This has been a hard one to write. There is so much emotional baggage attached to this story, But it is not my story it is my mother’s. She was born in Sweden in 1910 and came to Canada with her family when she was three. Land was cheap in Ontario as long as the new farmers planted crops and built homes. The Berglund’s were excited to do that. They not only built homes but a life, a farm and a community. They helped build and open the first Baptist Church. Very pious, as my mother would say.
She was a quiet woman but when we were alone her wit and sarcasm were delightful. I have a memory full of funny cliches and bits of her wisdom. She had to quit school at fourteen as girls did not move on to upper levels unless they lived in a city or were brilliant and rich. Mom was smart but there was no future for a young Swedish farm girl except marriage and babies. Gunvor, who was outspoken still knew her place. She hated her name. Gunvor. They were so many beautiful Swedish names and for her they picked Gunvor? I researched Viking names for women and Gunvor came in as one of the top ten names meaning courage and strength. She would have liked that.
Bored with home chores, knitting circles and farm animals, Gunvor started sneaking out at night. There was always a cousin who would meet her and take her to the Vermillion Bay dances. She never mentioned riding a horse so I assume they had farm trucks by the mid to late 1920s. She came home one night with a younger cousin who told me, “We were so quiet because her dad had a temper.”
That night they slipped into the outhouse with the moon cutout in the door whispering and giggling. Gunvor heard the latch on the door click before she realized her dad was locking them in for the night. He had done it before. It terrified her. There were rats rustling around and one night a bear kept her company while she waited to be let out at dawn. She called out crying, “Dad please do not leave me out here. I have Hannah with me.”
He called her a prostitute and said she had to learn to behave. Gunvor hugged Hannah close to help stay warm. Her frustration with the strict rules grew. She was not allowed to talk to the neighbour Weberg boys as they were bad stock as her dad would say. The boys were not allowed on the property. Only the mother went to church and he swore they stole things, they drank, cursed and his daughter would not marry one of them.
Maybe that’s why Gunvor agreed to marry Alton Weberg not long after when she met him at a church picnic. She was twenty-one and they went to Dryden and a couple of friends stood up for them. She went home and moved her few belongings across the street to the Weberg farm. She had to sneak home to visit her mom for quite awhile. Alton liked to party and unlike most of the men in town, he would drink with women as well as men. Gunvor had her first taste of alcohol with him. It was a freedom she never thought she would have. It brought out this carefree girl that had been bottled up for so many years. Her friends gave her the knick name Gay.
The party didn’t last long. She got pregnant after only a few months. That girl was born in Kenora Red Cross Hospital and only lived seven hours. Gunvor was 7 months pregnant when all of her babies were born. Next, in 1931, a boy who lived four hours. A girl arrived still born in 1932. In 1933 a boy lived six hours. In 1935, a boy lived three hours. In 1936, a girl lived three hours and in 1940 a boy lived eleven hours. All born in either Kenora or Dryden Red Cross hospitals. Gunvor was told she had to hold them until they passed. She never knew what happened to them. She was discharged a few days later and went home empty-handed. By the time she was thirty she had seven children die. She never talked about it
She had a daughter born in 1937 who she called Elna. She was born at home and grandma Berglund saved her life by putting her in a box and placing her on the open oven door. A few years later when Alton went off to war Gunvor told him she would not be there when he came back. She did not believe it was our war. A lot of Canadian farm boys went off to war to try and save their farms. She waited for him to come back for over a year then she and Elna packed a suitcase and walked to the Eagle River Train Station late at night for the midnight train.
You pulled down a lever and the flag popped up. The train stopped and when it got to Kenora she had to get off the train and buy tickets to Kamloops, BC. . Her younger sister Lottie was working and living in Kamloops on her own. Her husband had gone to war as well. She sent some money to Gunvor. The rest of the money came from Gunvor selling eggs and berries. She wrote Alton and asked him not look for her. He never did but he sent his army pay to her to support her and Elna for a few years.
It was a new world for Gunvor. A time of laughter and parties and friends. I wrote a play called The Train from Eagle River and romanticized the journey for a Fringe Festival. My daughter played Gunvor and my grandaughter played four year old Elna. It was the lighthearted version of what mom’s life was like. I didn’t know about the parties and the heavy drinking at that time.
Then in 1942 Gunvor met Ron Robinson and that is a whole other story. Con man, carny, crook. But a good man in spite of that. A true friend, non judgemental, kind, generous and he became my dad. First they had Gay in 1945 and then me in 1949. I was sixty-nine when I found out that Ron was not my DNA dad. Harold Larsen was. I knew him as he was my dad’s best friend. I was sad at first because I would like to have known growing up who was who. But then I had to realize my life would have been so different. I loved having Ron as my dad.
Sadly, my sister Gay was not happy to find out we were only half sisters but we worked it out. Turns out I had three half sisters. Elna born to Gunvor and Alton, Gay born to Gunvor and Ron and Marlene born to Harold and Pearl. The most difficult part for me was finding out I was not from England. No fee fi fo fum blood of an Englishmen in this kid. Mom was Swedish and Harold was Danish and I was 99% Scandinavian. Now all these years later it doesn’t matter. They have all passed on and I’m left to tell the stories.
