action.
The Hall family was one of entrepreneurs. Bessy, my Grandma Hall baked and sold the absolute best bake goods, especially her butter tarts and sold them to supplement the family income and make ends meet. Everyone said, they did not have a lot but no one ever went hungry or was turned away. Baking and everything else was done with love. Those Butter tarts had lots of nuts and cherries in them. Gooey to the last bite with pastry that would melt in your mouth just by getting it close to the heat of your mouth. They were so good. I can vouch for that as one of the memories I had as a little girl.
My dad loved to tell me stories about the Hall family. He said Grandma hall was the best cook and with all those kids she would cook something every meal that every kid would eat, some liked carrots and some corn and on and on it went. He said that is why your mother always cooks the special meals with 5 vegetables so there is lots of colour and choice around the table especially at these special times or family dinners.
I remember going to Grandma Hall’s home and seeing this big black lab, old Joe. HE was BIG, but I was short and around 5 years old. My uncle Jack had to put him down one time because he was sick and had a bad hip. I was about 6 when I heard my uncle tell my dad the story as it was always a highlight for us kids to see the dog and dad was looking for him.
This connection for my dad was really his family of Hall brother’s and sister’s who accepted him once they stopped teasing him to say that Betty was bringing him home to fatten him up.
Now you need to know that some of my uncles hauled 50 pound ice blocks as people had ice boxes back then. They sold them for a penny or two and always made enough to go to a show or pay their way by contributing to the family household. It was the 30’s and 40’s back then.
I heard many a story from my uncle Jack about him and Uncle Al and Bud hauling ice and how both he and my dad worked at Eaton’s as drivers for a while. Never a dull moment with that clan.
I was called a Hall from an early age, around 8 I think. My uncles that married Hall women would say, once a Hall... always a Hall, or that’s a Hall for you. Hall’s never backed down from anything and had their own way of living in the world. They had fun and played ball, hockey, and loved family time. They played hard and worked hard.
Mom had to hold her own in the family and had a kid sister that she was really close to who was born the same day, one year after she was born, December 23rd.
She was my Aunt Marg, born a blue baby with red hair and frail. I never knew what a blue baby was as I had never seen anyone but people that looked the same but never blue... it was some time before I learned the significance of what that meant and how my mom was the one who looked out for her little sister when they were growing up, along with Rita, Helen, Pauline, Dot and Doris who were twins, then the boys, Bud, Albert, Jack, Ron.
It took a while before I learned what it meant to be called a Hall by my Uncle George and Uncle Ed who married Hall girls. I kind of knew it was a good thing when they would smile and say, you’ve got the Hall genes. My dad would say, Blynn, you have my sense of humour and your mother’s brains and those two things will take you as far as you want to go. Dad was a good, honest, well meaning gentle-man who never raised his voice, never mean to anyone that I could tell. I think that is why my mom loved him so much. They were always together unless mom was with a sister or friend out shopping, but especially later in life, they were inseparable.
Mom and dad where always involved in the Salvation Army... I heard stories about Training College at 84 Davisville in Toronto in 1949. Remember I mentioned that she was the head cashier at Dominion at 18 and the store manager cried when he found out she was going ‘in the work’. He pleaded with her not to go but they had already been accepted and that was that.
Dad said he even said she would be a store manager within 3 years and she said sorry, we are called to do this work and we are going to do it. There was no choice for either one of them. There are a few stories that are worth repeating here.
Dad said he could put on his full uniform and walk out the front door and the officer would say good evening Cadet Stoops. Never a question, but your poor mother he would say, she never had a chance to do the same. They were always waiting to catch her at something and they never knew what.
My mom always said, they wanted your father and she would smile.
Mom, she was stalked by the staff, Colonel Bernell, amongst others rode her hard to try and get her to conform. She was not having very much of that. She was use to going home to Claremont to get her hair done on Wednesday nights so would sneak in and out the fire escape. Large families were like their own little community. Being separated and told there was little or no contact was hard for her to take so she made sure she was able to go and check on her mom and catch up with her sisters every chance she could get.
There was a strict dress code, galoshes in the winter etc. She balked at that and said she never wore them before and her feet were the same so what is the big deal? She would wear them out the front door and then ditch them somewhere as they were warm and uncomfortable. Dad said, they ahd to replace more galoshes than he could count. Rules, rules and more rules and always a challenge.
I still have her transcripts and they were all A or A+, A-, nothing less for her marks, but tell her what to do as if she was a child and had to be told what to wear when was ridiculous in her eyes.
