Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Harper John Pettypiece, Autobiography of Harper John Pettypiece (1921-2002), bahai-library.com.
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Autobiography
of
Harper John
Pettypiece

(1921–2002)
Autobiography of
Harper John Pettypiece
(1921–2002)

Contents
1. Childhood years.. ............................................................................................................... . 4
2. The Love of music.. ........................................................................................................... . 10
3. Growing up in Forest.. ..................................................................................................... . 20
4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy.. ....................................................................... . 26
5. Meeting Joan Taylor and the end of the war.. ...................................................... . 34
6. Return to Canada.. ............................................................................................................. . 37
7. Settling down in Forest.. ................................................................................................ . 41
8. Introduction to the Baha’í Faith and community development.. ............... . 44
9. Western Canadian and USA vacations, early 1960s.......................................... . 49
10. Northeastern USA vacations, mid 1960s.. .............................................................. . 52
11. Canadian Centennial to the late 1960s.. .................................................................. . 56
12. Introduction to Iceland, pioneering decision and two weddings.. ............ . 59
13. Pioneering to Iceland....................................................................................................... . 62
14. Conferences and travels.. ............................................................................................... . 68
15. Adventures exploring Iceland.. ................................................................................... . 75
16. New beginnings and adventures................................................................................ . 78
17. Oakham UK and side trips............................................................................................. . 81
18. A change of direction and a wealth of history.. ................................................... . 85
19. Glastonbury and lots of history.. ................................................................................ . 88
20. Holidays around Britain.. ............................................................................................... . 97
21. Homeless and holidays abroad................................................................................... . 100
22. More travels around Britain.. ...................................................................................... . 104
23. Time to return to Canada.. ............................................................................................ . 108
24. Illness and university.. .................................................................................................... . 113
25. A trip back to Britain.. ..................................................................................................... . 114
26. Holidays in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia........................................... . 121
27. Side trips to Ontario and Winnipeg.. ........................................................................ . 124
28. A holiday on Prince Edward Island.. ........................................................................ . 127
29. Short trips, golden anniversary, graduation and failing health.. ................ . 130
30. Childhood recollections.................................................................................................. . 135

Note: The division of this book into chapters is somewhat arbitrary and it
was not part of the original manuscript. Also there may be many spelling errors
especially with place names the author was not familiar with.1 The
autobiography was written in 1998–99, about 3–4 years prior to his passing. His
health continued to deteriorate and he was effectively bed-ridden for the last
year of his life.

1 This is an edited copy. Most names were checked and many were corrected, some
were very difficult to check. Most place name locations were also checked. Where
possible, facts were checked, amended, and some additional details added.—M.W.T.,
2023.
1. Childhood years
I was born, so I have been told, early in the morning on November 15th, 1921 in a
house on the corner of Broadway and Macnab Streets in Forest, in the County of
Lambton, Ontario. My parents were Victor and Leila Pettypiece who were married
in Corunna in June of the previous year. My father was born in 1898, a son of Henry
and Madeline Pettypiece of Forest; he was one of seven children, only three of
whom survived adolescence, my aunt Eleanor who was a spinster, and Uncle Lister
a Catholic priest. My mother was the daughter of Samuel and Sarah Harper, also of
Forest. She had a brother Fred, and a sister Agnes. Fred remained a bachelor but
Agnes was married to Edgar Chafe of St. John’s, Newfoundland and was the mother
of two boys, Gerald and Gordon, my only first cousins.
Before I was a year old, my parents moved to Comfort Terrace, a quadraplex on
Jefferson Street across from the tennis courts. I remember very little of that period,
only vague images, but I can remember my sister Reinette, who was born there in
1924. I do not remember her as a baby, only as a toddler. While there, I am told I
had the usual childhood diseases, chicken pox, measles and whooping cough.
In 1925 or 1926 we bought a house on Prince Street opposite the public school. It
was in this house that I grew up and lived in until World War Two. It cost $2,000
and I remember being told we had to borrow the down payment and it took fifteen
years to pay off the mortgage. During the 1930s it was all we could do to pay the
interest, never mind any of the principal. The house did not have any indoor
plumbing, and I remember as a youngster I would take my little wagon down to the
corner where there was a public pump and collect water. I also used to have to go
to the creamery around the corner every couple of days for a block of ice for the
icebox. I can remember Saturday

1. Childhood years 5
night was bath night and a tub of water was heated on the coal stove, which would
do for both me and my sister.
We had a stove in the kitchen, which served for cooking and also one in the
living room, whose pipe went up through a hole in the ceiling to the hall and then
curved through my bedroom to the chimney. Dad would get up in the winter and
stoke up the fire so that we could huddle around the stove pipe while we got
dressed. These pipes had to be taken down every spring, cleaned and re-assembled
every autumn.
I have unpleasant memories also of having to use the outside privy in the winter
after Dad had shoveled a path through the snow. I can also remember, vaguely, of
being circumcised on the kitchen table.
In September of 1927 my other sister Ruth was born, but for this birth my mother
went to St. Joseph’s Hospital in London, Ontario. In those days a confinement lasted
about ten days, so we did not see our new sister until she arrived home. By the time
I had started school, living across the street made it very handy.
I am now going to give a few general impressions of the rest of the 1920s. I can’t
recall any chronological order, keeping in mind that by the summer of 1930 I was
still only eight years old.
One of the first improvements made to the house was the installation of water
pipes, which made a big difference. A central heating system had to wait until the
late thirties. The inside toilet and bath made a great difference to our comfort.
I can remember my mother (who taught school before she was married) reading
poetry to me before I started school. There were the Longfellow poems of Hiawatha
and Evangeline and others by Tennyson, Wordsworth, and Lowell; also some
Shakespeare. She also taught me simple sums and reading at this time, and I started
in Grade One (Junior Primer it was called in those days). I know I was able to skip
some grades and this is why I was able to start high school in 1933 (I was 11 years
old).
Other memories of the twenties include winter; the streets were filled with
horse drawn sleighs since all automobiles had to be put up on blocks in the winter
with tires removed and radiators drained; antifreeze had not been invented. There
were half a dozen blacksmith shops in Forest at that time.
In the spring the streets were quite muddy.
6 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
The skating rink was on Prince Street across the road from our house and they
used to hold skating carnivals every year at which I went dressed once as Henry
VIII. There was always live music for skating on Saturday night.
Summers included swimming in Hickory Creek—it was not polluted then,
although we had to pick off the bloodsuckers when we came out. It was where I
learned to swim.
I can remember my parents taking us to London, Ontario, once a year to buy
shoes. We went on the train leaving Forest at 6:30 in the morning. We would
change trains at Lucan Crossing to catch the one coming down from Goderich.
My parents also took us to the Toronto Exhibition a couple of times. I cannot
remember much about these trips except for the extravagant pageant at the
grandstand followed by fireworks. One such pageant was about Montezuma and
another about the British Empire. It was on one of these trips to Toronto I saw my
first talking picture. I do not know the name of the film, I guess I was too impressed
by the sound. I had seen a couple of silent movies at the local Kineto Theatre:
“Noah’s Ark” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.
Not many people had automobiles; we did not even have a radio or a
phonograph, but at some point we did get a wind up Victrola, and an upright piano
for me to take some lessons from Mabel Dunlop, a local teacher who had her ATCM.1
I would be about 8 I believe.
I can remember downtown in Forest. My grandfather was the owner of the
Forest Free Press and my father worked there and one other person, Morley
Shepherd. I can remember a hotel with hitching posts and a horse water trough
outside. I can remember the grocery stores where you went up a couple of steps
and the grocer waited on you across the counter. I can remember a harness shop. I
can remember an ice cream parlour with wire-backed chairs and a soda fountain. I
can remember the Town Hall where the Chatauqua2 travelling shows used to come
every year.
There were several blacksmiths, a couple of whom did car repairs as well. A
couple of gas stations where the proprietor would pump the gas for you—you could
buy a gallon for a quarter.

1 Associate of the Toronto Conservatory of Music.
2 Chautauqua is an adult education and social movement in the United States that peaked
in popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
1. Childhood years 7
It was during these years I formed my impressions of music. There was no
distinction between such terms as so-called classical and popular. My folks used to
sing those songs that were popular when they were growing up: “By the Light of
the Silvery Moon”, “Yip-I-Addy-I-Ay”, “Come Josephine in My Flying Machine”, “Trail
of the Lonesome Pine” and others. I particularly remember “The Irish Jubilee”. My
father would also recite Robert Service poems.
When the Victrola phonograph arrived there was a varied selection of records,
from “Oh By Jingo” and the “Little Red Schoolhouse”, to “Rhapsody in Blue” and
“Poet and Peanut”. There was also a Mozart and part of a Tchaikovsky Symphony. I
had most of them memorized. When I started piano lessons I learned more about
Chopin and Bach, etc.
We used to occasionally visit friends of our parents. At Reg Roche’s place on
Broadway St. next to Angela Hannum’s, I became acquainted with comics such as
“Buster Brown” and “The Katzenjammer Kids”. We went once to O’Donnell’s out in
the country and they had some new records such as “Piccolo Pete” and “The Two
Black Crows”.
It seems that in those times we knew everyone in our town of about 1,700 people.
We did not know them all personally but we knew who they were and where they
lived. We lived between two widows, Mrs Ida Brand on the north and Mrs Wichman
on the south. Both seemed really ancient to me and I particularly remember the
latter because she had a pet parrot, the only one in town. We had a dog, a collie
called Pal. I think he died of old age at some point. I think everybody had a porch
on their house.
Mother did some gardening in our back yard. We had a grape vine on one side
with hollyhocks. On the other, the shady side, there were violets, lily of the valley,
jack-in-the-pulpit and a pear tree. The Pettypiece house on Albert St. had trumpet
vines shading the porch.
My public school teachers were Frances Hubbard, Jessie O’Brien, Ruth Neelands
and Alex Salisbury. Beside the kids I knew from school, I knew some from the
country. This was through our church. I was raised a Roman Catholic, and the kids
attended mass every Sunday from the time we were old enough to understand and
went through communion and then confirmation. Forest was not a parish but a
mission, and the priest,
8 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
Fr. Houlkes came every Sunday from Corunna, Lambton County. Aunt Nora played
the organ and at some point I started singing in the choir.
Through church I got to know the Hubbard and the Forbes families. Their kids
went to country schools. The Hubbards had 2 boys (Bob and Tom) and 3 girls
(Winifred, Geneveire, and Cuthaine). The Forbes had a boy and a girl. The boy,
Wilfred, eventually became the father of Barbara who married our son Geoffrey.
On the Pettypiece side, my aunt Nora lived with my grandparents. She never
married—apparently her boyfriend was killed when he was quite young. I also
vaguely remember my Dad’s Aunt Sara who lived there at that time. I must have
been only 3 or 4 years old because she died in 1925. It was there I used to collect
comic strips from The London Free Press, particularly one called “Minute Movies”. I
also met two of my grandfather’s brothers. At one time there was a picture of
Reinette and myself at a tea party there. She was 2 and I was 5.
At the Harpers’ I can recall they had a cellar with an outside door. They kept
their wood supply there. They also kept chickens and I can remember my
grandfather killing one after chasing it around the yard. He was a janitor at the high
school and he stayed there until the mid-thirties (in his 70’s). My grandmother
baked her own bread and we looked forward to that, which she gave us covered
with butter and brown sugar. We also were given dishes of maple syrup, which they
made themselves. One time we went next door to Charles Taylor’s to listen to his
radio. It was quite large with 2 wet cell batteries and we heard the Dempsey-
Tunney fight. He only had one set of earphones and we had to take turns. The
loudspeaker had not yet been invented.
It was at the Harpers’ that I met some of my maternal relatives, mother’s sister
Agnes and her husband, the Snowdons and great, great uncle Cesar McLeod. They
had a parlour where nobody went without permission. It had old fashioned plush
furniture and was kept dark most of the time. This is where they kept Uncle Fred’s
photos; he travelled all over the world as a marine radio operator.
Aunt Nora played golf at that time and occasionally took me to the town’s 9-hole
golf course with her. Also, although she did not have a car, one of her friends did,
and she invited me on a couple of car rides, one to Kettle Point, and the other to
Grand Bend.1 The latter trip took all day and I

Both are on the shores of Lake Huron in Southwestern Ontario.
1. Childhood years 9
went along with these three women. We stopped half way for tea. The road through
the Pinery Provincial Park at that time made quite an impression; it was not paved
of course (few roads were) and the trees hugged the road on both sides—it was like
driving through the woods.
2. The love of music
My earliest introduction to music was a piano at my grandfather’s. Aunt Nora
had a player piano at first with a few rolls. I could not have been more than four or
five. I would try to pick out tunes with one finger, and the player piano was
replaced early on with an ordinary upright. I started piano lessons with Mabel
Dunlop when I was about 8 or 9 and continued until I passed my Grade 8 of the
T.C.M.1 I also took and passed two years of elementary theory.
I can remember my father singing songs of the early part of the century and from
this probably grew my interest in popular music. Songs like “The Irish Jubilee”, “Call
Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon”, and “The Little Red Schoolhouse” were among
dozens that I got to know. From my grandmother, who belonged to the Gospel Hall,
I learned all the Gospel hymns and some of the US Civil War songs, and sometimes
on Sundays we would go to Mass in the morning and the Gospel Hall in the evening.
My parents were a mixed religion marriage and this is probably why we grew up
in a religiously tolerant environment.
When I was about 9, a boys’ junior band was started in town under the direction
of Frank Freele who had a grocery cum barber shop on King St. I begged my father
to let me join and he eventually relented and bought me a cornet and I began
lessons. The boys’ band used to play concerts at Grand Bend on Sundays in the
summer and at many of the fall fairs in the area. One year we competed at the
Toronto Exhibition and that summer the committee of which my father was a
member rented a cottage at Hillsborough Beach for a week during which we
rehearsed the test piece every day. I cannot remember whether we came first or
last.
Meanwhile, I had joined the local library and among the books I borrowed was
one of the stories from the operas. I did not know the music but I was fascinated
with the stories.

