Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More Read Online Free

School for Nurses in 1926. She never
     forgot anyone in the family. She was affectionately known as Auntie Bett to all
     the people connected to my father’s side of the family. And at Christmas you
     could be as sure that snow would fall that a large parcel would arrive before
     Christmas (never late) from this great lady. And what a parcel it would be—from
     clothes for all of us, to books and other practical and needed things; we were,
     each season, aghast at the quantity and quality of what she would send. My
     brothers and I would have modern clothes to wear to school each new year right
     from America’s fashion houses. So we grew up with our own fairy godmother. In
     Whitbourne, on my seventh birthday, this shiny blue Buick pulled up to our door
     that afternoon, and on top of the car was an unusual thing. Once the car
     stopped, out stepped Auntie Bett; she fiddled with the thing on top with my
     father’s help, removed it from the car, and placed it on the ground: a birthday
     present—my first bike! Our house was full of magazines, compliments of
     you-know-who.
    As I grew up I became fascinated with Auntie Bett: her stories of nursing
     terminally ill wealthy people in the Boston area, receiving postcards from her
     from other continents as she travelled with her employers around the world, to
     coming home each year to see her mother, this lady led an interesting and
     productive life. Her generosity was exceptional, and her commitment to family
     unlimited. When she was much younger, she had told her mother that if the day
     ever came when she, her mother, could not look after herself, she would come
     home and care for her. And she did. The last two years of my grandmother’s life
     saw Auntie Bett leaving Boston to care for her mother in St. John’s until her
     passing.
    My aunt was always interested in seeing her nephews and nieces succeed. And if
     they showed they were willing to work and commit, she was always there to help.
     On entering university I was to receive from Auntie Bett annual complimentary
     tickets to all the happenings at the local Arts and Culture Centre. When I
     travelled to remote ruralparts in the summertime as a temporary
     social worker, I was sure to receive a parcel of recent magazines and newspapers
     from Boston or St. John’s.
    No one knew her politics. But one evening, after inviting me to her favourite
     St. John’s Chinese restaurant, she did confide to me that she was a financial
     contributor to the Republican Party and was therefore invited to many of their
     political dinners and events. I got up enough courage to ask her why she was a
     Republican.
    Her answer was simple: “I believe in hard work,” she said. “Everyone must earn
     their keep, if they are able.”
    My aunt was eighty-five when she died in St. John’s; and in death as in life,
     she ensured that all the immediate family received a generous part of her
     estate.
    My father was transferred to Lewisporte in 1956, a far more “advanced” town in
     northeast Newfoundland. It was quite a change. Here were hotels and the shunting
     of trains and a bustle and activity not present in the more isolated Marystown.
     And now, instead of being in a largely Catholic town, we were in a predominantly
     Protestant town, with a large United Church of Canada congregation as well as a
     viable Salvation Army church, a small Anglican church, and a quickly growing
     Pentecostal group. There were shops and restaurants, more than one doctor (which
     had been the case in Marystown), and even a dentist. Lewisporte owed some of
     this activity to the fact that it was the terminus for a number of CN coastal
     boats. It was strategically located to serve the transportation and passenger
     needs of northeastern and northern Newfoundland and Labrador. A railway spur
     line of nine miles joined the town to the railway’s main line at Notre Dame
     Junction. So there was a large workforce at the dock, loading and