I have certainly done that with two books, a couple of plays and many poems. I’ve stayed as true to the truth as I can. It was only recently after doing more research that I realized that Ron’s connections to drugs was larger than thought. And part of that knowledge put a different spin on how mom lived her life with him. I grew up living with mom’s illness. She was a great mom; homemade soup and cookies and a warm clean home. She was affectionate and funny. Then I would come home from school and mom would be ‘sick’ in bed for two or three weeks. It cast a cloud over the house. There was a sad feeling when I opened the door after school. No cheerful greeting with mom wiping her hands on her apron. No hugs. No love. There was a strange smell of stale air coming from her room.
She stopped drinking when I was seventeen. Gay came over and it took four days to ‘dry her out’. It always seemed odd to me that she only drank about three or four times a year and that she took to her bed for weeks. She barely ate. Ron would try to force food down her throat. I would hear her calling for more. More what? How could a mickey of whiskey sustain such a raging alcoholic for a day? How could she be violent and delusional getting ‘off’ booze. After I had my own issues with booze I started to think there must have been something else at play. I got drunk, didn’t drink the next day because I was hungover, got drunk the third day. I never stayed in my bed.
Doing research I found arrest records for Ron where he told the judge he was not doing narcotics anymore. His stepson from a first marriage told me when I was fourteen he ‘took the fall for dad and his then wife and went to prison for five years. It was a $70,000 morphine bust. in 1947. The biggest drug bust in BC history at that time. There was a mystery man involved who I must assume was Ron. Too many drug references I can go back to have led me to believe that my mom may have had a bigger problem then alcohol.
She never left the house. She never drove. She never had a bank account. She depended on Ron to take care of all her needs. He certainly controlled the whole house. As I grew older I saw signs of how much she was under his rule. She made many comments to me over the years in private that led me to believe she had little control of her life. She was my best friend. I told her everything. I believe she told me as much as she could admit to. She helped Ron commit divorce scams by posing for pictures with the passed out husband of the wife trying to get a divorce. She told me once when I said Ron was generous, that yes he was generous all right, even with passing is wife around.
When I was born there is a picture of Harold holding me up like a proud papa. He drove from Vancouver to Kamloops to see me. Ron snapped the picture. Whenever I needed money for new boots of grad costs it seemed Harold turned up and Ron had money to buy me things. Whenever Harold came around mom went to her room. She said she hated him. I don’t believe Gunvor had many happy times in her life. The last ten or fifteen years of her life were the happiest I believe. She was sober. She laughed a lot. She opened up confiding things to me.
Family did not believe me when I told them mom had seven babies die. I spent a long time researching to find the proof. The enormity of losing seven children and pretending it never happened must have taken a huge toll on her. I wonder how she found the courage to carry on, to get up everyday and work the farm. Then she ran away and ended up in another controlled relationship. I know Ron loved her. I know she loved him. Love is not enough when you are broken.
I think back to that young woman on the farm full of hope for an education, a way out of an unhappy childhood home under her father’s strict discipline. Then she had baby after baby and they all died except for Elna. Ron was the super hero who brought fun and laughter into her life but at what cost? I found a photo album of when they first got together. There she is standing on a hilltop surrounded by tumbleweeds wearing only army boots. It was not the liberated free thinking woman of the 1940s. There are pictures of her laying on a bed holding a doll, with two bright dots of rouge on her cheeks. What I saw in the photos was a woman who had no voice. Her life was controlled by men and she popped out babies that died one after another.
I cannot imagine the depth of her pain. I do know my sister Elna was eleven when I was born and she took care of me. Mom was not in great shape in those days. I didn’t go to school the first half of grade one as Ron was doing Detective work. He could not leave me with mom. She was sick. I travelled with him to various places. With my older sister married by the time I was five, and Gay in school I went on great adventures with Ron. He left me with Fortune Tellers and I sat in a waiting room while he was with his bootlegger.
Gunvor was resilient. She taught me to stand up for myself. She taught me not to believe in men and to use my voice. I was an activist and a feminist from the time I was little. It started with wanting to protect mom. Her strength pushed me to find a resilience in me. She has been gone for over forty years and I still think of her everyday. I am so grateful she was my mom.
She did not know where her babies were taken. I found them. All at the cemetery in Eagle River but in unmarked graves. I found them for my mom. Breaks my heart she never knew where they were. Strength is measured in all sorts of ways. She was strong. She was a wonderful mother and friend.
Her babies were not really left behind. She never took them. They were taken from her. Her name on the death certificates as Gubber, Gunbor. . .that would have made her angry, She was never consulted. They just took her babies. Alton must have arranged for transport and burial. Nobody gave her a choice. Now we will never know exactly where they are as in those days if there was a Weberg grave already there they would have just dug down a bit and buried a baby on top. Nobody even thought to tell her and I guess she was afraid to ask.
Gunvor (Berglund, Weberg) Robinson
August 4, 1910 Sweden
February 12, 1984 Vancouver
