Cousin Agam Fhein

After his retirement from the Canadian National Railway (CNR) Jack D. went on a trip around the continent. He had a railway pass for the CNR and at that time railway companies in both the United States and Canada honoured the brotherhood of railroad men so the pass meant travelling free in the US as well as Canada.

I’m sure that on his way across Canada he probably stopped at Drumheller in Alberta where I believe Bernie and Edith Coady were living at the time, Edith being his daughter. Then he journied on to California to visit a cousin in Hollywood. (I have no idea who this cousin was but it was clearly someone from the Mira River side of the family).

One afternoon he walked into a drugstore in Hollywood and was rotating a rack of postcards for something to send home when this woman reached across and pulled one from the rack.

“If you’ll send this one I’ll sign it,” she said. The postcard was of Betty Grable, the woman with the million dollar legs for whom whole Second World War armies lusted in their trenches overseas. She was wearing sunglasses and a kerchief and they had coffee together. Afterwards, Jack D. mailed the card home.

When his trip ended and he did come home, Billie wanted to know if he really did meet Betty Grable to which Jack D. replied, “Yes. Who was that woman?”

The postcard with Jack D.’s message and Betty Grable’s autograph was around the house for a long time but became lost sometime around when Billie moved to Boston, I believe.

And what is easier to believe is that Jack D. wouldn’t have had a clue who he was having a tea or coffee with. But I wonder what her thoughts were about this stern man who seemed utterly unmoved by her fame and stardom? Probably found it refreshing.

Received February 10, 2006