Covid Worries For Yet Another Christmas Season Turns Thoughts To The Work Of Archdeacon Gowan Gillmor

 

Photos of vintage Christmas post cards by Suzanne Currie

AT THIS TIME OF ADDITIONAL COVID WORRIES FOR YET ANOTHER CHRISTMAS SEASON, I AM REMINDED OF THE WORK OF ARCHDEACON GOWAN GILLMOR

A PREAMBLE TO TODAY’S POST

BY TED CURRIE

     Earlier in this two year relationship with the pandemic known as Covid 19 and its offshoots, I wrote an editorial pieces about a fellow known well in these Muskoka woodlands, and farmsteads, from one end of the district to the other. His name was Gowan Gillmor, the former Archdeacon of Algoma; who was with sincere public affection, known for his kindness to one and all in this region, regardless whether they were Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian or atheist. He was recognized as “The Tramp” by his congregation and anyone else who benefitted from his many generosities and kindnesses bestowed, and he even made his imprint on certain trees, with an axe he kept in his pack, to let folks know he had passed this way headed to a rural church to give a service, or to tend the needs of the sick and hungry in homesteads along his winding routes. He was known for his benevolent work, tending those who were sick at home, and unable to care for themselves, and it was often the case he would nurse entire families through a serious influenza outbreak, both tending to their fevers, and then turning to the kitchen to provide the sick with nourishment with whatever he could muster, and pull from his pack to provide relief for his patients; who would become his life-long friends.

    During the early going of this pandemic, just under two years ago, being consumed by fear was a community standard, as we wondered what would become of us, until a vaccine could be created to save us from a serious, life threatening illness. Our business had to be shut-down, as all others with few exceptions, and the daily Covid numbers were staggering to us, fearing the worse, and finding little to be hopeful about as the days passed, and our future looked bleak. I can remember one day feeling so angry about the whole situation, that was taking a huge emotional toll, as well as a big financial hit, and arriving at this office desk wondering what rare kind of inspiration could snap me back to optimism amongst all the thousands of books on my nearby shelves. Works of some of the great minds of centuries past. The inspiring poems of the great bards, and the lessons learned by the most accomplished philosophers. How would they advise a worried, and uninspired writer, and antique dealer on hiatus, how to reignite even a modicum of interest in optimism at a time when everything seemed so oppressive and discouraging. At well over sixty years of age, and having lived through a fair amount of worrying world situations in that time, on the verge of international upheaval and a return to world war, I was mad at myself for being in this terrible frame of mind. So I put up my hand to a shelf over my desk, and pulled out the only book and author that would give me something of the truth about life, times, and the way we must react in crisis to help others even at our own peril. The biography “Gillmor of Algoma,” by E. Newton-White has been the source of my emotional rescue many times, in the past, when I have felt that things had begun to spin out of my control. Gowan Gillmor’s benevolence toward his fellow citizens in crisis, has always been a subtle but enduring beacon for me, at times when I have been unable to justify some continuation, or other, of a project that had fallen by the wayside, and its merits lost to me for a variety of reasons. Gillmor was not a quitter, and he most definitely lived by a higher standard that most of us can truly appreciate today, especially his somewhat reckless methodology, of defy the devil, you might say, by refusing to bypass any “sick house,” that he suspected his dedication could ease suffering. He had no protection from the very diseases that were running rampant through the household, and he handled the dining with the greatest comfort and compassion, and stayed on with the family often until a burial of one or more of the occupants, could be handled by the local over-taxed undertaker. He was not worried about his own health, and defied whatever sickness had consumed the household; never abandoning the mission to eradicate the epidemic, shove the devil out the door, and return the family to their former health, to be able to resume their home lives. He did not care about a patient’s religion, but he was profoundly aware that his work on God’s behalf, was all that mattered if only for him and his conscience.

