DoghouseCharlie

My Russia

How does someone, an anglophone from central Canada become a Russophile?

Why am I so fascinated with all things Russian?

Perhaps its genetic.

All my life I’ve been interested in Russia, its culture, politics, language…everything. It kept intruding into my consciousness…the Cold War (one of my earliest memories is trying to understand why my baby sitter seemed upset during, what I now realize was, the Cuban Missile Crisis). As I got older I was captivated by things like the space race, mutually assured destruction, Soviet hockey, the Iron Curtain.

I was a vorascious reader. History books, politics, current affairs, the sixties and seventies were dominated by “us” vs “them”. I read about the Prague Spring, Detente, Summitry. There was curiosity. Why do they hate us? Will things ever change? I read accounts of the gulags, dissidents, and other commentaries.

When I was 9 or 10, my dad gave me some coins and banknotes he had had for years. (More on those later). I was fascinated by the strange, indecipherable writing on them. This I learned was Cyrillic…Russian. I was impressed my dad knew what it meant. I longed to be able to decipher them myself.

Why do I think this interest is genetic? So many times since the 1850s, my family has encountered Russia on many levels. Russia and Russians keep intruding on me and my family, for the most part not in a bad way. Here are a few little stories about Waterers, Scotts, and Russia, and how they all became intertwined.

Aunt Helen

My great grandfather’s sister Helen is my first connection to Russia, at least she was.

A few years ago I discovered an earlier connection, a Charles Waterer, killed in action in the Crimean War (against Russia), during the Charge of the Light Brigade. I have no idea if this fellow was a direct ancestor or someone clinging onto a distant branch of the family tree.

Depending on one’s view of such things, he died a martyr’s death in a heroic cavalry charge. Or his life was wasted by blindly following an idiot commander. Take your pick. I’m surprisingly indifferent.

However, it does make me read about, or watch films about The Charge of the Light Brigade, or re-read Tolstoy, with a whole new level of interest. Perhaps…a (possible) ancestor, faced Leo Tolstoy, on the opposite side of a Crimean battlefield.

Or not. Anyway, back to Aunt Helen.

What I know is this. The Waterers, before we began slumming it over here in the colonies, were quite well connected. The home where my great grandfather and grandfather were born, backs onto property owned by the son of Queen Victoria, the Duke of Connaught (later Governor-General of Canada). Family legend states that my great grandfathers wife was a scullery maid, or at least a servant of some description, who he married for love rather than station. The family took a dim view and sent old Alphie over to Canada. I am here as a result. (Now you know who to praise/blame).

Somehow while circulating in these upper class circles, Aunt Helen met, was courted by, and married a “Russian Count”. Who was he? Who knows. The story is known to a number of branches of the family, but details are scant. As far as anyone knows, they married and moved to Russia.

Helen would have been 47 in 1917. I often wonder what became of her. Did she escape the revolution and its reprisals against the aristocracy? Did she die of acute lead poisoning before a firing squad? Was she even in Russia at the time? Are her descendants still in Russia? I may never know. Perhaps no one does.

Neighbours in Saskatchewan

Alphonso Waterer (yes, Alphonso) and 3 of his sons (and later a 4th son and daughter) ended up in Saskatchewan, homesteading. They are in the 1906 census…so obviously they settled sometime before that. From what I’ve heard and read, of the entire family, only one was homesteading material, Alphonso’s son Fred, who I am named after. He bought out the others, and owned the land until 1944.

My grandfather Bert, became a railroad engineer, working his way up from oiler to driving the big transcontinental steam trains. He and his wife Tillie, had 6 children, 4 of whom survived childbirth, including my father, Charles (Charlie) Waterer.

Although they lived in the city (Saskatoon) these were still the days before indoor plumbing and 3-ply bathroom tissue. They had a “one-holer” out in the backyard, and a nail on the wall held pieces of newspaper for cleaning up afterwards.

One day perhaps in the late 20s or early 30s, my father was, umm, using the privy. As he sat he looked at one of the scraps of newspaper, and was startled by an image on it. The photograph was of a Tsarist general during the Russian Revolution. Military bearing. Rows of medals.

But.

The man looked remarkably like his neighbour!

My dad, showed the photograph to his father. The two of them went next door, their neighbours were working in the backyard garden. My grandfather showed them the photograph. The gentleman turned white as a ghost. The wife threw her apron over her head and went in the house wailing.

It turned out that the neighbour was in fact the gentleman in the photograph. Having been on the wrong side of the Revolution, he had fled Russia, where he would have been executed by the communists. he had started a new life under an assumed name in Canada. Obviously to be identified like that was traumatic.

