by Barbara Daley

At University, in Windsor, Ontario, my husband and I fell in love. For his mother and I, however, it was not a love match, but more of a 35 year arranged marriage. I was the first young woman, from aways, to be presented into Ann Daley's world and life, which centered around her four sons.

Ann had lost her own mother to childbirth at six years of age. She was also denied her one and only daughter in her own first childbirth. A daughter of her own would have been such a comfort. From time to time, Nan would intone “a daughter is a daughter all of your life, a son's a son till he takes a wife.”

Ann's husband, John, the true love of her life, worked away in Saglak, Northern Labrador, for the American Distant Early Warning project. Ten months of the year, he worked heavy equipment, keeping the runways clear. Ann was devoted to him, and to raising their four sons in his home community of St. Joseph's, in St. Mary's Bay. She had a very strong faith, and one of her fondest dreams was that Brian would find his vocation in life as a Catholic Priest, a Holy Father.

Now, my own father had some prophetic words for me, back in Ontario, planning excitedly for my first trip to Newfoundland. He told me how he was raised among a group of Irish matriarchs. He lost his own mother, Una, when she died suddenly at 44 years of a heart attack. This left a group of four little siblings, himself 11 years of age, to be raised during the Great Depression in a house where several maiden aunts held sway. His widowed father supported this lively extended household with his earnings as a Detroit tool and dye maker. The aunts did the best they knew how, but the children’s upbringing was not an easy road. Child Psychology not being anyone's strong suit back then.

My father said to me, “Now listen! You are a sensitive child and your feelings can be hurt with the wrong word or look. If Brian's mother is anything like my three aunts, you better grow a thicker skin! She won't say things to intentionally hurt you, but she will say it as she sees it, so be forewarned!”

Off we went that summer to The Rock, my future husband and I. Nan had not expected this so soon and certainly was not ready for me, or for her son to be drawn away. And I had not a clue!

I was raised Catholic, but our family did not gather nightly to pray the Rosary. I grew up in Southern Ontario, a place where Ann, as a young, hardworking textile mill worker, would for the first time hear derisive jokes about “Newfies.” Among her many jobs, she also worked as a nanny for a Montreal millionaire, and saw first-hand how people “from aways” could be.

Also, Brian told her how he met me at university. Nan eventually finished high school as an adult student. At 14 years of age, she had left her tiny outport school in St. Shotts to work in a private St. John's girls academy as a scullery maid, sending home her earnings. I imagine her training there was fairly harsh. “Look! There is a right way, and a wrong way! You are doing it the wrong way!” Who said that to her? It became a voice in her head, and later, a voice in mine.

Telling his mother about me, the girl he met away at university in Ontario, Brian extolled my great intelligence and A academic average. Nan was impressed, I am sure. One of her early observations was “for someone supposed to be so intelligent, ye’re some stunned at cards!”

I am forever grateful that readable thought bubbles did not appear over Ann's head. I am sure that the observations she voiced aloud to me were highly filtered and selective! Our early story was of a clash of cultures and generations, of experience and expectations.

St. Joseph's, Salmonier, St Mary's Bay, on the Avalon, was a place of rugged beauty. The invigorating salt-sea air was bracing, even in summer. This was a very welcoming community, built on hard work and constitutional strength. Life in Newfoundland was wrestled from the rock and the ever-present sea. Shortly after I arrived, gathering as usual in Ann's kitchen, a burly, middle aged, weathered and bearded man appeared in the doorway.

This man was quite jovial and friendly, and presented Ann with a huge, still flapping codfish, freshly caught.  She thanked him and laid this prize across a platter. She strode from the sink to the table, and thrust the proud creature under my astonished nose, the cod staring up at me as only a fresh caught cod could do. “I suppose ye knows what to do with this?” Assuming she referred to some kind of gutting procedure, I mumbled, “I don't know, I've never seen one not wrapped in cellophane!”

Ann then had more than an inkling that this was not what she had imagined for her son, even supposing he did not, in fact, enter the priesthood. This girl did not even know how to bake bread! She was caught colouring in a sketchbook with markers, right at the kitchen table! And how could a young woman reach her early twenties without knowing how to play a game of cards?”