     There was an instance where Gillmor on one of his long walks through a winter storm, to visit a shut-in needing medical care, met a man driving a team pulling a wagon along the snow covered road. The man stopped to ask the Gillmor if he wanted a ride on the wagon, and he responded with a gentle “refusal” to weigh his cart down as the horse was being strained as it was, but did insist that the half-frozen driver take his heavy coat, and mitts for the rest of the journey; as he could survive the elements, and was much closer to his destination that the fellow holding the reins. There are many references to similar situations, where the Archdeacon gave away his new clothing, bought for him by the Congregation in the Village of Rosseau, because he cared not for his own comfort, but was very much concerned about the welfare, in this regard, for others he met on his travels.

     Gowan Gillmor’s story is uplifting because it is truthful, and a part of Muskoka region history, that in my mind, is an historic model of what helped create this district in the Ontario hinterland. Of course we had to be tough. But we also learned early about the benevolence and sense of community that developed early in our pioneer past; that has, in so many ways, carried on in the Muskoka tradition, that is often lost today, in the shadow of urban progress that we seem to value more than our own historical precedents. It’s at this time of year, and certainly with the raging pandemic giving us a fourth wave, that I wish to thank Gowan Gillmor, posthumously for his contribution to our storied past; and wish a Merry Christmas to the grand old Irishman who never turned his back on need, even if it meant a great personal consequence. 

"TO FEED AND PROVIDE FOR THE LORD'S FAMILY"

     IN THE 1967 BIOGRAPHY, "GILLMOR OF ALGOMA - ARCHDEACON AND TRAMP," AUTHOR E. NEWTON WHITE, (PUBLISHED BY THE DIOCESE OF ALGOMA, ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA) WRITES OF GOWAN GILLMOR, THAT "THE THREADS OF HIS HOME AND FAMILY FRAYED BEYOND REPAIR." HE RECORDS THAT "GOWAN WENT ON WITH THE FABRIC OF HIS PARISH MINISTRY - THE SERVICES, THE TRAMPINGS, THE VISITING, THE SICK NURSING, THE APPROACH TO CHILDREN. PERHAPS MORE THAN EVER NOW, THE CHILDREN. (HE HAD LOST HIS, WHEN HIS WIFE MOVED WEST). TEN YEARS AFTER GOING TO (VILLAGE OF) ROSSEAU, GOWAN WROTE THIS COMMENT ON THE LIFE HE HAD THERE; 'WE LIVE HERE SOME TWELVE MILES FROM A RAILWAY STATION. THIS MEANS THAT THROUGH THE WINTER WE ARE VERY MUCH ISOLATED FROM THE OUTSIDE CIVILIZED WORLD. NOT THAT WE OURSELVES ARE WITHOUT CIVILIZATION, AND WHAT WE DO POSSESS - AND IT IS CONSIDERABLE, WE ENDEAVOUR TO EXERCISE AS WELL AS WE CAN, DURING THE LONG LIVING SNOW SEASON.' HOW MUCH GOWAN APPRECIATED FRIEND AND FAMILY CIRCLE GATHERINGS, WITH MUSIC, READING, SINGING, DISCUSSIONS AND JUST PLAIN FRIENDLY TALKING, CAN BE GATHERED FROM HIS WRITINGS AND DIARY ENTRIES. ON A VISIT TO THE REVEREND A.J. COBB, AT SEGUIN FALLS, ALONG WITH MR. WILSON OF MAGNETAWAN, 'IT WAS JUST LIKE A SMALL-SCALE CLERICAL RETREAT.' SEVERAL YEARS LATER, ON ANOTHER VISIT TO THE SAME MR. COBB, HE PLAYED SOME VERY DIFFICULT AND BEAUTIFUL PIECES OF MUSIC FOR ME; AND THEN MRS. COBB ACCOMPANIED WHILE HE SANG SEVERAL GREAT SONGS, ONE OF THEM THE 'FINE OLD VICAR OF BRAY.' DID WE HEAR A VOICE; WHAT A WAY TO SPEND AN EVENING!' BUT THERE SPOKE A POOR UNDERPRIVILEGED MODERN."

