I don't remember a great deal about my mother, Lila Marshman-Park, as she unfortunately passed out of my life when I was very young. I was only one and a half years old. She died on July 5, 1934 of septic lobar pneumonia due to septic infection following influenza. In simple words, it was from blood poisoning. There were no antibiotic medicines in the thirties. I am told her full name was Lila Jane Marshman and that she preferred Jane, named after her mother. I do remember a few bits and pieces, in particular, parts of the funeral. Betty and I were presented to her body in the casket in the front room of the house in Brownsville. There were lots of flowers in the room and we watched while sitting near the casket, as people came and went. Lila was laid to rest in the Park plot in Tillsonburg Ontario,

Our country doctor's house seemed like a rather large place to live in at the time, however I was amazed how it had shrunk when I went back thirty plus years later as an adult with my own children. It was interesting to hear from the then owners, that the basement still smelled of chemicals, probably part of my doing.

The community was made up of farming and small business families. A block away was the general store that had a high deck entrance under which we children would play and scavenge for any dropped coins that could be used to purchase candy or any other delectable items. As I think about it now, the porch height was there to make it easy to load and unload wagons at the store. A block or so farther down the road was a small stream that ran through the town which was the cause of one of my experiences of things not to do. If you turned the corner and went to your left you would find our grade school. At this age I guess my world was roughly a four or five block area in any direction.

Our house was a two story wood frame with a basement. It sat on a rather large corner lot. My guess would be perhaps one quarter acre. The house occupied the north east corner. A very large old tree, I believe a Manitoba Maple, was on the northwest corner along the street. This was a fantastic tree to climb. Large solid branches that stretched in all directions providing luxurious summer shade. There was an alley that ran past this tree on the west side. The alley ran past the back of the lot to the next street. There was a barn which opened to this alley somewhere near the back of our lot. Dad had no use for the barn that I remember other than perhaps keeping the model A or was it T, car in there in the winter. The barn had an upper floor and I seem to remember a horse drawn buggy in there at one time which somehow found its way to the top of the barn roof one Halloween. The rest of this lot was segmented into a large garden area where lots of garden vegetables were grown and harvested. Remember this was when most people canned their

The garden produced many kinds of delectable root crops like potatoes, beets, carrots and radishes. Above ground crops included squash and pumpkins in the fall. Rhubarb and asparagus appeared in the spring.

Dad, coming from a long line farmers, I am sure felt he had to always be growing something. Each place the family moved to in the ensuing years, there was a substantial plot of ground set aside to always furnish fresh produce. I have a vague recollection of a root cellar where vegetables were stored for the winter. He grew many beautiful roses and many colorful varieties of prize winning gladioli.

A lot of the yard had fruit trees. Apples and pears were the main ones I remember. The one main apple tree I remember Dad had grafted to it many different varieties, which would ripen at different times of the summer. Dad showed me how to do this grafting many years later in Minneapolis Minnesota on a crab apple tree in the back yard.

The pear tree is particularly memorable because it taught me a meaningful lesson. At that time for some reason, if things seemed firm and strong it meant to me that it should be climbed. So one fine summer day I went about climbing and swinging from the branches as one is supposed to do on a strong inviting tree. Well I discovered that pear trees branches are not as strong as they look and frequently break under stress. I was probably seven or eight feet up the tree swinging on a seemingly strong branch when it let go. I immediately found myself flat on my back on the ground. I had the air knocked out of me and I was gasping for air as I ran to the house convinced I was not long for this world. Only those who have experienced this type of incident can know the feeling of desperation one has when you can't get your breath. As a small child you know the end is near and only mother can save you. Mother of course was able to solve my problem and life returned to normal in a very short time.

There were many hours of great fun tunneling through the asparagus patch after it had gone to seed. Those who know how asparagus grows when it goes to seed can appreciate this story. Asparagus weaves a rather dense lacy top growth as it matures. It is about four feet tall and dense enough that you can't see through it. It has a woody texture so it is ideal for tunneling by a small child. I can remember having several tunnel entrances and a substantial room inside where I could disappear with various toys for periods of time to imagine cave living in mysterious places. Some times when there was the game of hide and seek in progress this was a great place to hide.

