The True Life of "Jen"

Dear Great-Grandmother, this is an open letter honouring the most cherished story about you, which our family has preserved for over 100 years. Thank you for having the strength to ensure our family survived so that I am alive today.

This story is a highlight from the extraordinary life of my great-grandmother "Jeanette MacDonald" who lived and loved in turn of the century New Brunswick, Canda. Countless aspects of her life have shaped who I am, more so than simply being her descendent. It is a legend I've heard from birth and I share it now to explain the extraordinary woman who, while not living in my time, has shaped the foundations of my soul. To find out why her name is in quotation marks and more, please read Missing Branches, which recounts the story of her ethic origins as an indigenous woman who survived the Canadian residential school system. For those that don't know, the schools were a form of attempted genocide and cultural extermination of Indigenous Canadians.

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Times were tough in parts of New Brunswick during the WWI years—even before the depression era of the 'dirty-thirties'. It wasn't uncommon for a person of no fixed address to visit a farm or house as he passed through to beg a meal and a place to warm up from a kind stranger.

Being a mother of seven and a welcoming neighbour to many, my great-grandmother invariably had some kind of stew simmering in her kettle. So, when a man showed up one day pleading for something to fill his belly, regardless of the fact she was home alone with her small children, Jeanette nevertheless welcomed him to take a seat in her kitchen and proceeded to feed him full.

Unfortunately, the age-old problem with showing kindness to strangers is there will always be those willing to take advantage of the situation. This was one of those times. These words have been passed along for generations, and while I've taken liberty to interpret the dialogue, the events themselves are entirely true.

~~~

After the wanderer was fed and warm, she walked him to the door. But instead of continuing on his way down the lane, he turned on Jeanette, who was vigilantly watching him leave from the safe distance of her porch.

In an insidious tone, he declared,

"You're all alone, ain't you, woman."

She frowned and lifted her chin.

"My husband's upstairs sleeping. Keep your voice down, or you'll wake him."

It was a lie, to be sure, but she looked him dead in the eyes when she told it and issued her statement with as much composure as any jailhouse warden.

The traveller sneered at her.

"Ain't no boots by the door."

She didn't flinch. No need to.

The stranger had grossly underestimated the peaceful pioneer-woman: Jeanette wasn't the kind who was afraid to speak her mind or consider herself unsafe without a man to defend her.

"You've had your meal. You'd best be on your way."

"Suppose I don't want to leave," he replied and stepped towards her.

It was a bold but ultimately puerile move because, unbeknownst to the traveller, aprons in my great-grandmother's home weren't just for baking and children's tugging. Sometimes, they held a pistol in their pocket.

Why?

Well, primarily because there had been a lot of rats on the property when they had first moved in. Rats meant the chickens in their coop weren't safe, and no one in those days—especially a poor family of nine—could afford for their meat and eggs to be poached by rats.

Shortly after they had arrived, my great-grandfather had bought my great-grandmother the small peashooter to serve as a means of rodent control, with which she had been skillfully picking off the sneaky vermin for months. She routinely shot at the rats on her way to and from the coop, frequently from a fair distance away, but also out of her kitchen window, off her porch, and sometimes simply from wherever she was when she noticed one.

And you know what? It turns out she was a crack-shot. Great-grandma could hit a moving target as accurately as any cowboy in a draw to the death!

When the man advanced, she pulled the pistol out.

He laughed.

"Put that away before you hurt yourself."

Jeanette didn't answer. Instead, she pulled the trigger and fired one right over his head. I believe the expression used was the kind of shot meant to 'part the hair'.

He jumped in fright, but he didn't leave.

"You missed!"

"No, I did not. And you better get going before I use it again."

The undeterred outsider grimaced menacingly and moved closer.

Quick as a lioness, Jeanette turned on her heels and pointed to the weather vane on their barn, which was at least fifty yards away.

"You see that weather vane? I can make it spin."

She fired.

The bullet clanged off the metal with a loud PING, and the vane spun as fast as a hummingbird's wings!

As you may have guessed, the man turned tail immediately, walking away with the duelling stride of a man fleeing as fast as his lecherous legs could carry him and as steadily as his pride would allow him. When he reached the fence post at the end of the drive, he paused to carve something into it, symbol carving being a common practice amongst travellers in those days to warn or inform others of what they could expect from the occupants.

What he carved remains an enduring mystery. My grandmother, Hilda, never did bother to examine the fence post up close to see what was written. But whatever it depicted, my ancestors were never disturbed again.

As for the main events, well, school-aged Hilda had seen it all firsthand out of the kitchen window from start to finish while making biscuits for their supper. Later, she recounted it to her daughter, my mother Ann, as a bedtime story to chase away the fear of monsters during her childhood in the '50s, just as I'm sure my great-uncles, Hilda's brothers, must have told their children, too. And then, naturally, it made its way to me.

~~~

There are two lessons from our family legend that have stayed with me all my life, both of which, if I ever do have children, I will pass on, perhaps in the dead of night when they too have nightmares.

One: Within reason, never shy away from offering kindness to a stranger, for what we do to the least of us defines us as human beings.

And two: Don't mess with Grandma because you just never know what's in her apron!

~~~

For more information on residential schools in Canada, the genocide of indigenous children, destruction of family units and the reconciliation efforts to date, read my other story: 215 seconds of silence at 7:51 p.m.

This story is entered into the Hometown Heroes Challenge sponsored by Be a Mentor.

Published on Vocal Media by Call me Les. Updated February 5, 2022.

Cover photo licensed from Shutterstock.