1 Toronto Conservatory of Music.
2. The love of music 11
The boys’ band disbanded when I was about 12 and the senior band, the Forest
Excelsior Band, acquired a new bandmaster, Steve Vowden who had been trained at
Kneller Hall in England. The second year he was here he persuaded me to learn the
oboe. Within a year I was playing in the Excelsior Band, along with two or three
other kids my age. We competed at the Toronto Exhibition 2 or 3 times, staying at
the Gladstone Hotel near the Exhibition grounds. The last year (the year the war
broke out during the Exhibition) the dance bands of Benny Goodman, Tommy
Dorsey and Guy Lombardo were all there.
The Band used to raise money, before I joined the navy, by renting the steamer
Tachmoo, which sailed from Sarnia to Belle Isle and Detroit on a Sunday. They
would sell tickets for all the way from Ailsa Craig to Sarnia, and a train would take
everyone to Sarnia and the band would play during the trip. However the steamer
sank the year I joined the Band, and for the rest of the decade they produced
Minstrel Shows each fall in which I participated.
Around 1930 my parents rented a cottage at Hillsborough Beach for two weeks
up in the hill on the north side of Hickory Creek. The following 2 or 3 years they
took a cottage there but next to the dance hall. It had a store that opened every day
and sold pop and candy, etc., and twice-a-week dances were held with a live dance
orchestra. I learned all the latest popular songs this way. We would stay a month in
the cottage that had no electricity and no running water. My father would go into
town (about 10 km) to work every day and return at night with Malcolm Gray who
had a tent near the cottage and a Model T Ford that had to be left at the top of the
hill at night because it could not make it up the hill.
Every day we would have to walk to Isaac’s farm up on Lakeshore Road for milk
and sometimes fresh eggs. Often we kids would walk from Hillsborough Beach all
the way southwest to Blue Point (less than 6 km). There was nothing between
except Gallie’s Fisheries where we would stop and rest. We took our lunch and
were quite unsupervised by adults. In fact as young kids we would wander all over
by ourselves, never feeling threatened at all.
Through the band, and also through our phonograph’s few records, I became
acquainted with some classical and semi-classical pieces.
12 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
When I was about 14 or 15, two things occurred which increased my desire to
learn more about music. We acquired a radio and I would listen to the New York
Philharmonic concerts every Sunday afternoon, and the Ford Sunday Evening Hour,
which played shorter classics such as overtures and tone poems. At the same time I
got to know Eunice McDonald who was in a class ahead of me at high school and
who, with two other girls from Thedford, Peggy Powell and Marion Carmichael,
boarded in town during the week. Eunice was interested in opera and had an aunt
who was a professional singer. About this time I started collecting miniature scores
and operatic vocal scores.
I also got to know Anita Carson-Dowding of Arkona, whose daughter Betty
Carson attended the Forest High School. She played the violin and knew the
composer of the “Bells of St. Mary’s” when she was a girl in England.
Just before the war I had my first stage experiences. I was in a high school play
“The Marriage Proposal” by Chekov with Howard Brown and Inez Powell. Howard
and I were piano pupils of Mabel Dunlop and played together at the Kiwanis Music
Festival in Sarnia. The other was in the chorus of “HMS Pinafore”, put on by Ruth
Walters. When the production went over well and was taken out of town, one of the
principal performers, Arnold Keast, broke his leg, I took over the part of Dick
Deadege because I was the only one who knew the part.
During the thirties, the Forest Excelsior Band put on minstrel shows (now not
politically correct) to raise money as mentioned earlier. Several things stand out in
my memory. For example, Don Livingston was always the interlocutor; Charlie May
was always an endman, and usually was too drunk to remember the words of his
songs; George Harvey, a local Cornishman, would get his annual bath and shave and
sing one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s patter songs, all of which he knew by heart; Arnold
Keast sang comic songs of the Al Jolson type; and I gave recitations.
The Excelsior Band played at the Toronto Exhibition several years, the last time
being in 1939. At one of these, I played the glockenspiel as well as the oboe but I do
not remember either the test pieces or whether we won any prizes. This was the
fair that I first appeared in an interview on demonstration television, which had not
yet become commercial in Canada. That did not happen until after the war.
2. The love of music 13
One time, when I was 10 or 11, I played a cornet solo at a band festival in
Waterloo. I did not get a place in a class of about 15 players. One thing I remember
was Gordon Chafe falling out of a boat on the river when he had a cast on his leg. I
also took part in piano competitions at the Sarnia Kiwanis Music Festival and come
first on a few occasions there.
It was in 1936–37 that I began listening to the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday
afternoons faithfully until I joined the navy, and intermittently up to present day.
In 1938–39 I attended the University of Toronto at St. Michael’s College. I took
courses at the Conservatory in harmony, counterpoint, history and ear training, and
among my teachers were Dr Healy William, and Dr Leo Smith. On one occasion we
were invited to Sir Ernest McMillan’s home. As well, I played in the University of
Toronto band, playing at football games in London, Kingston and Montreal, as well
as at home. I also sang in the St. Mike’s choir and learned to read Gregorian Chant.
I attended Toronto Symphony Orchestra rehearsals and got to know a few of the
members, including Harold Gomberg, first oboist, who gave me free lessons for part
of the winter. He went on to play with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and
went with Pierre Aquley to France to pursue his studies of baroque embellishment.
Also in Toronto, I saw my first operas, a travelling group of the San Carlo
Company who did Carmen, Faust and the Barber of Seville. I also saw the Ballet
Russe de Monte Carlo in La gaîté parisienne and Coppélia. In addition, a recital by
Balduína “Bidu” de Oliveira Sayao and an all-Strauss concert by the Philadelphia
Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. I also saw a performance of Plangiatte’s
operetta “The Chimes of Normandy”. George Emerson was a guest conductor.
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra was not the first time I had heard a live
symphony orchestra. They had come to the Grand Theatre in London somewhat
earlier and they played the Cesar Franck Symphony in D minor. It was quite
thrilling experience.
I joined the Royal Canadian Navy in May 1940, and had very little to do with
music while there. I applied to transfer to the Navy Band while at Esquimalt when
they formed one but was turned down, but I got to know some of the players,
including Gordon Poole with whom I kept in touch till the 1960s when he joined the
Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
14 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
I occasionally heard dance bands that played for the forces, such as Cab Calloway
and Hal McIntyre, as well as the Navy Show. What little music I heard was on the
radio in the Sally Ann at Halifax where I had meals from time to time.
When I got leave the first time in Ireland, I went to London, England, where I saw
“La Boheme”, also Arthur Bowden Askey (1900–1982) in “The Love Racket”, and
Lupino Lane in “For Me and My Gal”.
In February 1945, the ship I was on, the HMCS Orkney, was in a collision with a
freighter in the Irish Sea during the blackout. We had to put in to Liverpool for a
Court of Inquiry. It was during this period I met Joan Taylor, whom I married in
June. We met at a roller rink and on our first date we went to hear the Liverpool
Philharmonic, where we could get seats for only a shilling as a member of the armed
forces. We attended several of these concerts while in Liverpool (for 6 weeks)
under either Sir Adrian Cedric Boult (1889–1983) or Sir John Barbirolli Sir John
(Giovanni Battista) Barbirolli (1899–1970). We also saw “La Traviata”, by Giuseppe
Verdi, at the Empire Theatre.
After we were married we lived in Greenwich, Scotland, until I returned to
Canada early in 1946. We often went into Glasgow where we heard concerts by the
Scottish Orchestra as well as several of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas on the
stage. We also saw Will Fyffe (1885–1947) in a pantomime, and two musicals, “Rose
Marie” and “No No Nanette”.
I returned to Canada in May of 1946 and Joan followed on the RMS Queen Mary in
August. While waiting to return to Canada, we stayed a few days in London, and I
saw the “Barber of Seville”. We lived in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and I got hold of a
record player and borrowed records through Keilor Bentley who worked in a music
store in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and who came to visit us in Marion Heights,
Pennsylvania, a few times.
Returning to Forest, Ontario, in 1947, I began playing baritone in the band since I
did not have an oboe. When Steve Vowden left Forest to join the Royal Canadian Air
Force band when the war broke out, various members held the band together until
a permanent bandmaster could be found. I took it over myself for a year or so. Bob
Shannon, a bassoonist from Sarnia, and a former member of the boys’ band, became
bandmaster, but he died suddenly a couple of years later. He told a newly formed
community orchestra in
2. The love of music 15
Sarnia that I played oboe so I had to buy one through George Van Valkenburg who
had connections with Boosey & Hawkes. I still have it.
Following Bob Shannon, Bert Bocock of Parkhill was hired. He also played in the
London Symphonia, London, Ontario, and he asked me to come and play French
Horn with them; they needed a 4th horn player but not oboe. I played for two years
with them under Bruce Sharp, including concerts in Chatham. A highlight of this
period was a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” under Sir Ernest McMillan in the
London area with a huge chorus.
A few years later, an International Symphony Orchestra, Sarnia, was formed
from the Sarnia and Port Huron community orchestras, with which I stayed for
about 13 years under a variety of 1st oboists and conductors. I got to play a large
number of works, which was an incredible experience, including “Afterim L’Affaire”
(?), selections from “Le Coq d’Or”, “Songs of the Auvergne”, “Appalachian Spring”,
and “Rodeo”, some Brahms, Wagner, Bartok and many others.
Meanwhile in the late 1940s, I met Harry Keane of Keane’s Ontario Furniture. We
made a trip to Cleveland, there and back same day, to see the Metropolitan Opera
perform “Don Giovanni” with Ezio Fortunato Pinza (1892–1957). The following year,
we went for four days and saw five operas—“Rigoletto” with Johan Jonatan “Jussi”
Bjorling (1911–1960), Alice Josephine “Lily” Pons (1898–1976), and Leonard Warren
(1911–1960); “L’elisir d’amore” with Patrice Munsel (1925–2016); “Madame Butterfly”
with Dorothy Kirsten (1910–1992) and John Brownlee (1901–1969); “Othello” with
Licia Albanese (1909–2014), Ramon Vinay (1911–1996).
Joan and I went to Detroit in the early 1950s to see some operas by the Carl Rosa
Opera Company with Tito Gobbi (1913–1984) and Ferruccio Tagliavini (1913–1995).
We saw “Rigoletto”, “Tosca”, “Andrea Chenier” and “Turandot”, both the latter the
first time we had heard them. We saw one more opera together about 1959 when
we went with the Thiers to Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, to see “Aida” with Zinka
Milanov (1906–1989), Robert Merrill (1917–2004), Mario del Monaco (1915–1982),
Blanche Thebom (1915–2010), and Jerome Hines (1921–2003).
In 1952, I put on a show at the Town Hall called “Broadway Revue”, using
members of the Agenda Club, a group of girls who had done shows during the war
to raise money for the troops, and the Excelsior Band. The show contained numbers
from musicals from “The Mikado” to “The King and I”. Artistically it was a success,
financially not. While
16 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
doing this I went to Detroit with a group to see “Guys and Dolls” with Allan Jones
(1907–1992) and Vivian Stapleton (“Vivian Blaine”, 1921–1995). The only other
musical I had seen was on our way home from Halifax in 1947 when Joan and I saw
“Oklahoma” on Broadway. In 1953 while visiting Aldie Robarts in St. Catharines,
Ontario, he took us to see “Annie Get Your Gun” in Niagara Falls. We waited until
1970 to see another stage musical, when we went to see “Fiddler on the Roof” in Port
Huron.
During the 1950s, we came into London, Ontario, several times to see shows at
the Grand Theatre, among them “La Boheme”, the Canadian National Ballet in “Swan
Lake”, “Nutcracker” and “Giselle” and “Pineapple Poll”, some of these with the Wiens
from Thedford. He had been a German POW during the war having served with
Rommel in North Africa and came to Canada after the war. His kids went to Forest
High School. In 1952, we visited Aldie Robart’s parents in Forest Hill and they took
us to the ballet that included “Fancy Free”, among others.
We also saw plays during this time, “Rain”, “Tobacco Road”, “Bell, Book and
Candle” with Joan Geraldine Bennett (1910–1990) and Zachary Scott (1914–1965).
Also Purple Patches did “Li’l Abner”. They performed at the Grand Theatre, London,
in those days.
Later in the 1960s, myself and one of the violinists from the International
Symphony Orchestra, Sarnia, were selected to attend a week-long community
orchestra workshop in Stratford, Ontario, where we played every day under such
conductors as Walter Susskind (1913–1980) and Victor Feldbrill (1924–2020). We
played Johannes Brahms (1833–1897), Paul Hindemith (1895–1963), Dmitri
Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (1906–1975) and Robert Schumann (1810–1856) in a
concert at the end of the week. During the week, a conference of contemporary
composers occurred and we were privileged to attend a concert with composers
such as Ray Harris (1927–2003), Ernst Heinrich Krenek (1900–1991), and Edgard
Varese (1883–1965) took part. It was the first time I had heard Varese’s “Deserts”
performed live, as well as “Bachianas brasileiras No. 5: Aria” as a tribute to the
South American Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959), who had recently died.
We also went to Stratford once to see Lorne Hyman Greene (1915–1987) and
Lloyd Wolfe Bochner (1924–2005) in the tent before the theatre was built.
2. The love of music 17
In 1971 we attended the Baha’í Oceanic Conference in Iceland and among the
entertainers were Seals & Crofts, and Norman Bailey. We talked to James Eugene
Seals and Darrell George Crofts (“Seals & Crofts”) at the airport on the way home
and we visited the Baileys in England when we went there.
In the spring of 1972, I had to return material to the National Spiritual Assembly
office in Toronto since we planned to pioneer to Iceland. While in Toronto, I called
Ruth Morawetz (1930–2016) whom we had met a few years earlier at Darst’s place in
Colborne Township. Ruth invited me to dinner and I had a chance to talk to her
husband, Dr Oskar Morawetz (1917–2007), a famous Canadian composer. They
arranged for me to attend a performance of “Die Walkure (“The Valkyrie”), with
Norman Bailey (1933–2021) as Wotan and Maureen Forrester (1930–2010) as Fricka.
After the performance, I went backstage and talked to the performers as I was a
guest of Emmy Homburger, the wife of the manager (Walter Homburger) of the
Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
In August 1972 we went to Iceland. During our time there I joined the Reykjavík
City Band through Sverrir Sveinsson, a foreman at my place of work and a cornet
player. The second year Garðar Thor Cortes formed the Reykjavík Symphony
Orchestra as a community type orchestra as a compliment to the National
Symphony. We played generally easier pieces but in our last year there we played
“Trial by Jury” and Mendelssohn’s “Elijah”, the former in Icelandic, the latter in
English. We took the overtures to various communities, e.g. Selfoss, and then in the
spring went on a tour, playing in Varmahlíð, Dalvik and Myvatn. The Gilbert and
Sullivan we recorded for a professor on Icelandic television.
Among highlights of our four years in Iceland were attending concerts at the
Haskolabío Movie Theatre, Reykjavík, of the National Symphony and getting to
know many of the players; attending a concert and recital backstage with Vladimir
Davidovich Ashkenazy (b. 1937) and Renata Tebaldi (1922–2004) who sang about 9
encores at the piano; talking to Leon Jean Goossens (1897–1988), outstanding British
oboist; attending live performances of “Coppelia” at the Reykjavík National Theatre
and “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Austurbæjarbío (“The Fall”) Park, Reykjavík; and
a Victor Borge (Børge Rosenbaum, 1909–2000), concert.
In 1976, we moved to England. I did not get much chance to play there until we
moved to Somerset where they already had an orchestra. I sometimes played at
their annual meetings and once I played for a performance of Franz Joseph Haydn’s
“Nelson” in Glastonbury; I also got a chance to play in a wind ensemble.
18 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
While in Somerset, South West England, we got to see a lot of stage musicals:
“Fiddler on the Roof”, “South Pacific”, “My Fair Lady”, “Show Boat”, “Merry Widow”,
“A Night in Venice”, “Orpheus in the Underworld”, “The Desert Song”, “Die
Fledermaus”, “The Sorcerer”. I also saw “Macbeth” and “Fra Diavolo”1 at the Strode
Arms in Shepton Mallet. Over in London I went to see “The Grand Duchess” at
Sadler’s Wells Theatre. I also took Tim once to see the Tremoloes in concert. Carl
took part in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” in Wells Cathedral,
Wells, Somerset, with Vicki and Asgeir Einarsson when they were in England.
When we first went to England, we took the kids to see “Arsenic and Old Lace”. I
had already seen “The Mousetrap” and “Happy as a Handbag”, a musical about
World War II.
We returned to Canada in 1983 and rented a house on McClary Street, London,
Ontario. A year later we bought a condominium (condo) on Southdale Road,
London, and I started taking a course in Music History at the University of Western
Ontario, London. I only took it for interest since I was not playing anymore and
could not take a music degree without actively performing music. The second year I
took Astronomy and an opera course, but had to drop out of the latter when I went
into hospital for my emphysema for a week and missed my class presentation. The
next year I took a course in Bibliography and Research Technique and got to be
familiar with the library. From then on, I started taking opera courses and theory
courses, and the university introduced an arts degree in music and I pursued that
from then on. I also took courses in composition, history and orchestration. From
time to time I would have some of the kids over to watch some of my operatic
videos. In all there have been 9 or 10 come over.
One year I went with some of my university classmates to see “Wozzech” by
Alban Maria Johannes Berg (1885–1935) at the O’Keefe Centre in Toronto with Alan
Monk.
I began collecting operatic videos during this time and have accumulated over
100 operas on tape. Most have been recorded from television broadcasts, but I have
copied some and bought some. I also have a good collection of miscellaneous music
videos including ballet, concerts and profiles of musicians.

