Canada – Cynthia Reyes

A Good Home, Architecture, Barns, Bond Head, Bond Head Harbour, Canada, Canadian History, Canadian life, Children, Country Homes, Country Living, Faith, Family Stories, Grieving, Heritage Homes, historic neighborhoods, Home, Homes

My ancestors had a saying when asked why some of their relatives had married first cousins:

“Cousin and cousin make good soup.”

The Farncomb family must have made a lot of good soup.

Frederick married his cousin Jane.

Son John married his cousin — another Jane.

Younger son Alfred married his cousin Hannah.

But let’s go back to 1867.

Frederick inherited money from his uncle Thomas Farncomb, the wealthy Lord Mayor of London, England. He and Jane bought more land in Bond Head, and hired a Toronto architect to draw up the plans.

The house was built in 18 months between 1868 and 1869.

Three of the Farncomb sons – William, John and Frederick Edward – became Anglican priests.

Two others – Alfred and Thomas – became doctors.

Alfred became a popular and influential general practitioner in the Newcastle area. His wife Hannah appears to have helped him with the record-keeping. She was a skillful host of weddings and other special gatherings at Ebor House. She was also the organist at the family church, St. George’s Anglican, for 40 years.

In 1895, John, who’d been posted to various Anglican churches in Ontario, returned home to St. George’s as the Reverend Canon John Farncomb … a nice step up from being an ordinary priest, He was a well-respected rector.

He’d married cousin Jane in 1880 and they had five children. Two sons, Frederick Charles and John Robson, went to Trinity College, a prestigious private school in nearby Port Hope that previous Farncombs had attended.

In the summer of 1901, the boys were 16 and 18 years old. They were home for the holidays.

Lake Ontario held tragic memories for their father John and the older Farncombs; John’s brother Charles had drowned at the Bond Head Harbour at 14 years of age.

But there was a nice sandy beach at Bond Head, and it was a popular spot for both adults and young people alike. I imagine that on the first hot days of their summer holidays, the boys could hardly wait to put down their school stuff, shuck off their school uniforms and head to the nearby lake for a swim.

But August 11 was different. Frederick and his brother John did not return home that day. Both drowned in a boating accident in Lake Ontario.

It was as if the world had come crashing down on the Farncombs.

The tragedy made the news far and wide – even the New York Times carried the story.

Parents who have experienced it will tell you that the worst thing that can happen is to lose a child.

Jane and John lost not one, but two children in one day.

Two beloved sons gone.

And now, John and Jane were expected to grieve, but carry on.

Perhaps onlookers thought that a priest and his wife would have some special way of coping with tragedy. Perhaps they thought that with three priests and two doctors in the family, there would be plenty of comfort and strength – that everything would be alright.

But everything was not alright.

The boys died in August 1901, and John, Jane and their remaining children left St. George’s Church before the year was over. John served at another parish for several years.

How did they cope?

One imagines they tried hard to get over the loss.

That they relied on each other, their families and their faith.

But – as happens with many parents who lose a child – Jane fell apart, and, in his own way, so did John. She died in 1914, broken. He followed three years later.

In the century that followed the boys’ deaths, momentous events took place in the world.

The first and second world wars, in which many Canadians fought.

The great depression.

A man landing on the moon.

The cold war between the west and Russia.

And these were just a few.

Ebor House lived through them all. Despite tragedies, it occupied a special place in the Farncomb family – as their ancestral home, and a busy family dwelling to successive generations. It appears to have been full of activity inside and out.

Frederick Farncomb’s granddaughter Helen (daughter of Alfred) married Reginald Le Gresley and they operated the farm.

The huge barn on the property, Newcastle Dairy, produced 1,000 quarts of milk each week.

They hired outside help for the farm and dairy, but the whole Le Gresley family worked there – adults and children alike.

There were also many fun times, especially for the children.

There was a creek nearby for fishing and a beach for swimming.

Neighborhood children to play with. And the knowledge that their parents were within hollering distance from wherever they played.

The records show that Frederick Farncomb died in 1893 and his wife Jane died in 1905.

The house passed to their son Alfred (the doctor) then to Helen, Alfred’s daughter, then to Helen’s son Balfour. He was the last Farncomb to own Ebor House. He held on to the house for some years before selling it to Ron.

Not much was written or said about John and Jane Farncomb in the decades after their deaths, even within the family. Their shared tragedy seems to have haunted their lives to the very end.

As if to make sure their part in the family history was remembered, one or more Farncomb descendants had a memorial stone made for the couple in recent years.