Hearing the story, my grandfather took the newspaper, lit a match and burned it. He then turned to my father and said “Charlie, you must never ever speak of this again, or tell anyone who Mr._____ is.”

And my dad, and his family kept that story within the family for seven decades.

These neighbours, and my dad’s family, became close. They taught my dad some Russian. The finer points of Russian cuisine. Songs of Russia. And some Russian history.

And they gave my dad some of the Russian coins and banknotes I referenced above. Not to mention a fascinating story.

Making His Way Thru the Thirties

Dad, almost from infancy, had a talent for music. My cousins still have an old coffee can, which my dad banged on with a wooden spoon almost before he could walk. His first musical instrument.

He learned a number of instruments, playing them all by ear. He could play guitar, mandolin, harmonica, some drums and the bass. For all I know there were others too. He played every opportunity that came his way. I have a scrapbook full of clippings, of appearances on the radio, talent contests (at which he often won some sort of prize), and he would pretty much play for anyone that offered him money to play for them (and often those who didn’t).

He played for the conservative Premier of Saskatchewan. He played for bootleggers. He played for church groups. And he played for “Ukrainian Cultural groups” and other clubs, affiliated with the Communist Party. In the 1930s there was not quite the stigma associated with communism that would later develop. And his participation was far from ideological, in fact it was downright capitalist.

About the same time my dad was eking out a living in the Depression with his talent, here in Ontario, my mother’s uncle was manning the barricades of anti-communism.

Uncle Larry, had been an ambulance driver in World War One, a brave man adored by his comrades, and a man who was scarred for life during a gas attack. In the 1930s, he had a cottage on Lake Erie. My mother and her brothers would spend summers there, by all accounts they were quite idyllic.

One summer a Communist Youth camp of some sort sprang up on the adjoining property. They started the day by running a Red Flag up the flagpole, and singing the Internationale and other communist songs. Uncle Larry put up with this for a day or two.

Being a true son of the Empire, having fought for King and Country, he erected his own flagpole. When the communist youth would start their morning ritual, Uncle Larry would trot out his neices and nephews and whatever other kids were around, raise the Union Jack, and try to outdo his “rivals” with a loud, rousing version of God Save the King.

Summer 1939

My dad visited St Catharines for a holiday, and never went back. He got a job in a factory, paying the astoundingly huge sum of 29 cents an hour. This was good money and he didn’t dare go home and face his parents after turning such an opportunity down.

That fall, of course, the war broke out. Dad was turned down for service for health reasons, however he was kept busy, becoming a St John’s Ambulance trainee and instructor. And during the war, the factory wher he worked was converted to war work. They made gun carriages, most of which went to…yes you guessed it…Russia.

Uncle Jock

We now move into the 1950s and 1960s. Dad was at the plant for 25 years. Then one day, a big shot from head office in Britain came into the plant to tell the workers there was no truth to the rumours the plant would close. This was 6 weeks before the plant did close. Dad would be out of regular work for almost 3 years, fortunately, I was young enough that I was blissfully ignorant that we were “poor”. In some ways, I think I was the richest kid on the block. But that’s another story.

From an early age I was taught the value of saving. And one of my favourite things to do was go see “Uncle Jock” at the credit union. He was Jock Gray, a scotsman, at that time approaching retirement. Fascinating man. He was a good friend of Dad’s, and took an interest in me.

Jock Gray in an earlier age had been a Navy man…serving in the King’s Navy in World War One and after. Following the war, his ship was sent to Murmansk, Russia, to support the anti-Bolshevik forces in the Russian Civil War. I was too young to appreciate any stories he may have shared, but he did give me some more of those neat Russian coins, which continued to intrigue me.

The 1970s

High School beckoned. I was still reading…or trying to read…books about history, politics…my status as a history geek was already becoming established (trying to read, often these books were above my learning level). I became good friends with my classmate Mark, who had a Mennonite background, partially in Russia. In Grade 10, we found out that a conversational course was being offered at the Collegiate in Russian. We were both intrigued, and decided to take the class.

That first year, there were about 12-15 students, I believe it was a 10 week course (maybe it was 20). I learned the Cyrillic alphabet, and some very basic vocabulary.

The teacher was a lovely woman, Mrs Goncharow. She had recieved a degree fairly late in life from Brock University, and loved teaching both Russian and Spanish. Her classes were special, and over the next few years increased in membership. The same core group stuck with it for four years, and expanded in numbers. The last two years it became a credit course, so my high school transcript lists Grade 12 and 13 credits in Russian. It was a wonderful experience. While I wasn’t fluent I had a basic working knowledge of Russian.
(more to follow)