Fra Diavolo, ou L'hotellerie de Terracine (“Fra Diavolo, or The Inn of Terracina”).
2. The love of music 19
I graduated in 1996, a year after our 50th wedding anniversary, and since I had
only just got out of hospital at convocation time, the dean and associate dean came
to the house for the presentation. Four of our kids and their families were present
and it received good coverage in the newspaper. As a result, I received cards and
letters from many people, some of whom I had not seen for 50 years.
While at the University of Western Ontario, I had the privilege of meeting some
world famous musicians, including Philip Gossett (1941–2017), the musicologist;
Stanley Sadie (1930–2005), the editor of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians; Theodore Burg and his wife of the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto;
and the granddaughter of Giacomo Puccini (Nadia Manfredi?).
During this period in London, Ontario, we saw many musicals, most organised
by the University of Western Ontario. Among them have been Gilbert and Sullivan’s
“Gondoliers”, “Princess Ida”, “Patience”, and “Ruddigore; or, The Witch’s Curse”.
Others were “The King and I”, “Brigadoon”, “Guys and Dolls”, “Cabaret”, “How to
Succeed in Business Without Trying”, “Fiddler on the Roof”, “The Music Man”,
“Evita” and “The Pajama Game”.
The University of Western Ontario also produced Vaughn Williams’ “Rides to the
Sea”, Mozart’s “Impressio”, and Bernstein’s “Candide”, as well as excerpts from
various operas. There were many other concerts as well, both by the University of
Western Ontario Symphony, University of Western Ontario Chorus, and various
faculty members’ concerts.
One year we had season’s tickets for Orchestra London, London. They were
good but we did not care much for the Centennial Hall in London, although we also
went to see “Forty-second Street” there in which one member of my class took part.
3. Growing up in Forest
As near as I can recall, the first time I was ever outside Forest community in
Lambton Shores, Ontario, was when my Aunt Nora took me to Kettle Point on the
shore of Lake Huron when I was about 4 years old. I also went with her to Grand
Bend on the shore of Lake Huron. She did not have a car but one of her friends did
and on the trip to Grand Bend (it seemed to me at the time it was all day), we
stopped about half way through the Pinery Provincial Park at a tea room called
Rimbedost. My recollection was of a dirt road through the woods but I do not
remember Grand Bend at all. During the 1920s we used to go into London once a
year on the train to buy shoes. The train left Forest at 6:30 am and we changed
trains at Lucan Crossing. On one of these trips we went out to Springbank Park on a
street car. At that time there were a merry-go-round, a miniature train and a roller
coaster.
I also remember going to Windsor1 but I do not remember how we got there.
We also took a street car or trolley to Amherstburg2 to visit some of my
grandfather’s family. We also went to the Toronto Exhibition by train a couple of
times during the 1920s, as mentioned earlier, and on one of these trips, I saw my
first talking picture. I had seen a couple of silent movies earlier at the Kineto
Theatre in Forest: “Noah’s Ark” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.
It was around 1930 when we rented a cottage at Hillsborough Beach for a couple
of weeks. It was on top of the hill on the east side of Hickory Creek, quite a walk
down to the store or to go for a swim.
When I was 6 or 7, I went to the dentist to have one of my baby teeth taken out
by Dr Walters. His office was above Laurie’s Hardware Store on the corner of King
and Main Streets. When I was 10, I broke my collar bone fooling around during
recess at school. The bone was set by Dr Smith downtown, and I was unable to
attend school for a month. I am told I hollered loud enough to be heard down the
street because I would not take an anaesthetic.
Birthday parties were a rarity. I had one during my growing up years and only
attended about three. One of the earliest was when I was in First Book. Frank
Alpaugh’s father drove the Sarnia Bus and at his party we went for a bus ride, I think
to Ipperwash Provincial Park, Ontario.