The wording is one of the most moving I’ve ever read.

“Heartbroken on drowning of sons Frederick and John Farncomb.”

Click here for Part 6: The series ends with a twist.

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A Man in Love With a House – Pt. 2 in the Ebor House Series

August 8, 2014October 15, 2020 Cynthia Reyes

The moment Ron Coffin saw Ebor House, he was smitten.

He hadn’t been house-hunting in Bond Head – a small historic area consisting of just a few country roads on Lake Ontario, east of Toronto. But Ron felt mysteriously drawn to both the house and its location.

“It’s like being in another world here. You even have to go through a series of entrances to get to this home. The first entrance is a bridge that you have to go under when you leave the highway. Then there are the gates to the property. Then there are 2 entry doors before you can come into the house.”

He also hadn’t planned to buy this house.

“It was for sale for a couple of years and a friend said I should see it. I saw it and said, ‘My God!’ I fell absolutely in love with it.”

Ron didn’t know the house’s history. He didn’t know that it had belonged to generations of an illustrious Bond Head family whose close relatives included two Lord Mayors of London, England.

What he saw was a house badly in need of repair. Outside, four acres of weed-choked land surrounded the grand old house and barn.

Inside, the rooms were derelict.

Cobwebs hung from the ceilings. The rooms were crammed with old contents.

And there was that stuffy, old-house smell everywhere.

But the house spoke to him and he answered. Ron was a man in love.

It was 8 years later when I knocked on Ron’s door.

As Ron welcomed me into his house, there were no signs that it had once been in disrepair. The place glowed from the love and attention he had lavished on its restoration.

We sat in the refurbished kitchen, sipping coffee. I had questions and the first was the most obvious.

“What possessed you — to take on such a daunting task?” I asked.

“In life there are things you have to do,” he replied. “Some people have to climb Everest. I had to do this.”

I understood, sort of. I remembered the magnetic pull I’d felt as I sat gawking at the house and surrounding property. It had drawn me back here today.

Ron, a single parent, has four children and a dog. He ran his own business. He also had “a huge interest in Canada’s architectural heritage and how it fits into its time”.

He hurried to begin the restoration.

“I made the common mistake of plastering the walls and painting, then realized the roof was leaking”, he said. “The house also needed all new plumbing, heating and wiring. So I had to rip out some of that work and start again.”

Luckily, the seller still had the architectural drawings from 1867, the year Canada became a nation. (Construction on Ebor House started the following year.) Those drawings convinced Ron that he was on the right track.

Fortunately, also, some chandeliers and furniture – such as this Jacques & Hay sideboard on the right – were still in the house, where they’d been since 1869. Ron bought other period furnishings – including lighting, paintings, mirrors, and other furniture — after meticulous research.

Sometimes he felt like a detective trying to solve a mystery.

The house and grounds provided clues that helped him along the way.

The pantry doors were found in the barn. Old pennies were found under the lawn. Ron thinks the pennies, found together, likely fell from someone’s pocket during a picnic.

The more Ron learned, the better he understood how people lived in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

“One thing I learned was how the double front doors were used. On days when the family was receiving guests, they’d open the outer door, while the inside door was closed. That would signal that visitors were welcome.”

Ron also became deeply interested in the Farncombs, who built the house and lived here for more than 130 years. He shared with me what he knew.

I should have stopped there, but I was already hooked. I needed to learn more. And that would lead me to a powerful story that was both joyful and heartbreaking.

**Click here for Part 3: The Farncombs.

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Rain, Shine and the Spaces Between

July 1, 2014June 3, 2016 Cynthia Reyes

The skies turn dark, more grey than black.

The air becomes perfectly still.

And then comes the rain, in sheets and showers.

Pouring down on dry grass, garden beds…

… and our verandah roof.

The water streams down in front of and beside the verandah.

I sit on a chair, enjoying this moment from a safe perch of my own.

“I should grab my camera”, I tell myself. But I sit still, unwilling to interrupt the moment.

Overhead, small branches of pale-green maple leaves sway in the air.

Red weigela flowers move amid green leaves, showered by water, ruffled by wind.

Below them both, large hosta leaves are weighed down with raindrops.

Dip, dip. Fall back.

Unless you’re laden with red currants… in which case: Dip, dip. Fall forward.

The tall blue spruce tree stands majestic, appearing unmoved by the wind and showers.

But there’s light movement in its outermost branches. The tree has taken on a soft look, its face gentled by the rain.

All birds have taken cover, tucking themselves into dry spaces between thick branches.