There were a few challenges as she actually thought she had choice of what to do and what not to do and was use to speaking up or questioning what she saw as common sense. She had to sing a solo and Marley Hammond sang it with her to get her started and this was outside with people looking on... it was difficult and she stopped with Marley did so they sang a duet and mom said she owed her. She had to carry the flag out in front and my mom considered herself big, likely a size 10 at that time by the look of the pictures. Dad said she carried about 3 blocks until she could find a tree low enough to put it up in and the guys had to get it out of the tree. She winked at me and I knew it was true.
Then the day before they signed their final papers for commissioning, that is ordination. She had decided that these girls from outside Toronto had never seen Sunny Side Amusement park so she arranged for them to go after curfew. AS dad tells it, Old Colonel Bernell came into our room and threw off my covers who was asleep in bed and said, Where is she? He was startled and said, where is who? And then he would burst out laughing hysterically.
Col Bernell saw that dad was not an accomplice and he went back to bed. Col., Bernell sat in a chair and waited until after midnight when the 19 of them came up the fire escape and in through the bedroom window. There was Colonel Bernell, furious as flicked on the light and gave them all a look like they were going straight to Hell! In a rage she said, I’ve got you, you will all be in trouble and sent home in the morning.
Some cried as my mom came in and told them to stop crying, to shut up, they could not send them all home. Another few days and they would be on their own. She asked, is this how you will be in the real world?
She told them to just keep quiet and go to your room and go to bed, it will be all right. Dad shook his head with a smile and said, that was just the beginning of my life with Betty, your mother.
I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that story from some who were invited and some who were excluded as they were the ‘good girls’ and would have reported her so they were not on the list. The Intercessors Session just had their 60th anniversary last week and I heard some of the same stories again from one of their session mates. Dad would have been there if he had still been around for sure. He loved to tell us stories of the old days.
My mom loved life, did not suffer fools gladly and always had something to say to challenge or protect those who could not or would not stand up for themselves. She wanted to serve and that did not mean be a door mat! I love her for that and yes, HALLS do rule!
I was the first born, 5 years after they finished Training College and were sent to Melfort Saskatchewan. They had been stationed there for 5 years when my mom became ill. No one could figure it out. It had been 4 or 5 months before the small town doctor discovered that I was present! They tested mom for all kinds of illnesses and she had been having trouble with her sugar over the past few months.
Now you have to remember this is a small town out west and my mom had not been able to conceive and was told there was no way she could. I guess that did not stop them from trying and as a last resort they did a pregnancy test and there I was... Hello! How could they miss me? My poor mom missed out on the joy of being an expected mother all that time. They tested her and found out that she was diabetic and that was later discovered as gestation diabetes’s.
The baby was turned they told her so the doc turned me around by hand. Already being ignored by the medical community, I turned back and the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck. Imagine how smart I would have been if I had not have had that choking me during those last few hours.
The delivery was long and my mom was really cut and required lots of stitches and bed rest. My dad tells the story of how he was in the next bed as he was having sympathy pains along with my mom and they put him in the next bed. Mom was told, no more children as another pregnancy could take her life. She said, yes doctor... 2 years and a bit latter, my brother, yes, James Henry Stoops the 3rd was born in Aurora, but he says Toronto. No one knew at the time that she only had one kidney and one ovary.
I remember driving with the family with a 15 foot camp trailer on the back of the car. We were on the 401, I was about 10 years of age when I asked dad how could they have ever cut a road through this rocky, almost mountainous area. He explained how the rock was really shale in this area and it could break off in your hand. I said no way! He looked and me and the next thing I knew we were pulled off to the side of the road and we got out. He said, young lady you doubt your father, come with me. I thought I was a goner. Then we climbed up a little and he looked at me and said watch, he smiled, took a corner of the rock and it broke off in his hand. I was SHOCKED! He was right. Any more questions he said, I said no dad and he took my hand and we went back to the car.
My mom, she was the strict one and liked to have fun and was a bit of a challenger to the status quo. When it was her turn to drive my dad would say, you might as well sleep now as we will make up time with your mother driving. She passed every transport within her sight and we never got a ticket. I swear dad was praying we would not get stopped or have an accident the whole time.
Another time we were in Algonquin Park camping in October. The park was almost closed for the season and some how we were allowed to park. The ranger told my dad not to go in too deep as the leaves were falling a lot and the roads would be hard to see on our way out. One morning I was up first and opened the door and the forest floor was pure yellow with the colour of the maple leafs that had fallen like a carpet around the trailer right up even with the trailer. I could not even see the steps and it was beautiful. Dad came and I said WOW I have never seen anything like this. He was quiet for a minute and then said, I think God did this just to impress you with his handy work. Then we cleared a path and started our day. I remember that like it was yesterday.
We did not have a lot, but we had each other, love and fun and worked together as a family just like God’s plan.