There was a magnificent grape arbor walkway with more than one variety of grapes from the back door of the house to the three hole outhouse since the house

This cistern in the basement was a cement, walled off section, that ran from the cement floor to floor joists above. This meant you could see the water level in the cistern if you looked over the wall between the floor joists. What a temptation on a hot summer day. There were no community swimming pools around as many places have today so as you may have guessed, one hot summer day, I did in fact slip between the floor joists and enjoyed a refreshing paddle around the cistern. This was certainly not the smartest thing to do. If I had drowned no one would have found me for days. Amazing what we did as children and still survived.

The front door of this house had a unique doorbell. On the inside there was a dome shaped bell, open side to the door secured in place with a large ornamental nut. Housed within this dome were two weights that would swing outward by centrifugal force when spun by a flat knob on the outside of the door. The sound would resound throughout the house to announce that there was someone waiting for recognition. Under normal circumstances a doorbell has little or no interest. However as a child small things have a lasting impression. Here in the normal way of things, sister, Betty (18 months older) and I would get along pretty well. However as it goes with children there are always childish rivalries from time to time and this one time she got the better of me. In retaliation for some long forgotten incident, I pushed her from behind and she landed against the doorbell and knocked out one of her teeth. Here again severe punishment quickly followed but I had the satisfaction of getting even.

As I recall the house had a washroom at the top of the stairs and two bedrooms, perhaps three bedrooms, I don't remember. The master bedroom was directly above the medical office on the main floor and front door. This bedroom had a talking tube to the front door so patients in need at strange hours could talk to Dad and explain the emergency without Dad descending to the downstairs office.

This downstairs office had all the emergency medical supplies available that the typical country doctor would need at that time. Major medical cases were rushed off to the Tillsonburg Hospital. In this office there was Dad's desk, files and a cabinet housing his tools and supplies. A large operating table was in the middle of the room, where patients would recline during examinations.

This operating table was put to good use one first of July evening. July first is Independence Day in Canada which was celebrated with lots of fireworks. Skyrockets were a big favorite as they are today and at that time people would purchase them and light them off in their own yard. The rockets came attached to a long stick which was used to stick in the ground and thereby point the rocket

In the basement of this house Dad had a section set aside like a chemistry lab. It had rows of shelves with lots of bottles containing different colored liquids, powders and pills. In those days doctors frequently had to make up their own potions for a given illness. There was a Bunsen burner, test tubes, beakers, mortar and pestle, handling clamps and all the interesting utensils found in a lab. He even had a good microscope with some interesting slides which could be viewed with little difficulty. There were shelves of body things saved in a discolored liquid in sealed glass jars. Of particular interest was a fetus, old enough to recognize that it was an unborn child along with a tapeworm from someone's gut.

The door to this area was normally securely closed off. Naturally to a young curious boy this area had an irresistible temptation. One day I found the door accessible and as you can imagine I imagined myself a master chemist capable of creating wondrous things. I found a test tube and proceeded to add a little of this and that from the many colorful bottles, pulverize a pill or two and adding them, then put a rubber stopper in the end so it could be properly mixed. All was going well until I heated this concoction over the Bunsen burner. Needless to say the expanding gas in the test tube resulted in a small rocket when the rubber stopper gave way. The stopper bounced around the room like a loose ball, the test tube and its content disintegrated against the entrance door and I am left holding the test tube clamp over the Bunsen burner, shaken and knowing I was again in deep trouble. As quickly as possible I cleaned everything up and somehow disposed of the evidence, then departed this lab knowing that chemistry was not my best challenge at that time. I must have been a very trying child as curiosity frequently got me in trouble.

During this period of time there were a number of contagious diseases around. Diphtheria, smallpox and typhoid fever were some of the worries. As these popped up I remember Dad had a number of different colored poster signs he would secure to the front door of the unfortunate victim's house. Contaminated cloths were boiled in hot water for hours in an attempt to stop any spread of the disease. Sometimes the cloths were simply burned. If you remember the antibiotic wonder drugs were still experimental and untested in the mid-thirties.