     E. Newton-White writes, "We are told that Gowan's housekeeping methods were unique, and that his cooking was atrocious; one can well believe it from a few remembered visual evidences. Because of circumstances he was batching for a greater part of his ministry, and later on, a good deal of his batching was done in forlorn empty rectories, and parsonage shacks, while he supplied for a vacant parish anywhere, between the Head-of-the-Lake and Gravenhurst. At Rosseau, the ladies of the congregation would clean up the Rectory in his absence - where they might. Part of his study was a spider preserve; not because of a possible feminine abhorrence of spiders, but because they, the spiders, were his friends. Sometimes Gowan would remonstrate with the cleaner-uppers. 'Let the nice dirt be!' Once, finding a lady dusting the Altar, he said, 'Just leave that dust lie, it's holy dust!'

     "In his parochial duties, the parish of Rosseau provided Gowan with some very respectable walking mileages. The area was comparatively small as related to his previous charges, but he covered it intensively. On Sunday, he would preach at Rosseau in the morning; walk to Ullswater, via Rosseau Falls, and the mouth of the Skeleton River, 12 or 16 miles (and eating a lunch as he walked); then walk to Bentriverdale (now shrunken to Bent River), or North Cardwell or Windermere, for evening service; then home. With modern changes of road location, the actual distance in now hard to estimate; but made a full Sunday and meant three different sermons - he made no rehashes. When they could, and he would let them, the farmers would drive him from one point to the next, in their old buggies, and with sometimes tired horses. Farming was hard on man and beast in those days also."

     The biographer, E. Newton-White records, that "a one time old parishener, says that Gowan preached in a small frame school house near her home, for fifteen years, yet never allowed a collection to be taken up, or anything else given. The epidemic diseases did not spare Rosseau, and Gowan took up his self-appointed duties again. Small-pox broke out in Ullswater, and he closed up the Rosseau Rectory to take up residence there, to minister to the sick. When diptheria was rife in Rosseau, he had his parsonage quarantined and spent all his time among the stricken homes; only stopping when, as he said, 'there are no more throats to look down.' Years later, when preaching in New Liskeard, he told of an episode of that time. Late on very cold and stormy night, word came to him of a family eleven miles down the lake, where eleven children were all down with diptheria. Gowan went into the village, to get groceries and medicine, and some neighbours gathered. As he was pulling on his heavy outgoing clothes, someone said, 'Where are you going now? An' where would I be going but to get these things out.' And swinging his pack, to his back, he stepped out to face the wild storm. Arrived safely, he nursed the family until all were well. That was Gowan's story but we can be sure that he belittled the conditions. After the service, a lady introduced herself to him. She was one of the family, she said, but wanted to correct one of his statements. There were not eleven sick ones, but fifteen!

     "Gowan used to tell Rosseau people what he told many others in his long experience, that only he and Death had undisputed entry into the homes where contagion had taken hold; quarantines notwithstanding. Death kept very close vigil while his own presence lent help, hope and consolation. He did not tell them that he often disputed Death's sentry, and many a time was able to bar the door to him. Gowan's diary of those days sometimes noted extraneous matters as this; 'June 22nd, at Rosseau. Voted for Beattie for Provincial Parliament.' Or this, 'June 22nd. at Rosseau. Met Col' O'Brien.' But who was Beattie? Was this the O'Brien of Rebellion days? Did his Irish name gain him Gowan's vote? Seventy years from now, the names of many a politician, now local household words, will be equally in limbo. About voting, Gowan would have made one of his usual kind of observations; 'Voting,' he would say, 'was not nearly as much fun in Canada, as in Ireland. There you fought your way to the polling station, and then you fought your way home again!"

"THE WORD GOD TO GIVE ME SPEECH!"