1 A city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly
across from Detroit, Michigan, United States.
2 A town near the mouth of the Detroit River in Essex County, Ontario, Canada.
3. Growing up in Forest 21
There was, and still is, a fall fair held in Forest every year, and we felt it to be one
of the highlights of the year. While in public school, each class would dress up to
illustrate a theme and we would march from the school to the fair grounds. When I
got older these marches, which drew from rural schools all over the area, were
discontinued, but I still marched, first as a member of the Boys Band and later with
the Excelsior Band. We would also play from time to time during the fair. As
members of the band, we would often be invited to other fairs, such as Exeter,
Parkhill, Seaforth and many others. The Boys Band also used to play concerts at
Grand Bend on Sundays in the summer. The Senior Band also played Sunday
evening concerts on the band stand. On one occasion during the fair, when I was 8
or 9, I talked my father into letting me go up in an airplane. In those days,
barnstormers used to travel from fair to fair, put on shows, including parachute
jumps and take people for rides. I went up in an open air biplane for about ten
minutes at a cost of $2.00.
I was taken to London a couple of times during the early 1930s, by Bob Horne,
father of one of my schoolmates. I can remember seeing the movies “Trader Horn”
and “Wonder Bar”. In exchange, my father took me and young Bob to Detroit to see
baseball games a couple of years in a row. We stayed with one of his friends and
during our time there we saw all the teams in the American League and some of the
legendary baseball stars including: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. There were 8 teams
in the league at the time, including the Washington Senators and the St. Louis
Browns. We also saw movies, e.g. “San Francisco” and “Poppy” with W. C. Fields. In
those days the big movie theatres had stage shows as well and we saw Fred Waring
and the Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm Orchestra. I had only been to Detroit
once before; it was on the steamer PS Tashmoo on the band excursion to Belle Isle.
The first time Dad took me to Detroit to a ball game we stayed at Jack Barke’s
place. He was from Forest but worked at one of the Detroit automotive plants. On
Sunday morning he took me up to station WJR in the Fisher Building and we saw
Uncle Walt read the funnies over the radio. Uncle Walt read the comics every
Sunday. We also stayed and watched a dramatic program and enjoyed watching
them do the sound effects while the actors read their lines. We also went to the Fox
Theatre and saw Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians dance band.
22 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
In the 1930s, the road from Forest to the end of the 9 miles at Highway 22 was
paved. It was during summer and cars were routed around Forest and we would sit
at my grandmother Harper’s place and keep track of all the different license plates
we spotted. In those days an airplane was a novelty and we rushed outside to see
whenever one went over. They did not fly very high then. A highlight was seeing
the English dirigible R100 pass over on its way to Chicago.
While in high school I started going dating Eunice McDonald, and one summer
she took me to visit her cousin in Toledo, Ohio. I can remember seeing a movie
“Gold Diggers of 1935” but not much else of the trip.
Every year the five local schools held track and field meets. In the local meets I
won medals for four years. High School teachers were Jessie Saunders, Irene Reton,
Angela Hammer, Albert Williams, and J. Stevens, the principal.
During the summers vacations I would get a job. One year I worked for Bob
Horne, who kept bees in various localities and collected the honey from the hives
and extracted it in a building on one of the farms. One year I worked two weeks at
the basket factory at 15 c an hour. I made enough spending money at the Toronto
Fair where I went with the band. Another year I worked at the Canning Factory
(Aylmer), which was very busy in the summer. I got 25 c an hour and some days we
would work as much as 15 hours a day. The next day we would not be called in at
all. I worked through the spinach and pea seasons.
Living so close to Lake Huron, we used to go often to the beach, other than our
usual holidays at the cottage. My earliest recollection was riding to Hillsborough
Beach on the handle bars of a bicycle with Gerry Chafe. Later we would sometimes
walk there and back. Once I walked the 10 km to Cedar Point.
Later we would get rides to Ipperwash where they had a dance casino and we
would listen to records on the juke box.
Pastimes among others were: gathering hickory nuts out in the country in the
fall; once we went for walnuts at George Lougheed’s farm. He was a cousin of my
mother and was the local milkman. I also went with the mailmen on all the rural
routes around Forest, and also on Gerry Chafe’s bread route all over the local
countryside.
3. Growing up in Forest 23
While in high school for two or three years in the fall I would go out into the
country to gather hickory nuts, once with a kid from school, John Marburg. Once I
collected coalnuts [black walnuts?] but they were not very good.
When I was smaller you could get beechnuts near the Forest cemetery. You
cannot do this anymore—the hickory, coalnut and beech trees are all gone.
At one point I sent for information on taxidermy, and also a flying school at
Lincoln, Nebraska. I was interested in model planes and built several flying models;
I got to know Bruce Lister who lived on a farm in Bosanquet Township (now part of
Lampton Shores) and was bit of an expert on model airplanes. Once I had a
chemistry set and made some chlorine gas and nearly choked myself.
The last year at high school I went to Toronto for 2 weeks in summer to look for
a job and was unsuccessful. One place I went was the de Havilland aircraft factory,
which was out in the country then. It was a long walk from the end of the street car
line. That fall I went to the University of Toronto. One weekend there I hitch-hiked
to Buffalo for the weekend, just to say I had been there, no other reason, but it was
the first time I had seen Niagara Falls. It was also the first time I had ever been in a
bar. In Ontario we had been in parlors but no bars. Forest did not have a beer
parlor; Thedford had the closest and Sarnia was the closest liquor store.
On Sundays in Toronto there was nothing open there except a few restaurants
and some museums. I often rode the different street car lines to familiarize myself
with the city and I also visited the Royal Ontario Museum and Casa Loma.1 One
Sunday I walked from the University of Toronto to the waterfront and back. I lived
in residence at St. Michael’s College.
One evening I went to see “Romeo and Juliet” at the Hart House Theatre put on
by students. I also went to a dance at the roof garden of the Royal York Hotel to
which I had been invited by a girl I knew in a sorority. I had to rent a set of tails and
a car (Eunice had taught me how to drive on the roads around Thedford), as well as
a corsage.
In 1939 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth toured Canada. The closest they
came was London and arrangements were made to take all the school kids by bus to
see them. The Forest Band was invited to play at the Rectory St. Station, the site
allotted to Forest. However the tour ran late and the train did not stop at

A Gothic Revival castle-style mansion and garden in midtown Toronto.
24 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
Rectory St. The kids were disappointed so the buses took them all the way to
Niagara Falls, their next stop. My sister got to see them but I did not as the band
returned to Forest.
The war broke out while King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were here at the
Toronto Fair, so they cut short their visit and returned to England. I applied to join
the Royal Canadian Navy and stayed home and waited until I was called. I can
remember listening on the radio to the progress of the Battle of the River Plate
when the Admiral Graf Spee was sunk. During the 1930s we were able to hear
speeches by both Hitler and Mussolini on radio.
Uncle Fred had heard Hitler speak in Hamburg during the early thirties when he
sailed with the Hamburg-American Line. He travelled a great deal and prior to that
had sailed to Alaska, the Middle East and to India. He stopped going to Germany in
the middle thirties, and made two more trips before the war, one to Indonesia and
Thailand, and one to Angola. He sent me stamps from both trips. I collected stamps
and also baseball cards, which came in bubble gum. Cigarettes also included
collector’s cards—I can remember golf cards and poker hands. My dad collected the
poker hands and was able to get several premiums including a card table and chairs,
and a bridge lamp.
In the early thirties, the advertisers were much more imaginative and generous
than today when they spend all their money on television. Among the earliest
advertisers were the cigarette manufacturers who placed cards in their cigarette
packages. One I remember used cards with poker hands, which my father collected.
There were two in a pack of 25 for a quarter and one in a 10 cent pack of ten. If you
collected the full set they could be redeemed for prizes and I know my dad got a
card table, a floor lamp and an umbrella for a specified number of sets in their
catalogue. Even earlier, one of the companies put golf cards in their packages; a full
set was for 18 holes. Also Moirs’ chocolate bars each contained a card with a letter
on it and if you could spell, for example “Moirs’ XXX Hard Centers”, you would get a
free 2 pound box of chocolates. Needless to say, the X’s were the hardest to find.
Every box of cereal had a prize in it and every box of soap had a tea towel or a
face cloth. Some contained dishes. All of the kids’ radio programs had clubs you
could join for free by sending in a wrapper from
3. Growing up in Forest 25
their product. I joined the Little Orphan Annie secret society and received a code
book and a ring, and every night on the program there would be a secret message
that we had to decode.
Then bubble gum cards were produced. Each penny package of bubble gum
contained a card of a sports star, movie star, pirates and plane cards, or other topics
of interest that could be collected into sets, and traded with others. It was always
fun to trade a Lou Gehrig for a Hank Greenburg, or a Greta Garbo for a Clara Bow.
You could buy a lot for a quarter in those days.
One time I was persuaded to sell needles or garden seeds, and after selling a
number we would get prizes. It was not hard to sell when you are 8 or 9 because
everyone tends to humour you.
4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy
In the spring of 1940 I received my call-up from the Royal Canadian Navy and
was told to report to the Naval Barracks in London for a physical. My dad came
with me, and that afternoon I was on a train for Vancouver with orders to report to
HMCS Nadia in Esquimalt, British Columbia on 6 May. This was the first time I
would be so far from home. The furthest I had been was between Montreal and
Toledo. I had a berth on the train and woke up the next morning in Northern
Ontario. In 1940 the trains ran on steam and we stopped every couple of hours for
10 minutes while they refilled the water tank.
We had stops for an hour or more in Winnipeg and Edmonton, and I sent home
postcards. In Vancouver we took the ferry to Victoria, about an 8 hour trip, and on
arrival in Victoria were met by a truck that took us to the naval base.
After being fitted out with all our gear and assigned a home in the Frobisher
Block we went on basic training for 6 weeks. This consisted of a 2 or 3 mile run
before breakfast after tying up our hammocks. Then we had marching drill,
gunnery lessons, seamanship, naval history, and so on. We were allowed to go
ashore (into town) on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday or Sunday and one
weekend in three. We were in what they called red, white and blue watches.
On the completion of basic training we had to choose a branch and I chose to
train in visual signalling. It was a nine month course and we had to learn signalling
with flags, semaphore and lights, which involved both naval and international
signalling codes with flags and also Morse code for lights.
At Christmas we had our first leave and I got home to Forest for the holiday. We
had another leave on completion of the course and back home this time there was
nothing to do since everyone I knew had joined the services. I took off and hitch
hiked into the United States. I went first to Chicago, then to St. Louis, then went
south through Arkansas and Memphis, and back home through Louisville and
Cincinnati. It was surprisingly easy and cost me very little because I was in uniform.

4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy 27
Half way through the course, the navy was expanding so rapidly that some of us
went on what they called ‘lodging and compensation’, and we had to find
accommodation off the base and were allotted extra pay to cover it. I was lucky and
found lodging along with two others in the class with an aunt of one of them. The
house was in Victoria and not far from where our instructor, Leading Signalman
Crevey, an old veteran of the Royal Navy who was called up as an instructor when
the war broke out. Every third weekend, I with others, would go to Vancouver and
it was there that I met Barb Roweman, whom I thought of as a girlfriend. I would
stay with her family and she would show me around Vancouver and Stanley Park,
once up to Capilano Canyon. She came over to Victoria once on a visit to picnic on
Bowen Island.
One Sunday I took a train trip up the island to Courtney on a Catholic youth
outing. Other days off we would go to Beacon Hill Park or Gorge Park, which was
quite pleasant.
On my return from leave I, among others, were assigned to HMCS Prince Robert
and joined it at Vancouver. Within a day or two we saw a large number of soldiers
coming on board and we set sail not knowing where we were going. We were
accompanied by a New Zealand troopship, the HMT Awatea,1 and the first land we
sighted was Hawaii. We docked in Honolulu but were not allowed ashore, although
some hula girls came down to the dock to entertain us. We left the next morning,
still not knowing our destination.
Two weeks later after crossing the International Date Line we entered the San
Bernardino Straits and, after passing Corregidor Island, entered Manila Bay in the
Philippines. We were still not allowed ashore and we still did not know our final
destination, but there were plenty of rumours.
There was a Japanese merchant ship in the harbour. Three days later I
celebrated my 20th birthday and we arrived in Hong Kong. Here we were finally
allowed ashore. We had one day from 11 am in the morning until 8 am the next
morning. We slept in the China Fleet Club and the rest of the time we wandered
about, took a rickshaw ride, took the ferry over to Kowloon and took the mountain
railway up to the top.
We stayed four days and disembarked the soldiers. The days we were not
ashore we talked with the sampan people who thronged the

