[This] 1935 photo of Jack D and Annabel is Jack D.’s railroad pass with his wife’s photo on it so that she could travel free as well, along with the children.

The story that photo reminds me of is one my father told me. He was in grade 10 and on a beautiful spring day as he was walking home from school he heard the train getting ready to leave the station.

He gave his books to someone, Greet possibly, and ran to jump on the train and ride it out to the trestle, a mile or so outside of town, and walk back, a not uncommon boyhood activity here. I even did it myself once.

The difference was that my father jumped the train to the trestle and came home two or three years later.

It was the Depression and he spent a lot of time hoboing through northern Ontario and Quebec, “riding the rods” as they called, hanging on the bottom of a train if a boxcar couldn’t be opened. He ran into people from home who were scattered across the country looking for work like himself and they often travelled together.

He remembered it was damned cold a lot of the time riding the trains, and the advantage he had over those he was travelling with was that he had a railroad pass in his pocket because his father worked for the railroad but was too proud to use it.

Eventually he came back home and went back to school in the same class as Greet and they graduated together.

My father: Freddie Macdonald
Greet: Greet Macdonald, Freddie’s sister
Jack D: Jack D Macdonald, Freddie and Greet’s father
Annabel: Annie Belle Rankin, Jack D’s wife

[Hughie Ferguson's brother Johnny] died before John [Ferguson] was born [April, 1948]. I went home from Halifax because we didn’t have any money to have a baby in Halifax, and it would be cheaper at home. So I went home to Inverness in March, and Johnny Ferguson picked me up at the station because he had a car. And he drove me home.

And he said to me on the way up to Jack D’s, he said, “I have one hell of a sore throat.” He was sucking those cough drop things.

And he came in with me and he talked with Momma and Poppa for a bit, and then he left. And Momma said, “My God, how good John Ferguson looks. I wish our Freddie would put on a little weight.”

Freddie was after having stomach surgery and he was skinny as a rail.

And anyway, I don’t remember what day it was, but it was about two days later when I got up in the morning I came down stairs and Poppa said, “John Ferguson died.”

I said, “What John Ferguson?” And he said, “Hughie’s brother.” He died that suddenly.

He apparently had diphtheria.

It was wintertime, March was winter down there . He went home and got very sick that night, and the next day he was taken to the hospital.

Well, I didn’t have any way of knowing any of this, and he died the next night. And since it was diphtheria, they couldn’t have a wake. He went from the hospital to the church with a closed casket, and was buried like that.

And then they quarantined Mina and the three kids for, I don’t know, a month or something they were quarantined.

So when that happened, Sadie [Ferguson] went over. She said, “I’m going in quarantine with with Mina. She can’t stay there alone with three kids,” you know.

And Hughie used to sneak over at night. Janice said that today. She said, “I can remember Frank Chisholm coming over and passing the pie in through the window.”

John died that suddenly. It was an awful shock to the town. Mattie was upset about it, very upset. Because there was no need of anybody dying of diphtheria at that time….
You could have had a shot for it.

Like Mattie said, if he’d had the old doctor, Dr. Proudfoot, who was real good– Dr. Proudfoot would have smelled it. He would have swabbed that right away, you know… but nothing much was done.

And Dr. Ratchford was the doctor who was looking after him, and very shortly afterward, Dr. Ratchford left town and went to another town.

But it was horrible. There was no excuse for anybody dying of diphtheria. That was in the 40s, and he was only 33.

Johnny Ferguson: son of Mattie Ferguson, brother of Hughie Ferguson.
John Ferguson: son of Hughie Ferguson and Greet Macdonald.
Poppa: Jack D Macdonald, Greet’s father.
Momma: Annie Belle Rankin, Greet’s mother.
Freddie: Greet Macdonald’s brother.
Sadie: Sadie Ferguson, sister of Hughie and Johnny.
Mina: Elizabeth MacFarlane, wife of Johnny Ferguson.
Janice: daughter of Johnny Ferguson and Mina MacFarlane.