     "Let us try to picture Gowan, once again, as he would have appeared at this time in his life, and as Rosseau knew him. We have said he was tall and upright - a big man. Although he always showed the effect of his R.I.C. training, he had in no sense the military bearing nor the voice; rather those of the Irish gentleman. His clothes were nondescript; with his clerical garb a sort of foundation, he wore whatever made for protection against the elements, and convenience, in his peculiar modes of travel - like the outdoor workers he moved among," wrote E. Newton-White, his biographer.

     "His distinguishing badge was his black cloth bag; no one else carried one like it. The prospectors, bushmen and their like carried canvas bags and packsacks; settlers and farmers used bean bags and grain bags. Gowan toted his black bag from the construction days onward, until his final activities in Sault Ste. Marie; and became a well known figure in consequence. Said a Canon friend once, 'I never had a look into that black bag,' (which sounds as though he would have liked to have done that) but I do know that it held his vestments, his Bible, Greek Testament and Prayer Book.' As he said himself, 'Tramps were never known to carry excess gear.' Nevertheless it was actually crammed to capacity, and that would have been with things for the needy, and for his 'fairies.' People who were children in the Rosseau days, say of Mr. Gillmor, things like this, 'I shall always remember him as I used to see him in my growing-up years. His jolly chuckle and cheerful smiling face, which wrinkled all over when he laughed, which was often. And the brogue in his voice when he spoke.' Gowan loved to hear the Irish manner of speech, sounding in the Canadian born. Once during a spell of intensely frosty weather, he was visiting a parishioner family, and told them that he had just been out to see a man, who told him to sit in the dark these nights because, 'the kyle-ile was froze!' The brogue, indeed, seemed always ready to take over in Gowan's speech, even as he read the Prayers and the Lessons - even in the Communion Service itself. His reading with its curious flow of runs and hesitations, always at the same places, made delightful music. As for his sermons, sometimes they were in the brogue entirely. Any mention of his sermons, and speeches, must try to convey his manner of long pauses - or rather, abrupt and lengthy stops, during which the listener could only wonder, as perhaps he had intended; 'What next?' That the method was effective is shown by a Priest, who says he can still remember Gowan's sermons; a fact he regards as remarkable, because he can say the same of no other preacher."

     E. Newton-White writes, "Then this at a Synod Meeting, many years after, at which Archbishop Thorneloe announced his impending retirement. In his own speech, Archdeacon Gillmor said, 'The first time I met his Grace, he was at sea! - on the Muskoka Lakes - At Rosseau; I boarded the ship, and he had two bags. When he saw me he put them both down. He came toward me with out-stretched hand. And d'ye know, I have felt the warmth of that handshake ever since'."

     The biographer records of his subject, "One to who we are most indebted for memories, and pictures of Rosseau, the unofficial archivist of the Parish; a devoted church-worker and member of one of the first settler families, says of his appearance, 'he peculiar walking gait as he set out on one of this trips. It was as if his head was in a hurry to reach the destination before his body. It was a gait which made for great mileage.' The same lady remembers that Protestant settlers from a distance, would sometimes take Gowan for a Roman Catholic priest; partly because of the large silver cross he always wore. They would address him as 'Father,' when that title was quite unknown among Anglicans, and he would be pleased. One lady remembers her brother always calling him, but respectfully, 'Father Kelly.' He enjoyed that too. The cross he wore was often the subject of questioning by some people in those days. When asked he would explain that his work took him among all sorts and conditions of men, and those who did not respect him as a man, would at least have regard to the Cross.

     "The lady of the Parish tells how she once noticed a freshly blazed tree in the bush, well back from the road, she was walking, and went in to see it. She found a Cross cut into the blaze, and above and below it was written, 'The Tramp - His Mark.' Seeing that no kind of axe was part of his equipment, someone else must have blazed the tree, and Gowan made use of it. At Sault Ste. Marie, at least one home of his good friends has a treasured birthday book, in which Gowan hand-entered, for Nov. 22nd, 'The Tramp - His Mark."