His Majesty’s Troopship.
28 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
harbour, and I bought a white dress uniform made to measure that cost me $10.
On our way home we stopped again in Manila but again there was no shore
leave. Two weeks later we arrived in Honolulu and were allowed ashore until
midnight. We spent the time wandering around, shopping for souvenirs, and I went
out to Waikiki Beach and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. This was Friday, 5 December
1941. We sailed next morning for Vancouver and on Sunday morning we started
getting signals about the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbour and that we were at war
with Japan. We arrived back in Canada five days later. After a few days we were
ordered to patrol in the area of the Aleutian Islands and we had the worst weather I
have experienced in the Royal Canadian Navy. Ocean swells were rising thirty feet
and it was impossible to do anything. We could not keep utensils on the table in
spite of the fact that mess tables had built up edges. Anything not tied down rolled
all over the deck and it rained most of the time. After about three weeks we came
back to Esquimalt, Vancouver Island.
After a few weeks I was assigned to HMCS Kelowna, a newly commissioned
minesweeper, at Prince Rupert, British Columbia. I was given my trained operators
badge and was in charge of two signalmen on the ship. I travelled to Vancouver and
then boarded a passenger steamer for the trip to Prince Rupert. The trip took three
days and we sailed the inside passage. We stopped and were able to go ashore
twice, once at Bella Bella and once at Ocean Falls. These communities only contact
with the outside at that time was by sea, although they now have roads. I was
particularly struck by the wooden streets.
On arrival in Prince Albert I went on board the HMCS Kelowna and spent the next
six months sweeping for imaginary mines around the entrance to the harbour, two
weeks out and five days in port. On one occasion in port I met with Bob Rawlings
from Forest who was stationed at an Royal Canadian Air Force base at Terrace,
about 25 miles inland. On another occasion the ship put into Port Simpson, an
Indian village and we went ashore and sampled some homemade beer. It was a
friendly ship and the captain threw a party on one of our stays at the harbour.
At the end of the summer I was taken off and drafted to St. Hyacinth, Quebec,
where the Navy had their signal school for a V-S3
4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy 29
course. On the way I was given 30 days leave and went back home for a while. I
decided to go hitch hiking again through the States. This time it was even better as
the USA was now in the war. I got a ride as far as Wapakoneta, Ohio at a large truck
stop. I found it was easier getting rides with truckers at stops than on the road. I
picked up a ride that took me through Cincinnati, Nashville to Huntsville, Alabama. I
hitched from there to Birmingham, through to Montgomery and Mobile. There I
headed west through Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi to New Orleans.
I spent a few days in New Orleans sightseeing, including Canal St., Bourbon St. in
the French Quarter (Le Vieux Carre), the levees, and above ground cemeteries. I
entered over the long causeway bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. From there I
headed north and got a ride through Natchez to Port Gibraltar. I was stuck there
and had to spend the night in a rooming house. The next day I headed north to
Memphis and Beale Street in the city center. On this trip I had seen my first pecan
trees and cotton fields.
I crossed the Mississippi there and went north to St. Louis. I had been having
such good luck that I then headed west to Kansas City, then north by Leavenworth
to Omaha. Then back to Chicago through Des Moines and Davenport. Luckily I got a
ride there direct to Port Huron and then home. I took no luggage, only a razor and
toothbrush, and about 25 dollars. I would stay at YMCA dormitories for a quarter
and would wash out socks and underwear overnight. Many of the people I rode
with insisted on buying my meals and I arrived home with money still in my pocket.
The course at the HMCS St. Hyacinthe base, Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, lasted six
weeks and it was intensive. The base was outside the town and when we took leave
we walked in. One weekend some of us went into Montreal, about 25 miles away.
One night I went into town and saw a movie in French with Ray Milland and John
Wayne, no subtitles of course, but I got so I understood a lot of it. It was in Saint-
Hyacinthe that I met Jaime Gervais; she worked at Woolworth’s and we went out a
few times.
We finished the course and received our V/S 3 rating and almost immediately we
were drafted to HMCS Stadacona at Halifax. It was winter and the weather was wet
and miserable. I was promoted to Acting Leading Signalman and was drafted to
HMCS Annapolis, an old four-
30 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
funnel, ex-American destroyer from World War I that was part of a ships-for-bases
deal made with England, 50 destroyers for bases on British soil. Canada got a
number of them, six of which were considered not safe to cross the Atlantic. We
were on the Halifax to mid-Atlantic run and it was my first winter on the North
Atlantic and it was miserable. The mess decks always had water on the floor, the
open decks were covered with ice and it was foggy most of the time. We would put
into St. John’s, Newfoundland, on the way back.
St. John’s was not part of Canada then and they had their own money, although
they would take any currency—Canadian, American, British or French. The first
time in we went ashore at night of course; it was dark and the city was blacked out,
so it was difficult getting around and I did not see what the town looked like.
After a couple of trips on the HMCS Annapolis, the ship came in for a refit (the
North Atlantic played havoc with the rivets) and I was drafted back ashore. I was
shortly drafted to a corvette, the HMCS Quesnel, and we were put on the triangle
run, escorting convoys from Boston, Halifax and St. John’s to mid-ocean. I was
ashore once in Boston but I did little except sight-seeing. I was in St. John’s a couple
of times and was able to look up one family of Chafes, relatives of my aunt Agnes,
who had me up for dinner. I also met Charlie Ross, who later owned the Dresden
paper, and we played cards together on one occasion.
After a few trips the ship went into Pictou, Nova Scotia for a refit. We were in
there for 3 months and I stayed with the ship during that time. When I had 30 days
leave, I went home. For the remainder of the time there was no need to stay on
board in the evening, but one night in three I had to don belt and garters and
armband and go on shore patrol. It was a pretty soft job because there was never
any trouble—a third of the ship’s company would be on long leave at all times. One
weekend I spent in Truro, about an hour journey away by train.
At the end of the refit I was sent back to Halifax where I spent some time. It was
here I met Kidor Bentley, a young fellow who worked in a music store and we spent
some time together. Earlier in the year I had spent a weekend at Frank Burus’ home
in Kentville—he was the publisher of the Kentville Advertiser and my father had met
him at a newspaper convention and he arranged the meeting.
4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy 31
Eventually, I received notice to go back to the HMCS St. Hyacinthe base for a V/S
2 course. The Canadian Navy was expanding very rapidly and there was a shortage
of non-commissioned officers. At the conclusion of the course we were confirmed
in our Leading Signalman rating and given the acting rank of Yeoman of Signals. On
this tour, I learned that the girl I had met before was engaged to Bob Wales, one of
my friends with whom I had been with since joining the Royal Canadian Navy, and
who had invited me to stop off at his home in Winnipeg on my way back to
Esquimalt after one of my leaves.
On returning to Halifax we were all sent to newly built ships in various parts of
the country. My assignment was HMCS Orkney, which was being built at Esquimalt
shipyards. I was there in January and was one of the first compliments to arrive.
My job at this point was to draw all the necessary supplies for the commemorative
branch and update all the code books, ready for commissioning. It was strictly a day
job as workmen were still working on the ship. On a couple of weekends I went to
Vancouver. I had learned that Barb had got married and I visited her and her
husband. By the time of commissioning the full complement was on board and I
found I was in charge of all signalmen, coders and wireless telegraphers. I had a
Leading Telegrapher and a Leading Coder under me. At the time of commissioning I
had to climb to the top of the mast to fix the commissioning pennant that would be
unfurled at the proper moment.
A few days after this we received our orders to report to Halifax. We set sail and
headed south. One of our Leading Torpedomen contracted appendicitis on the trip
and we had to put into Corinto, Nicaragua, so he could get attention at the American
hospital. There was no dock there; we had to anchor and some of us were allowed
to go ashore by boat. We only had about six hours but it proved quite interesting.
Nothing was open but bars and the post office as they take a siesta in the afternoon.
The streets were not paved but were of sand and we met hardly anyone, none of
whom could speak English.
Our next port of call was the Panama Canal. It took all day to go through the
canal and when we reached Cristobal we went in for a boiler cleaning, which meant
a 5 day layover. One day a friend and I took a bus ride to Panama City, a distance of
about 50 miles, just to say I was able to travel from coast to coast and back the same
day and enjoy the scenery along the route. One thing I remember of Cristobal and
its sister city Balboa was that
32 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
the bars never closed; they did not even have proper doors, just the swinging kind.
On leaving Panama we sailed up through the strait between Cuba and Haiti and
put into the US Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia, where we were fitted with the latest
radar system. We were there three days and although I went ashore I do not
remember much except for the enormous size of the navy yard there.
On reaching Halifax we, the HMCS Orkney, were assigned as the Senior Officers’
ship of Escort Group 16, at the head of a few new frigates, including HMCS Thetford
Mines, HMCS Ste. Therese, HMCS La Hulloise and HMCS Magog. While working in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence, the HMCS Magog was damaged by a torpedo and was
effectively out of the war. The remaining ships went to New York where we
received more radar gear at the Staten Island Navy Yard. I went ashore once into
the city and went to the Stage One Canteen that was pretty empty. Nobody famous
there. I also went to Jack Dempsey’s Bar.
Then a few of us went to Coney Island where we rode the roller coaster and
dodgem cars late into the night until it was time to go back to the ship.
From there we went to Bermuda where we spent six weeks on working up
exercises, based mostly at the British Naval Base at Hamilton and also a couple of
days at St. Georges. We were ashore quite often and the weather was beautiful as it
was May.
Back in Canada, our escort group went on patrol in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It
was comparatively uneventful, but we went into Gaspe for five days for a boiler
cleaning and one evening I went to a social club and played bridge. I had to quickly
recall my French in order to play. Later we put into Sydney, and while on day leave
one of the stewards whose home was in Glace Bay, took me by bus to the ruins of
the fortress of Louisburg. There was nothing there then except a blockhouse, which
was used as a museum. On returning to Sydney we found our ships had been
recalled to Halifax and we had to catch up with it by motor launch. My most vivid
memory of Sydney at night was the fires of the blast furnaces at the steel mills,
which were going 24 hours a day.
On returning to Halifax, we were changed to Sea Operations Escort Group 25
based at Londonderry, Northern Ireland, escorting a convoy on the way.
4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy 33
By the time we reached the UK, it was September, D-Day had already occurred so
we missed that event, but we immediately went on escort duty around the British
Isles, and very rarely put into port before we returned to Londonderry. We
circumnavigated the island several times in the lanes that were swept clear of
mines. On one occasion we were sent out to the mid-Atlantic near the Canary
Islands to deal with a submarine attack on a convoy. We arrived in time, but the sub
was sunk by a torpedo aircraft. One night we put into Portsmouth and another time
in January, we went into Scapa Flow in the Orkneys for a couple of days. I went
ashore once to the petty officers mess at the naval base and it was miserably cold
and damp. We had to huddle around a stove in the centre while we drank our beer.
One time some of us went to Buncrana, County Donegal, Ireland (later Eire).
We also carried out night anti-submarine exercises at a tactical centre in
Limavady, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, east of Londonderry. I walked
around the old walls of Londonderry, and several times we went drinking in the
Catholic area where they had connections in the Irish Free State and were able to
get eggs and steak which were unavailable in Northern Island.
At Christmas we were given a week’s leave and I went to London, UK. I took the
train to Larne, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, where I took the ferry to Stranraer,
Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The train to London was very crowded and I had
to stand much of the time. I got a room in Earls Court and took the underground to
the city centre every day where I visited the sights (Tower of London, Mme.
Trussauds, Kew Garden and the British Museum), and went to entertainment
shows. One night the underground went on strike and I had to walk back to Earls
Court.
On one occasion we were escorting a convoy through the Minch, a strait in
north-west Scotland that separates the mainland from Lewis and Harris in the Outer
Hebrides, when the captain thought we had a submarine contact. We were about to
carry out a depth charge attack when the Navigator rushed up to the bridge to
inform us we were over a minefield.
In February we were escorting a convoy from Loch Eyre, northwest Scotland, to
Milford Haven, Wales, when we ran into one of the ships in the convoy off Anglesey.
We were badly damaged but the freighter was worse. We signalled for tugs from
Liverpool to assist the freighter but we were able to come in under our own steam.
We tied up at the Gladstone docks on the River Mersey, and part of the Port of
Liverpool, England, and there learned we would have to remain there to participate
in a court of inquiry. Liverpool was the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief
Western Approaches. I had to attend but was never called to testify.
5. Meeting Joan Taylor and the end of the war
As a petty officer, I did not have to stand watch, so I was able to go ashore every
night. We came into the city on an elevated train to the Pier Head, the centre of the
Liverpool on the Mersey River.
Whether it was the first or second night ashore, a couple of friends and myself
had a few drinks and decided to go roller skating, something I had never done
before or since. It was there that I met a girl called Joan Taylor and she and a friend
accompanied us back to the Pier Head to catch our train. I managed to get her
phone number where she worked. This was February 14th, 1945.
The next day I called her and asked for a date. She agreed and when I suggested
several things to do, she opted for a concert of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.
For the next three weeks or so we saw each other nearly every night, attending
concerts, movies and an occasional stage shows and trips. After she got to know me
a little better, she invited me to her home where I met her parents, and on one
occasion I missed the last street car downtown and had to walk miles back to the
ship.
At the end of the accident inquiry I asked Joan to marry me and she agreed
although no date was set. The result of the inquiry was that our commanding officer
received a reprimand and lost his command. We got a new captain, who joined us
after the refit, and were ordered to Dunstaffnage Marina, 5 km northeast of Oban,
Scotland, for this. It took six weeks and there was not much to do in Oban. Every
second weekend I took a train to Liverpool, which was an interesting trip. It took so
long (I had to change at Glasgow) that I only had a few hours with Joan before I had
to return.
On completion of the refit, we did working up exercises at Kyle of Lochalsh and
anti-submarine exercises to the south at Campbelltown. Previously, we had done
similar exercises at Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, but we never went ashore at any
of them. We then returned to Londonderry for more exercises at the tactical room.
While we were undergoing the refit some of our people joined one of the other
ships of the group who took over as senior officer, and while there, there was an …
accident and several were killed, including my leading telegrapher, Jimmy Friend.
While we were in

5. Meeting Joan Taylor and the end of the war 35
Londonderry I took a weekend in Belfast and visited their graves in the cemetery
there. I also visited Gloria Hollowell, a Wren I met in Londonderry, was restationed.
She was from Manchester and was an officers’ cook and engaged to a Canadian
airman. The only reason I mention this was because a few years after the war, she
turned up in Forest as Gloria Anderson, with her husband as new owners of the
Forest Golf Course.
We eventually set sail again and while refuelling at Moville on Lough Foyle, we
were rammed by another Canadian frigate and had to return to Londonderry. While
there, V-E Day was announced and I spent the afternoon on a long walk. A few days
later we were told we were being transferred to Canada for service in the Pacific but
had the choice of volunteering. I decided to request a transfer and called Joan in
Liverpool and told her I would be going ashore for the purpose of getting married. I
guess she was surprised but agreed.
Over the next few days, several German submarines began turning up in
Londonderry, having surrendered on orders from Germany.
Eventually I was posted to HMCS Niobe base in Greenock, Scotland, catching a
boat from Belfast. I was immediately sent to an Rest and Recreation camp where I
stayed for several weeks. While there I learned how to make felt flowers and
leather tooling. Our only duties were to keep the camp clean. We were provided
from time to time with tours. Once we went to Ayr, Bobby Burns country, another
time to Hamilton and David Livingston’s home.1 We also took a trip to the
Trossachs and Loch Katrine, but it was so foggy we saw very little.
In June 1, 1945, got 30 days marriage leave and went to Liverpool where
arrangements were made for the wedding. We made day trips to Southport and
Blackpool. We also visited some of her relatives in the Liverpool area. We were
married in Hayton Parish Church with a fellow I met in Greenock,
Robert Ferguson, standing up (supporting) for me, and Joan’s sister, Florence, as
bridesmaid. We went on our honeymoon to Lytham St. Annes, near Blackpool.
Shortly after returning to Liverpool, we went to Greenoch and the first day or
two we stayed in a rooming house downtown until I found a room closer to the
HMCS Niobe base. We were only there for a couple of weeks when I found they were
going to start closing down the base and I was slated to return to Canada on the
HMS Puncher, a British aircraft carrier crewed by the Royal Canadian Navy. I
avoided that