We had a dog named Trixie. A black and white spotted wire haired terrier. I can't imagine where the name came from but it was a fun loving dog and liked to

In those days cars were a relatively new thing, gradually replacing the horse and carriage. Since doctors were expected to make house calls on any and all patients, as well as go to the hospital, it was essential that Dad have a car. As I remember his car was a Ford, Model A, black of course, the only color available. Two seats in front and a rumble seat in the back. Betty and I enjoyed the rumble seat rides with the wind blowing in our face and Trixie in the seat between us. There is a picture Dad took of us on one such excursion. That must have been a strange sight with Dad lying on the car roof, facing the back, while someone, I presume Catherine driving, to get the wind effect of us in the rumble seat.

This car did not have a lot of horsepower and on the road into Tillsonburg a hill had to be traversed and the car could not make it without a good run at it first. Sometimes the hill had to be climbed in reverse, backing up the hill because reverse had a lower gear ratio than first gear.

There were enough children in the community to justify a grade school. I don't remember a whole lot about the school other than it was a multi-story brick building, two or perhaps three stories high. There I attended my first grade with a teacher by the name of Miss Spring. The most impressive thing to me about the school was the fire escape. It was a large pipe maybe four feet in diameter which had a double door escape route from the upper floor. Fire drill was great fun to slide down this big tube. When there was no school we children would climb up from the bottom for the best and only slide around. The school was gone when I returned to the town years later.

Here in this little town we children would spend many fun hours playing “Kick The Can”. This was like hide and seek except the last one caught would become “It” and be the one to search for everyone else. The game would begin by placing a can, usually an old vegetable can, in the middle of the street with plenty of running space around and everyone gathered around. Someone would kick the can as far as they could from this starting point and all the players would scatter to some hiding place. The player who was “It” retrieved the can and placed it back to its original location and begins searching for the hiding players. As the players are located the player who is “It” has to beat the identified player to the can and while touching the can call out, “One Two Three on ---” (their name). This means that this player is captured and has to wait for the next game or be freed buy one of the uncaught players running in and kicking the can and freeing all the captured players before the “It” player calls them captured at the can. If the player who is “It” captures all the other players before the can is again kicked, the game is over. The last person captured becomes “It” and the game starts again.

This part of the country had all four seasons, spring, summer, fall and winter. It did not seem to make any difference what season it was, we children would

Birthdays were a major event as they are today for young people and we took full advantage of inviting all our friends to the party in order to maximize the number of presents. There was one party in particular that stands out in my mind. It was probably my fifth or sixth birthday and since it was January most if not all the activity took place in the house. All was going well until it was time to serve the birthday cake. We were seated in a large circle around the front room as the cake was passed out to all hands present. In those days it was customary to hide things in the cake, pennies, nickels, small trinkets and maybe a couple of special dimes. I had been informed that since I was the host of the party it was only proper that I be served last. As it turned out, being last in this case meant I was forgotten in the shuffle and I had to go find the cake on my own in the kitchen. Here I was, my party, left out with no birthday cake and no hidden prize. Talk about a traumatic experience, this one I have never forgotten.

Another big event which took place on birthdays was the treasure hunt for our birthday presents. Sometime during the previous evening or day the nonbirthday people in the house, probably Mom and Dad, would put together an endless list of hiding places and a note of instruction directing the searcher from one place to the next in anticipation of their prize. This usually led me all over the house and sometimes even outside, under, over and beneath any number of things. To keep my interest going there were usually small presents and prizes along the way as the search would continue until the big prize was found at the end much to my childish delight.

The war years closed in and Canada became actively involved because Canada was part of the British Empire and became a participant in the war when England was attacked and declared war on Germany. This would be about 1939 or 1940. Dad sold his practice to another Doctor operating out of Tillsonburg. This is when Dad started his pioneering work in Industrial Medicine at the Ajax Powder Plant east of Toronto. Our family now packed up our belongings, said our