I remember when I had started working from my University days and mom and dad got transferred to Toronto. Jim and I stayed together for a year as he was completing grade 12 and 13 together and then would start university in Toronto. Stewart and I told my family at a dinner in Toronto that we were engaged after 8 years of courtship in Windsor.
My mom said, hummm, I thought of your life as you working, going out, working, going out, but if this is what you want, then OK. I told them I was keeping my maiden name and that I had applied for 3 jobs in Ottawa and expected to get at least one job offer as I was managing the Windsor Detroit Tunnel Customs operation at the time at the ripe old age of 25.
She smiled and said that she would have kept her maiden name, but times were different back then in the 40’s, but if she could have she definitely would have done it. She was pleased and so was my dad.
I was marrying the son of the senior elder, not the oldest guy in the church, but the most senior position a lay person could hold which was called the Corps. Sergeant Major. Mom and dad were good friends with Stewart’s parents and were pleased to be connected to another strong Salvation Army family.
I loved that my mom and my dad had no problem with me keeping my maiden name at all. After all, dad was proud that mom had taken his name and was a Stoops now and forever, even though the Hall personality and values system was always at play. The merger worked for them.
I remember my brother saying, are you sure you want to do this? I was going to be 26 and just bought a house with a one year mortgage that I thought I would flip and make $20,000 in one year.
It was time to take the plunge after 8 years of going out with him and harvest the rewards of my investment in the relationship. He was my long term boyfriend after Fred, my first true boyfriend whom I went out with for almost 3 years in New Brunswick. We split up as there was No way was I going to marry at 18 and raise 6 kids in New Brunswick, so he found a girl who would.
I still see Fred some times as he did come up to Windsor, stopped in to see my parents in Toronto a few times and sent one of his kids to Ottawa to University and the Army corps I attended.
Dad was the kind of guy who right to the end of his life would laugh right out load at a TV program or movie. He loved life and watched a certain preacher from Texas every Sunday morning before going to church as Joel always opened his service with a joke. Dad would write them down and use them in his 80’s as the chaplain of the men’s group or when he was doing a talk at the Don Jail where he served as SA Chaplain for some 13 years post retirement.
Dad would say there is hope for every man to repent and reform.
Life, true life was available for all who were willing to step up and believe. He never waivered from that and read his bible and had his devotions every morning at the kitchen table.
He visited the Salvation Army Manor and pushed a retired Commissioner in his wheelchair to the Wednesday night service and helped out where he could. He told me, some day I may get that old and I would want some good looking active guy like me (at 83) to make sure I got to the service and back. He would call Elsie Friday night and tell her that Gaither’s were on TV and had her put it on until he could hear it. Then he would call her back at the end and tell her to switch it off and go to bed as some times she would fall asleep in the chair.
Trust in the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and your mind and he will direct your path he would say. That is how I got your mother he would say with a sly smile on his face.
I remember I was in competition for a place on a leadership program across the department and across the country. I called home and he could tell I was a little nervous. He said, what is wrong, don’t you have that interview and simulation over the next few days? I said yes and asked what if I don’t make it?
He took a breath and said, Blynn your mother and I love you no matter what, if you make it great, if not, then it was not meant for you and something better will arrive. Have faith and know you are not going in alone so let the rest be scared and you just go with God and let yourself have fun and shine.
You are no different than the rest of us as God directs your path, it will be clear if you should be in this program or not. We love you no matter what and so does God so raise your sights and do your best and then leave it alone. You will never be out of work and we have no preference as to what that is. As long as you are safe and happy we are happy for you. Any thing else he would say and laugh.
Here is your mom and she will give you more if you need it. I said, OK, I got it, no more advice... he chuckled and said with a smile in his voice, once a Hall, always a Hall. Here she is and he was gone.
I was one of the top 6 who made it across the country and the only woman. Not a surprise! They didn’t know I had God in my pocket and there was no stopping what was started. Nice advice dad and mom.
I was born into this union for a reason and that was to learn, to teach, to lead and inspire others as I had the opportunity to be lead, to learn and to be inspired through my growing up.
Happy father’s day to all the men who have been an influence in someone’s life; who have given their time, wisdom, attention and experience to a child somewhere in the world. We need you to continue to grown and to be the kind of man that you want to see this lovely vulnerable learning child grow into.
We are just villagers who contribute to the greater good by diffusing our knowledge, experience, love and wisdom so that others may experience Joy, Peace and Love from a neighbour who will serve to love and protect others as s/he protects, loves and nurtures the self.
With a little faith and hope in practice we can all enjoy a brighter tomorrow.
Bettylynn Stoops
Ottawa/Toronto/Global Village