1 David Livingstone (1813–1873) lived briefly at 17 Burnbank Road in Hamilton, South
Lanarkshire, in 1862.
36 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
by believing Joan was pregnant, which proved to be false. I was moved to the signal
office where I was in charge, and Joan and I moved into the Boag’s place where we
had a large living room with a hole in the wall for a bed, a fireplace and a piano.
When V-J day arrived in August, the entire ship’s company was treated to a boat
cruise on the Kyles of Bute. We also continued to be taken on bus trips to various
places, including Stirling Castle and Bamodbeen,1 Loch Lamond and Dumbarton
Castle where we climbed the steps to the top. Joan and I spent one weekend in
Edinburgh where we ran into Bob Fuller, from Ravenswood, in Edinburgh Castle.
We also walked the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace and St. Gile’s Church where John
Knox preached.
Every three months I would get a week’s leave and on these occasions we went
back to Liverpool. However, we did not stay there. On one occasion we went to
York and walked the city walls. On another we went to Nottingham where we ran
into a Canadian from Exeter, Ontario, in the Trip to Jerusalem Inn. We also went to
Chester and walked the city walls there as well.
The personnel at the HMCS Niobe base were gradually depleted as they returned
to Canada, eventually the signals office was closed and I was placed on duty on the
telephone switchboard for the last six weeks or so that I was there. The HMCS Niobe
base was eventually closed and Joan and I packed up and went to Liverpool where I
awaited my sailing orders for Canada.
While we were still in Greenock, we often went into Glasgow for the evening as
there was either a bus or a train about every half hour. On one of these trips, we
stood up for the wedding of one of our navy friends at the Registrar’s Office there.

Bannockburn?
r

6. Return to Canada
We were staying at Joan’s home for about three weeks when I got my orders to
report to London for repatriation to Canada. We were on a brief holiday in
Caernarfon, Wales, when it arrived so I had not much time or money either.
When I arrived in London, I found that we (the servicemen) had four or five days
to kill. I got a bed at the Canadian Legion hostel that cost a shilling a night and spent
a lot of the time wandering around London. I managed to see a performance of “The
Barber of Seville” in the fourth balcony at Sadler’s Wells Theatre for a shilling and
also visited several famous pubs including Dirty Dicks, the Bull and Bash and one
that used to be frequented by Charles Dickens (Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese).
Eventually we (the servicemen) were notified of our sailing orders. We got a
train from Victoria station for Southampton where we boarded the SS Île de France
for Halifax. There were 90 naval ratings being repatriated among several thousand
soldiers, and it took about a week to cross the Atlantic. On arrival we reported to
HMCS Stadacona, RCN Barracks in Halifax, and immediately went on a 30-day leave,
my first in Canada for 2 years.
When I got back to Halifax, I was sent to the Naval Air Station in Dartsmouth and
several of us communication ratings (I was now a confirmed Leading Signalman)
were stationed at a radar base for naval aircraft out in the bush. Our duties were to
track and communicate with the planes when they were on exercises. Many days it
was foggy or raining and there were no flights so it was a pretty easy job. We ate
and slept out there preparing our own meals so there was not a lot of variety. I
wrote to Joan nearly every day and she wrote as well.
While I was waiting for her, I arranged to meet Reinette who was stationed with
the Wrens in Halifax, and that evening made a long distance phone call back to
Forest to talk to Ruth who was home after spending a couple of summers during the
war as a farmerette (woman farm worker).
It was not long before I received word that Joan had received her sailing orders,
substituting for a war bride who had to cancel. She was to sail on the RMS Queen
Mary to arrive in Halifax the first week in August. The

38 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
naval public relations office made arrangements for me to meet the ship and get her
off before general debarkation. They supplied us with a hotel room for the night and
train tickets for another 30-day leave to take her back to Forest, Ontario.
On our way we stopped in Toronto to attend the wedding of Frank and Gertrude
Edwards who was stationed with me at the RCN Air Station in Dartsmouth.
We went on to Forest where we spent the time getting acquainted. On my return
to Halifax, Joan remained with my parents until I was able to find a place to live in
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
I found a room on the main street about halfway between downtown Dartmouth
and the naval air station. It had a bed in it and we managed to find some orange
crates that we used for furniture. There was only one kitchen that we had to share
with the lady of the house. After a few weeks Gert and Frank came and took a room
upstairs. We shared our meals and they would sometimes come down and play
cards while we all sat on the bed. One day I was exercising on the bed and I stepped
and put my foot through the window. We were terrified to tell the landlady, but
even worse it was cold outside and a broken window did not help.
As soon as we could we found another place. This one had two rooms, a
bedroom and a kitchen. The bedroom was only slightly larger than the bed and this
made it awkward when it rained as there was a small leak in the roof. The toilet
was outside and one windy night the roof blew off and left it open to the weather. It
was on Marion Heights, and it was half of a flimsily built shack on top of a hill, and it
enabled us to hear everything that went on in the other half and I presume vice
versa. We got our water from a well. The only advantages were we had our own
kitchen and I could walk to work through a hole in the fence of the air base. By this
time I was placed in charge of the signal office at the base. My duties were to
compile and distribute all the messages each morning and take them personally to
the commanding officer who would make replies or not as he saw fit. He generally
went home before noon and therefore there was no need for me to remain. It was
pretty easy. Even the signaling was done by teletype that sent and received
encoded messages which were decoded by placing the appropriate insert in it each
day.
6. Return to Canada 39
In early spring we decided to buy a car, a used one of which they were starting to
become available the first time since the war started. They were generally sold by
ten o’clock after the morning newspaper came out.
Eventually we bought a 1932 Chrysler for about $500, which I had in the bank in
Forest, and which my parents sent to me. It was not much but at last we were
mobile. We visited the Gunns, whom we had known in Scotland, and the Laytons;
he was a yeoman of signals and I had gone to school with him back in Forest and he
had joined the navy a few years before the war broke out.
We also took a trip one Sunday to Peggy’s Cove on the south coast, which was
well known from calendars, etc. At that time the roads were not paved and on our
way home we got stuck in the mud along with several others. We were eventually
rescued. Occasionally we took the ferry over to Halifax but would often drive
around Bedford Basin. One time I visited the HMCS Orkney which was anchored in
Bedford Basin waiting to be sold or scrapped.
The car was no great shakes; it could not even make it up the hill at Marion
Heights. I had to leave it at the bottom, but it was nice to drive my own first car and
the first time I had driven since the first year of the war, when one time I rented a
car in Vancouver and I took Barb up to Capilano River Canyon, British Columbia. In
those days it was not a tourist trap like it is now and we were the only ones on the
swing bridge.
My time in the navy expired on May 6th after seven years, and we decided to
drive back to Forest carrying all our worldly possessions on the back seat. It was a
very interesting and eventful trip. The first hitch came at the American border at
Calais, Maine. The customs man determined to make us remove everything in the
back until he was satisfied, and then made us put it all back ourselves.
One night we spent in a cabin in the Maine woods with no inside facilities. They
did not have motels in those days. In Boston we got lost and had to make a right
turn where we did not want to since we were in the wrong lane. Out of Boston we
joined the Merritt Parkway, one of the first controlled access highways built by
Roosevelt during the depression. We eventually arrived in New York on the Hudson
Parkway and found a bed and breakfast in the Bronx not far from Fordham
University.
40 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
In New York we did all the tourist things. We went to the Automat; we had a
dinner at the Waldorf Astoria. We went to the top of the Empire State Building and
we saw a show at Radio City Music Hall. We also went to see a hit musical
“Oklahoma” at the St. James Theatre on 42nd Street. It was in its fifth year and
another new musical was playing across the street, “Annie Get Your Gun”, which
was sold out for the next four months. We did not drive in New York; we took the
subway.
Driving was an education in itself since we had to add oil every time we stopped
for gas, and one window was broken. When we left New York we headed for
Niagara Falls where we stayed with the Snowdons who were cousins of my mother,
and whom I had met before. We stayed a couple of days and one night there was a
disturbance. Fred Snowdon got up and discovered someone had stolen our car.
However it did not get far as it ran out of gas before it got far and the thieves were
apprehended.
We eventually arrived home but the car was on its last legs. Later that month we
went to Ingersoll for the baptism of Reinette and Pete’s first child, Ruth Ann.
Unfortunately, the car threw a piston rod and we had to dispose of it there for $100,
which was not bad since we only paid $500 for it in the first place and it got us and
our things home and gave us an interesting trip in the bargain.
7. Settling down in Forest
I went to work with The London Free Press for $25 a week and we rented our
first house, a bungalow on King Street belonging to a Mrs Kemp. We spent the first
winter there. In the meantime we had started a family since Paul had been born in
July. It was while we were living there that we had our first Hallowe’en in Canada.
Ron and Laura Taylor came over and Ron and I dressed up and went out about ten
or eleven o’clock while the girls looked after the two babies. Joan had met Laura in
England before coming over and they both came on the RMS Queen Mary. They
occasionally came over and we would play poker for pennies.
By spring we were finding the cottage too small for a grocery bag and we rented
the downstairs apartment at Aunt Nora’s on Albert Street. We stayed there nearly
two years and for part of the time the upstairs was occupied by Ken Simpson and
his wife; he had gone to school with Ruth and they also had a young baby. The
Boones were there when we first moved in but they were not there long.
For the next ten or twelve years a lot of things happened, but I have no
recollection of either sequence or duration. One of my first memories was Dad
hiring Nifty Shepherd to drive us to Amherstburg, Essex County, Ontario, where
Joan met Aunt Mina and her son, Charlie Smith. I cannot remember if we met
anyone else that trip.
I met Harry Keene on one of my trips to London, Ontario, while we were living at
Aunt Nora’s place; I remember because he lent me some operatic recordings and I
played them there. It must have been during this period that I went to Cleveland
twice to visit the Metropolitan Opera. Shortly after this I started playing in the
London Symphony Orchestra. I played fourth horn and had to buy one; I did this for
two years and we practiced at Beale Collegiate.
We had a chance to buy a cottage on