One small bird sees opportunity. It darts into the rain, tail feathers wet and glistening, and aims straight for its target. It stays there, pecking, content to be alone with what it usually has to compete for: a space at the feeder.

From the verandah’s eaves trough, powerful streams torrent into the garden bed below. The Annabelle hydrangea is taking a beating, it seems. Branches, gracefully upright a few minutes ago, part with the wisdom of growing things faced with the unstoppable power of water.

It’s merely minutes later now.

The water from the eaves trough narrows. Long thin streams of vertical water form a transparent drape in the space between verandah posts.

Five streams falling steadily on the earth. Then four. Then, three. Then two, then one.

A trickle, now.

Then a quiet drip.

The rush of water, the soft thud of raindrops, the splash on leaves and flowers — all come to a stop. As if a mighty switch was turned on, then off, the rain has come and gone.

Flowers glisten.

Birds chirp and fly towards a single spot: the feeder.

And I think, as I watch them:

How smart that first bird was.

The one that went before, wet tail-feathers and all.

And how remarkable water is.

Liquid, fluid, transparent. Forceful and life giving.

And as I sit on my verandah, giving thanks for it all – the rain, the trees and shrubs and flowers, and the birds and a place in which to sit, protected — the sun comes out.

As quickly as the rain began, except there was no warning this time. Almost no space between.

Rain and Sun. Doing their part to keep us alive.

We depend on them so much, that ironically we take them for granted.

We give them names that begin with lower case letters.

But Rain and Sun are Capital Gifts. Sacred Gifts.

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At Home with Rita Deverell

June 16, 2014September 2, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

For many years, Rita Shelton Deverell wanted to produce a docudrama about a remarkable woman. But other careers got in the way. The actor, playwright and docudrama-maker has also worked as a TV presenter and head of current affairs for Vision TV, the Canadian network she co-founded; news director (mentoring her successor) at APTN, the Aboriginal People’s TV Network; professor of journalism and women’s studies in two Canadian universities;

Her achievements earned her a place in the Order of Canada – Canada’s highest honour.

At last, Rita is writing the docudrama screenplay about Florence James. She’s writing it at her country home in the ‘Sugar Bush’, outside Toronto. “We bought the country place 22 years ago when our son graduated from high school. Thereafter we started to rent apartments in Toronto. There have been five Toronto apartments in 22 years (plus two in Winnipeg, and one in Halifax where I worked three-year stints). The ‘Sugar Bush’ house remains home throughout these moves and always welcomes us.” Like Rita, Florence James found a productive life and award-winning career in Canada. Rita came to Canada from Texas as a young woman, but Florence came here past age 60, after some terrible events.

“‘McCarthy and the Old Woman’ is about a feisty, resilient real-life heroine who lost everything because of the communist witch-hunts in the USA. Florence James was blacklisted and bankrupted. She survived the loss of her money, reputation, life’s work, her home and the death of her husband.”

The planning, creative thinking and writing for the docudrama are taking place here. Two writers live here. Rita’s husband Rex is a well-known playwright. Each has an office on the house’s lower level. “Sometimes I write and plan in longhand at the drum table. But I have to get the feeling that I’m ‘going to work’. Rex has never gone to an office, so I have to keep his joke-telling self away from my work space.” Rita’s homes – country and city – are beautifully designed – by her. They are bright, comfortable, unpretentious places, where history, art, houseplants and flowers mix. Many objects were passed down from Rex and Rita’s parents. “Every place in the large five-area living space is for my favourite leisure time activity, reading detective fiction. “We have lots of family pieces by now: the drum table was my mother’s. “The small desk and dining room table were Rex’s mother’s. The rocking chair was Rex’s grandfather’s, though not upholstered in leopard print. “Outside, the yellow Muskoka chair is really the place I love to sit and dream and have nothing to do.” “I’m a home addict. The trivial side is I love to look at houses, read the real estate ads all the time, adore interior decorating, and can be cheered up by having a design idea.

“The important thing though is I’m an introvert, and actually draw my energy by starting each day from home base. That’s a place where my life is ordered, feels controllable, and beautiful. Then I can go out into the world and deal better with the dis-ordered, un-controllable, and sometimes ugly.”

Recently, another of Rita’s projects was launched to positive reviews. It’s a multimedia, educational kit called ‘Women, Contemporary Aboriginal Issues and Resistance’. Free and downloadable, it includes a DVD:

http://www.msvu.ca/en/home/research/centresandinstitutes/IWGSJ/Events/ToolKit.aspx

Photos by Rex Deverell.