Lloyd George Smith

Lloyd was born June 17, 1917 to Adoniram Smith and Alice Pennell in Rutherglen, Ontario. He married my mother, Joan Gallson, on June 25, 1943 and they had 4 children. Dad died March 30, 1988.

My Dad learned how to farm from his Dad. He went to a one-room school house, very close to our farm until grade 8. When Mom and Dad were first married, they lived with Dad's parents until Mom was pregnant with my oldest sister Donna. Then Mom pushed Dad to look for a home of their own. My Grandparents actually considered building another house on the property for my parents, but for whatever reason, decided to move out and give my parents the house and the farm. That would have been in about 1944 or 1945.

There is a lot revealed about my Dad in my Mom's diary which she kept from 1941 to 1944.  The entries are short, but they show a person completely different from the man I knew as my father.

Beginning in October 1941, Dad wrote to Mom about three times a week, and she replied to every letter, and wrote to other guys too.

Mom kept all of Dad's "love" letters and from what the diary reveals, there were lots.  But the story we were told about those letters, was that after they were married, when Mom went to Mattawa to look after her step-mother when she was ill, Dad found all the letters and burned them all.  He was embarrassed by them and Mom was furious.  There are two that escaped the fire though.

Mom's diary also tells of times when Dad was angry with her and they argued.  This alone is NOT the Dad I knew - a man who never fought or argued.  The day Dad ordered her diamond, Mom went on a date with another guy, Mervin.  And on the day she saw her diamond, she was still seeing Mervin.  Of all the men Mom told me she dated, Mervin was NEVER mentioned.

In my memory, Dad supplemented the small amount of money he made from selling hay and cows, by driving one of the three school busses that went to Rutherglen Central School which was on Highway 17.

My first memories of my father are from a little girl's perspective. I remember Dad putting wood in the stove in the kitchen, washing in the sink, soaking his feet in a warm pan of water and then cutting down the really thick corns from the bottoms of his feet. He would help me with math because Mom said he was good at math. He taught me how to tie a knot at the end of thread for sewing as Mom said the way she did it was too complicated. He'd let me pin-curl his hair while we watched TV in the evenings. I specifically remember watching The Ed Sullivan Show and The Red Skelton Show with him. He also loved Bugs Bunny - we'd laugh so hard. I remember watching a comic on The Ed Sullivan Show, could have been Rodney Dangerfield, and commenting that he was acting stupid. Dad said, if he could get on stage and act stupid and make the money the comic was making, he do it too.

Dad taught me how to play chess, checkers, cribbage and cards, specifically Jack, Jack, Steal The Pack.

We all went to church together, not every Sunday, but most Sundays. Dad helped pass the collection plate and helped count the money after. Dad silently moved his lips when we sang hymns.

Dad let me sit on his lap and steer the tractor sometimes. When we went to Buchanan's cottage and he'd sometimes swim with us. Once while swimming, I asked him why he stayed in shallow water and he told me he couldn't swim. He'd been pretending he was swimming by pulling himself along the sand under the water.

Dad loved animals and Mom told me that he hated to kill the farm animals for us to eat. When relatives would come with their rifles and have Dad take them out to our fields for hunting, Mom said he hated that too - killing for sport. When our dog was very sick, he asked Roy's Dad, Melvin Sullivan, to come over to shoot him. Aunty Jo gave me a bunch of pictures from an old album once, all of animals: a sheep, some horses and chickens. She said, "Here, take these. Your Dad took them. He was always taking pictures of the animals."

Dad was a mason and went to meetings in Mattawa. He had a secret velvet bag filled with Masonic items including an apron. If Mom found us snooping in that bag, we were in trouble.

Dad was a farmer for over 50 years before he decided to sell the family property and moved to Porcupine, Ontario. His long-time friend, Harry McLaren (also a mason), arranged for Dad to work as a 4th Class Stationery Engineer at Northeastern Psychiatric Hospital there. So in 1968, one month after my sister Carol's wedding, we left the farm.

Mom always said Dad hated farming, that he had allergies and that his nose ran constantly in the summer with the harvesting. I believe what Dad missed about Rutherglen though was the family. His living siblings were all in either North Bay or Rutherglen. And I believe he had great childhood memories. And many many friends. That was never the same in Timmins and Porcupine.

When we first moved to Porcupine, we rented a house on Duke Street while Dad and Denny Monaghan, a house builder, built our house on Queen Street. Our house was the design of Uncle Phil's house in Buffalo. Mom loved their house.

The move to Porcupine changed the whole family dynamic. Dad worked three shifts at the hospital. It was hard for my Dad to sleep during the day, so he could be up all night. We had to be quiet around the house. But these shifts meant that my Dad was mostly home when we got home from school. My mother worked at various places during the day, so often my Dad made dinner although I think he may have just cooked things my Mom had pre-prepared, like meatloaf. Wayne remembers that Dad could make Cream Peas On Toast all by himself - my favourite!

It wasn't until I was in university that I began forcing myself to say "I love you" to Dad on phone. My roommates all said it to their parents and it was so strange that we didn't. He'd answer, "Me too" which I found very cute and endearing. I never doubted that my Dad loved me - I knew he did. I felt his love just sitting in the room.

I watched an Oprah Winfrey interview this evening (April 26, 2023) with Michelle Obama who was on tour promoting her new book "The Light We Carry". Michelle talked about how her family never said "I love you" the way Barak Obama's family did and it was new and strange for her to be saying it so much. She accounted this on the fact that her childhood family saw each other several times a week and they all lived close to each other. But Barak's family lived in Hawaii, so it was a big deal to say "I love you" because he wouldn't see them or talk to them for long periods of time. I believe this to be the same reason we never heard Dad say it until he was forced to. It would be something his family never said as they all lived close and saw each other a lot.

Dad went on to enjoy many things that he never would have done had he stayed in Rutherglen. He took up bowling, curling and golfing. I believe a small part of his heart was always on the farm.

Something triggered blood cancer in Dad when he was 68. The culprit was likely the DDT provided to him by the Ontario Government for "better farming". Or it could have been the benzene in the gasoline that Dad used in his tractor. The exhause pipe was on top of the tractor and right in front of his face, from morning until sundown all three seasons. He was perhaps a victim of what triggered cancer in many of the farmers in Rutherglen.

Dad was the youngest of 7 siblings, yet the first to die of "natural" causes at the age of 70. Uncle Emmett died a few years later after a life of hard drinking and heavy smoking. The others lived well into their 90s.

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Posts about Lloyd

  • Admiration for My Dad
    Dad was a farmer who quit farming when he was 50 because he hurt his back. To go from farming to being an hourly paid employee took a lot of courage. With some help from his friends he pulled it off.  One of dads sayings was “If you can’t say anything good about somebody don’t say anything at all” . Dad was a past master of the Mattawa Masonic Lodge 268. Much of what dad did was because he was a Mason. I know they helped many people that were in trouble. Dad was a supporter of… Read more: Admiration for My Dad

Lloyd's Pedigree

SMITH-Lloyd-Pedigree

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