42 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
McHenry Street and Dad loaned us the down payment, the house costing about
$3,000. The property had a small market garden that contained a couple of rows,
full length of the lot, of raspberry canes and two or three rows of strawberries. We
grew enough that we were able to supply Boyd’s grocery store during the season.
We also grew tomatoes, green beans and carrots, and there were three cherry trees.
One year we successfully grew potatoes, but we could have bought them cheaper.
Another time we grew corn and cantaloupe. Geoff was born while we were there
and the cottage began to get too small. We considered building an addition but it
never happened.
While on McHenry Street, Joan’s girlfriend, Joan Robinson, visited us and we met
her in Montreal. Bernie Hopper took a shine to her and after her visit; he drove her
back to Montreal, accompanied by Joan. Bernie met her because he and I used to
play golf nearly every Sunday. In fact one year we became members of Oakwood
Park at Grand Bend, Ontario. We also played other courses in the area including
Sarnia, Bright’s Grove, Petrolia and Strathroy as well as Forest and Indian Hills
when it opened.
Every couple of years we tried to take a holiday for a week or so and we would
borrow Mom’s car. The first trip was to Quebec City and the eastern townships. We
visited Windsor and Thetford Mines and also Mr and Mrs Bob Wales in St. Jean. She
was the former Jeanne Gervais from St. Hyacinth. Another time we took the ferry
from Tobermory to Manitoulin Island and by the time we got to Little Current, the
generator was shot. We were stuck there for the weekend since the part could not
be replaced until the garage obtained a new one from Sudbury. We also went one
weekend to Montreal with Ruth when we went to St. Joseph’s Abatory.
Another time we rented a cottage near Huntsville, which we later discovered
was the same Colonial Bay Resort that we have visited twice since then. We got
there because my parents had previously holidayed in that area. While there I
played golf at a couple of courses, including
7. Settling down in Forest 43
Windemere. The cottage had electricity but no inside facilities and one night I went
out to the toilet and surprised a skunk. We both retreated in a hurry. The cottage
also had a rowboat and we went rowing on the lake a couple of times.
We also had the opportunity to go on a couple of conventions with the Ontario
Weekly Newspapers Association. One was to Wigwassen over on an island in Lake
Rosseau. I played golf at Windune once on that trip while Joan went with the ladies
to Port Carling.
Another one was on the Ontario Northern Railway. We boarded at Toronto and
travelled north. The newspaper people had the whole train and we slept on it. We
made several stops, including one at New Liskeard where we toured a match
factory, at Temogami, where we had a boat ride, and Timmins, to visit a gold mine.
We also belonged to the South Western Ontario Association and we met every
year. I can remember meetings at Wallaceburg, Ridgetown, Tillsonburg, and others
and one year I was elected Chairman. It was not too hard a job as the secretary did
all the work. We also attended a few exhibitions in the Automotive Building at the
Toronto Exhibition Grounds and at one of them we purchased a Fairchild engraver
and were able to run pictures in the newspaper for the first time (this must have
been in the 1960s).
While at McHenry Street we had a flood at one time and had a couple of feet of
water in the basement. The worst damage was losing our wedding pictures and
many of our souvenirs from Britain.
Once Dad took the car and had me drive him and Joan to Detroit to see a ball
game. It was the New York Yankees when Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra were
playing. During this time I was official scorer for the Forest Baseball Team and I
was secretary of the hockey team, which meant I attended most of their games. I
was also Treasurer of the Forest branch of the Canadian Legion, while Joan
belonged to the Women’s Auxiliary.
8. Introduction to the
Bahá’í Faith and community development
In 1951 we met Aldie (Aldham) Robarts (b. 1929) who worked in the local Bank of
Commerce. He was single and interested in similar things to us, history, music and
playing golf, and he used to spend a lot of time at our place. It was through him that
we first heard of the Baha’í Faith. We did not think a lot about it at the time, but
both of us had been estranged from our respective churches for some time. In 1952
he left Forest and went back to Toronto.
That fall his parents, John and Audrey, invited us to spend Thanksgiving
weekend with them in Toronto. They had arranged for us to attend the New York
City Ballet company performance of “Fancy Free” by Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990).
The next day, while Aldie’s brother took Joan on a tour of Casa Loma, Aldie’s
father, John Robarts (1901–1991), who I learned later was Chairman of the National
Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’ís of Canada and a top man with London Life, talked
to me about the Baha’í Faith, and loaned us some books to take home with us. That
night Aldie took us to a jazz night club. While there we met two of the Toronto
Baha’í youth, Elizabeth Manser who became Mrs Mike Rochester and Douglas
Martin (1927–2020).
Earlier that year we left the little house on MacHenry St. and bought a house on
Macnab Street at auction. We paid $4,500 for it and used the proceeds of the sale of
the previous house for a down payment. It needed a lot of work and over the next
couple of years we remodelled the interior, including a new kitchen and small
bathroom under the stairs, and installed a new furnace.
Over the winter of 1952–1953, we went into London several times to hear a series
of talks by Ruth Moffatt on her New Keys to the Book of Revelation, and it was there
we met some of the London Baha’ís, such as Bob Smith, and Ross Woodman, who at
that time was Secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada. We also met
the Hoyles at this time as they were studying the Faith as well.
In April 1953 we went down to London to attend the formation of the first Local
Spiritual Assembly in London, with John Robarts presiding. We had all become
Baha’ís by this time, including Miller McPherson. Dorothy Boyers (she had not
married Bob at this point) was a member of the Baha’í Jubilee Committee arranging
the 100th anniversary of the declaration of Baha’u’llah, and she told us of the
dedication of the Wilmette Baha’í Temple. We decided to attend in May and the
three of us went along with Miller and Ross Woodman and stayed at the YMCA in
downtown Chicago.

8. Introduction to the Baha’í Faith and community development 45
There were seven Hands of the Cause of God there, including Ruhíyyih Khanum
(1910–2000), who delivered the dedication address from her husband, Shoghi
Effendi (1897–1957). Also there were Zikrullah Khadem (1904–1986), ‘Alí-Akbar
Furutan (1905–2003), and Horace Holley (1887–1960). We also spent an evening
with Nellie Stevison French, (1868–1954), one of those present who had met ‘Abdu’l-
Baha (1844–1921).
That summer, 1953, we were remodelling our kitchen when we had a visit from
Ruth Moffett (1880–1978). She slept in the den while Wilfred Shawhenee, an Indian
from Kettle Point was installing a pass-through in place of a door in that room.
While Ruth was in the washroom in the morning, Wilfred dashed in and removed
the door—surprise! Also that summer we went to London, Ontario, to hear a talk by
‘Alí Furutan. One of the amazing things I remember is that he remembered who I
was when I ran into him at the Guardian’s (Shoghi Effendi) grave in New Southgate
Cemetery, London, twenty-five years later.
By this time Aldie robarts was working in St. Catharines and he had us down for
a weekend where we met the Baha’ís in St. Catharines and we went with him to
Niagara Falls to see “Annie Get Your Gun” at the summer theatre, held at the Shaw
Festival Theatre.
Joan decided she would like to visit her parents the next year, 1954; it had been
eight years since she had last seen them. She would take Paul, who was seven, with
her. Geoff would be four and Larry two and we would need someone to look after
them.
As it happens, that spring our linotype operator was killed in a car accident. The
job was offered to Jack Hoyle who was anxious to leave his London job. He did not
know anything about it but learned quickly. He and Kathy moved into our house
when Joan and Paul left for England, with me driving them to Montreal, where she
sailed on the RMS Empress of Scotland.
Joan was pregnant at the time and found out when she got there that she would
not be allowed to sail until the baby was born. Our daughter Victoria was born in a
hospital in Southport on September 21, 1954, and they returned to Canada in
November 1954. I drove to Montreal to meet the ship and bring them home. Joan
came back as a Canadian but Vicki was admitted as a landed immigrant and thus has
dual citizenship.
During the 1950s, Forest formed a Local Spiritual Assembly. In addition to
ourselves, Miller, and the Hoyles, we enrolled Charlie and Norma Willey, Duyck and
Tredi Lewis and Don Thiers. Then Tony and Rita Marsolais moved here from the
Ottawa area. We had many visitors during this period
46 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
including Mr and Mrs Khadem (Hand of the Cause of God), John Robarts; Mrs
Meherangiz Munsiff (1923–1999) and daughter Jyoti, who were from a Zoroastrian
family in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, who had converted to the Baha’í Faith; as
well as Baha’ís from around Ontario, like Charlie and Florence Grindley, Mike and Liz
Rochester, Doug and Betty Martin, Fred Graham,etc.
I gave my first public talk at the Brock Hotel in Niagara Falls. There were about
twenty people present, all Baha’ís from Toronto and Hamilton. Prior to this I was
asked to cover the Baha’í summer school that was held at Geneva Park on Lake
Couchiching for the Canadian Bahá’í News. There I met Marjorie McCormick (1889–
1964) and Stanwood Cobb (1881–1982); and I was on a committee with Ola
Pawlowski (1910–2004), who later pioneered to Zaire, that sent a cable to the
Guardian (Shoghi Effendi). It was also my first contact with Jim Willoughby and
Alan Raynor.
For a couple of winters I led discussion groups at our home. We discussed The
Meeting of East and West by F. S. C. Northrop (1893–1992), A Study of History by
Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975), and a history of Asia that I compiled. Among those
attending were a couple of high school teachers.
We had always been fortunate in living so close to the resorts on Lake Huron.
Shortly after Joan arrived in Forest, we won a week at one of Jamieson’s cottages at
Ipperwash Beach. It was September so there were not a lot of people around. In the
1950s my parents bought a cottage at Cedar Point and they allowed their kids to use
it for short holidays during the summer. At the same time, Pat and Jack Boyd had a
cottage at Ipperwash Beach, and they allowed us to use it from time to time right up
to the 1970s. On a couple of occasions we camped at Camp Ipperwash, once in a tent
and again in a trailer. I would drive in to work every day and came out at night.
One year around 1960, the Baha’ís were unable to acquire a site for a Baha’í
summer school and decided to hold three mini schools that year. One was at Forest,
and the Boyds allowed us the use of their cottage for the venue.
The Baha’í teachers came from the Baha’í Summer School Committee and
included Nancy Campbell from Hamilton and Marion Hughes from Detroit. About
40 people turned up and while some stayed at the lake, others stayed in Forest. The
Forest Baha’ís supplied the catering and it was a busy time. Another time we held
our own Baha’í summer school; it was on a smaller scale and we had Charles
Grindley as one of the teachers.
In those days I did some travel teaching around the area. I spoke in Kitchener
several times and also London and Colbourne. Once we went to Royal Oak,
Michigan, for a Baha’í fireside. We also held firesides on a
8. Introduction to the Baha’í Faith and community development 47
regular basis in Sarnia. Joan gave the fireside at Jim Oliver’s house and we also had
public meetings in the Forest Public Library. We established the first International
Picnic at Canatara Park, Sarnia, at first for ourselves and the Baha’ís of Port Huron,
but in succeeding years it grew until it was attended by over a hundred people.
While teaching in Sarnia, we gained a contact, actually through Charles Willey, in
the person of Mary Allen. Much to our surprise a week or so later she landed on our
doorstep and moved in with us. She became a Baha’í and eventually got a place of
her own. It was when she moved to Detroit that we spoke at Royal Oak, a suburb of
Detroit. We would sometimes drive to the Baha’í summer school at the Louhelen
Baha’í School, near Davison, Michigan. We got to know Lou and Helen Eggleston
quite well; they had donated the Louhelen property to the Baha’í Faith for a summer
school and it has now become quite well-known.
Sometimes we attended concerts by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the State
Fair Grounds in Detroit. I knew a couple of the players whom I had played with in
the International Symphony Orchestra, Sarnia.
During the 1950s I took a course by correspondence in electronics from DeVry
Institute. I did not do much with it, but I built a radio, and a voltmeter as well as a
circuit tester. I also started collecting stamps while Jack Hoyle stayed with us—I
collected Chinese, Greek, Turkish and Iranian stamps and corresponded with
collectors in Iran, Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia. A girl in Indonesia sent me a
beautiful carved statuette of Kalki, the 10th avatar of Vishnu, in exchange for a
couple of stamp albums, which we still have.
While living at Macnab Street we bought our first television set. It was at an
auction sale and cost $25. The antenna I think cost more than the set, but Norma
Willey would come over when I was out and watch the movies with Joan. The
Willeys eventually became Baha’ís. It was through the Willeys that we met George
and Erica Lazi who were Hungarian refugees from the 1956 revolution and who
came to work for Charlie. Erica and Joan got along quite well and spent time at each
other’s place. George and Erica Lazi lived above one of the stores on King Street.
Also while we were at
48 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
Macnab Street, a friend of Joan’s mother, Amy Reynolds, whom she met in England,
arrived and stayed with us for a while. She was the first lady auctioneer in England
and also taught elocution lessons for a while. While with us she confused the
Anglican minister by attending both his church and the Catholic Church on the same
day. Before returning to England she went to London and got a job as housekeeper
for a Jewish shopkeeper.
9. Western Canadian and US vacations, early 1960s
In the early 1960s we decided to take one of the kids on a holiday with us. The
first trip was in 1961 and we took Paul with us to Winnipeg. We went by way of
Chicago and visited the Baha’í House of Worship in Wilmette. We had been to the
Baha’í Temple on a couple of previous occasions, once with Pat Boyd, who drove
and got a speeding ticket somewhere in Michigan and the other time we took Evelyn
McPherson with us. These were weekend trips.
We often camped on these trips. Our first stop was in Wisconsin and then in
Bemidji, Minnesota. There we went south to Akeley to visit the Paul Bunyan
Historical Museum together the statues of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe. We
camped in a nearby park. In Winnipeg we stayed in a motel on the outskirts of the
city. This was the first time I had been in Winnipeg since I stopped over a few days
early in the war with Bob Wales and we rode the roller coaster in Assiniboine Park.
Later I was to go there as a delegate to the Baha’í National Convention.
While in Winnipeg we took Paul to see the railway yards that are the largest in
Canada and which fascinated him. We also had a tour of the Manitoba Parliament
Buildings with Hart Bowsfield, a Baha’í we had met at an earlier Baha’í National
Convention in Toronto. We attended many Baha’í Conventions when they were in
Toronto; one time we took Don Thiers and another time we took George and Erica
Lazi, who of course were not Baha’ís but we spent some time with them.
On our way back from Winnipeg we returned on the Canadian side. Some of our
memories were the night we spent in a hotel in Jackfish, about 4 miles off the Trans-
Canada Highway down a one lane winding road. The hotel was an old style one
where all the guests ate around the main table. In the evening we saw some moose
swimming in the lake out to an island.
Jackfish is a point on the Canadian Pacific Railway where the train makes a big U-
turn around the bay and if you were in the middle of the train you could see both
ends of the train out the window.
Also we had to stop in Wawa (on the western shore of Wawa Lake) to visit a
doctor when Joan received several bad black fly bites. Her face became quite
swollen. The next night we camped in Fairbank Provincial Park (west of Sudbury),
about 14 miles off the main highway.

50 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
We did not think we would ever get there. From there we went to Woodview,
northwest of Lakefield, Ontario, where I was to give a course at the Baha’í Summer
School. We were there for a week and one of the highlights was a series of evening
talks on the Baha’u’llah’s Letters to the Kings by Firuz Khazemzadeh, Chairman of
the National Spiritual Assembly of the USA.
Our next trip, 1962, we took a shorter trip, just the two of us. We crossed on the
ferry to Manitoulin Island and then to Wawa. From there we went across northern
Ontario through Chapleau and Foleyet to Timmins. I remember stopping at Ivanhoe
Lake for lunch. From Timmins we went north to Cochrane and camped overnight in
Greenwater Provincial Park.
On the way back we turned east and went to Kirkland Lake and Under Lake,
Ontario, and into Quebec through Rougn-Noranda, Quebec, to Val d’Or. We came
south through La Verendrye Provincial Park and through the Gatineau Park to
Ottawa.
Another year, 1963, we went out west. We crossed the Mackinack Bridge and
stopped in Escanaba. We travelled east and then turned north at Duluth and
crossed into Canada at International Falls and travelled up through Lake of the
Woods to Kenora. We bypassed Winnipeg and stopped in Brandon.
The next day we reached Regina where we spent a few days with Angus and
Bobbie Cowan. Angus was a National Spiritual Assembly member and he took us
out to the Poorman Reserve in Saskatchewan. It was a poor reserve and I met and
spoke to a group of Indian Baha’ís. They were very hospitable with what they had.
When we left we stopped at a small prairie town near Swift Current and the
following night at Fort McLeod, west of Lethbridge. We spent the next day at the
Peigan Reserve at Brocket. These are Blackfoot Indians and we had met Chief
Samson Knowlton earlier when he came to Kettle Point. About twenty of the Baha’ís
came to Samson’s house where we had a fireside. He also took us out to see an
isolated Baha’í, but we were unable to cross the Oldman River after a lengthy walk.
The next day we set off for the American border through Pincher Creek. We
passed Chief Mountain, our first glimpse of the Rockies. We stayed overnight in
Babb, Montana and the next day drove through Glacier National Park over the
Highway to the Sun. Although it was August there was still some snow along the
road. We drove down the other side and through the Flathead Indian Reserve to
Butte where we spent the night.
That night we attended a Baha’í Feast with the local Baha’í community.
9. Western Canadian and US vacations, early 1960s 51
The next day we drove south to Virginia City, and the Hebgen Lake earthquake
area where a campground was destroyed, and into Yellowstone National Park. In
the park, we visited the hot spring area and the Old Faithful Geyser, and saw some
bears alongside the road. We stayed that night in Cody, Wyoming, after stopping at
the Buffalo Bill Dam. From there we travelled through the switchback road in the
Shell Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains to the site of General George Custer’s defeat
at the Little Bighorn River.
Our next stop was at Deadwood, South Dakota, where we went to the bar where
Wild Bill Hickok was shot and the cemetery where he and Calamity Jane (Martha
Jane Canary) are supposed to be buried in Boot Hill. Then we went up to Mount
Rushmore to see the big figures carved in the rock. From there we went through
the Badlands National Monument where the temperature was steaming, but the
scenery spectacular.
We crossed the Missouri at Mitchell, South Dakota, the corn capital of the United
States. They have a corn palace built of many different kinds of corn. We stopped at
Sioux City, Iowa, for the night and called the local Baha’ís but they did not seem to
want to see us. We continued east through Illinois to Lafayette, Indiana. We visited
the site of the Battle of Tippecanoe and visited the lone Baha’í on the campus of
Purdue University. From there we returned home.
10. Northeastern USA vacations, mid 1960s
The following year, 1964, was the year that Paul’s Key Club held an international
convention in New York so we drove him and a friend there. We stopped to visit
Baha’ís in Hamburg, New York State, but we did not stay. We went through the
Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania on route and arrived in New York City over the
George Washington Bridge. We dropped Paul and his friend off and we stayed with
a young couple in Westbury, Long Island, whom we had met at the Durst’s early that
year. While there, Joan and I visited the United Nations Building and also the New
York World’s Fairs at Flushing Meadows where LaGuardia Airport is now located.
After the Baha’í convention we picked the boys up at Grand Central Station and
returned home via the Holland Tunnel. Driving in Manhattan was a traffic
nightmare and we were glad to leave.
The next year, 1965, we went on a trip with Geoff. We stopped off on the way and
visited Larry in Cobourg (east of Toronto; we had visited Larry more than once
while he was in the juvenile detention center and took him out on trips into town or
out to Shelter Valley near Brighton). We camped overnight in Presqu’ile Provincial
Park and the next day we went through Ivy Lea and crossed the Thousand Islands
Bridge, stopping at the visitor center in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. We
crossed New York State through Lake Placid to Fort Ticonderoga, which we toured.
We crossed Lake Champlain into Vermont and went south to the American
Revolution battle site at Bennington. From there we crossed New Hampshire and
up the coast to Kittery in Maine. We went to the Greenacre Baha’í School, Maine; it
was before the summer season began and we stayed there and in return Joan and I
painted one of the bathrooms and Geoff painted the library. We visited the room
where ‘Abdu’l-Baha stayed back in 1912 when he was in America.
Leaving there we went south into Massachusetts, but we did not go into Boston,
but instead we headed west through Lexington and Concord. I remember driving
down the road between the two towns, with Geoff’s head out the window shouting
“The British are coming!” In Concord we saw the bridge where the Colonists
defeated the British army and the Minute Man statue.
Concord was also the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), the American
essayist.

10. Northeastern USA vacations, mid 1960s 53
We came into New York State through some beautiful country and visited the
battlefield at Saratoga where Benedict Arnold lost his leg and the British army
coming down from Montreal was defeated. Then we went to Fort George at the foot
of Lake Champlain, which has been restored. Then we visited Cooperstown and
toured the Baseball Hall of Fame and where James Fennimore Cooper (1789–1851),
after whose father the town was named, lived and wrote his famous novels. On our
way home we passed the Howe Caverns and decided to stop and make a tour of the
caves. From there we drove north to Geneva on Seneca Lake. From there we
crossed into Canada at Niagara Falls and returned home.
Next year we took Larry on a trip south. We first stopped at Perryville in Ohio,
the most northerly point reached by the invading Confederate States Army. It was
here that General Braxton Bragg was defeated by General Don Carlos Buell. We
crossed the Ohio River at Cincinnati and spent a couple of days in Kentucky. We
toured some of the horse farms around Lexington and saw the grave and the Man-
O-War horse statue, who won the Kentucky Derby several times. We visited
Frankfurt and saw the graves of Daniel Boone (1734–1820) and his wife, Rebecca
Bryan Boone (1739–1813).
Then we visited Boonesborough, Kentucky, a restored pioneer village and then
the Cumberland Gap mountain pass where Boone crossed the Adirondacks into
Kentucky. We could see four states from the lookout at the top of the pass. We then
entered Tennessee and stopped at the Norris Dam on the Clinch River, one of the
first big projects of the Tennessee Valley Authority. From there to the site of the
Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, where the atomic bomb was first developed and
Larry received a radioactive dime, and had his hair stand up on end.
We stopped just outside Chattanooga, southeastern Tennessee, and the next day
we visited a model display of the Chattanooga battle sites, which was quite realistic.
We went up to the top of Lookout Mountain, site of the “Battle in the Clouds” and
while up there toured the peak including Lovers Leap, which overlooks the city and
the state of Georgia. We then made a quick tour of the battle site at Chickamauga,
before finding a motel.
The next day we followed the railway down through Dalton and Rexica where
the great railway chase took place. We went to the site of the Battle of Kennesaw
Mountain (1864) just outside Atlanta, which we bypassed, and went to Stone
Mountain, Georgia, where a statue of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall
Jackson were being carved. They had a miniature railway
54 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
which traveled around the mountain, a distance of about a mile, and it re-enacted
the locomotive chase (1862) with Confederate soldiers attempting to board the train
and set some railway cars on side lines on fire.
We headed from there back to the Smokey Mountains and followed the Blue
Ridge Parkway until we got into Virginia. We first went to the Monticello plantation
at Charlottesville, the home of Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), whose image is on the
American nickel.. Then we went to Appomattox Court House where the final
surrender signing on April 9, 1865, of the American Civil War occurred between
Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Then on to Richmond.
We got a motel just south of Richmond where we stayed a couple of days. We
toured the sites of the seven battles around Richmond from Mechanicsville to
Frasers Farm. All of this area is set aside as a National Battlefield Site. The next day
we toured the battlefields around Petersburg, a siege that lasted for months.
While in the Richmond area we visited the James Peninsula where we went to
Yorktown where the American Revolution ended and Williamsburg, a restored
colonial town, as well as Jamestown, a recreation of the original English settlement.
We then went north following the Virginia battles in reverse chronological order
through Spotsylvania Court House and the Wilderness to Chancellorsville where
Stonewall Jackson was killed. Then we went to Fredericksburg, a city largely
dominated by civil war sites and where the Chamber of Commerce gave us a
complimentary parking pass for the day.
From Fredericksburg we went north to Manassas where the two battles of Bull
Run were fought. We stayed at Centreville for two nights and one day we went into
Washington, DC, where we visited the Lincoln Memorial, the White House and the
United States Capital. We also crossed the Potomac River to the Arlington Cemetery
where we saw President John Kennedy’s grave and the Iwo Jima Memorial.
From there we went to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, where John Brown staged
his famous raid on the arsenal there, one of the events leading up to the American
Civil War. Then on to the site of the Battle of Antietam, 1862, the bloodiest
battlefield of the civil war. Then up into Pennsylvania to Gettysburg where we
followed the
10. Northeastern USA vacations, mid 1960s 55
course of the three-day battle, and where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous
address, on November 19, 1863.
On our way home we visited the grave of Major-General Edward Braddock
(1695–1755), the English general who was ambushed by the French and Indians on
his way to Fort Pitt. Then Fort Necessity, a British fort in the area of Fort Pitt, which
was where George Washington (1732–1799) was stationed when he was still a
lieutenant. Our last stop was at Sandusky, Ohio, where we were going to go to Putin-Bay, after which the naval battle of Lake Erie was named after the 1812 Battle of
Lake Erie, but we did not go when we learned what it would cost.
11. Canadian Centennial to the late 1960s
1967 was a busy year. In the early part of the year there was a reunion of naval
communications people who had attended the communications school at the HMCS
St. Hyacinthe base during the war. I went along with Joan and stayed at a bed and
breakfast in the town. During the ceremony I carried one of the flags but I did not
meet anybody I knew. They took us on a tour of where the old barracks was or
what was left of it. It is now part of a new development in the town, whereas during
the war it was outside the town and we had to walk in when we had leave.
The HMCS St. Hyacinthe base was only 25 miles from Montreal so we took
advantage of the holiday to visit the 1967 International and Universal Exposition
(Expo ’67), which had not been open very long. We parked in a large car lot on the
outskirts and took the new subway into the grounds.
In late August a Canadian Weekly Newspaper Convention was held in Ottawa so
we packed up the wagon with Paul, Tim and Linda and went off to the nation’s
capital and stayed at the Chateau Laurier Hotel. While there we had a tour of the
Canadian Parliament Buildings where the two youngest had their picture taken with
a Mountie, a luncheon at the Ontario Experimental Farm on the edge of the city, a
sound and light show based on the Parliament buildings and a tour of the Royal
Canadian Mint.
One evening we were hosted at a dinner by the Government of Canada, attended
by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson (1963–1968). Tim had a chance to shake hands
with him. One afternoon we had tea at the Japanese Embassy. Another evening we
were all entertained in a different way. I had dinner at the United Arab Emirates
Embassy in Ottawa where I learned a lot about the new Aswan Dam in Egypt. Paul
went to the South African Embassy where he got into an argument, and Joan was
entertained at Government House by Mme. Pauline Vanier, wife of the Governor
General, and the two youngest were given a private performance of the musical ride
of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Following the Ottawa portion of the Convention, we all went to Montreal. We
did not stay at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, part of which had been set aside for the
press, but went back to the HMCS St. Hyacinthe base to the same B & B

11. Canadian Centennial to the late 1960s 57
we were in earlier in the year. We visited the ’67 Expo several times, including a
champagne reception given by the City of Montreal and Mayor Jean Drapeau.
We had press passes so we did not have to line up at the various pavilions but
were able to go directly to the head of the queue, so we were able to see a lot more
of the fair than we would have otherwise.
When we returned home, Paul did not come with us. He decided to strike out on
his own. He headed west and the first we heard from him was from Carman,
Manitoba.
Around 1961 we had bought a home on Argyle Street in Forest that included a
barn and about 3 acres of land. Most of the land was rented as pasturage, but the
first couple of years we decided to grow cucumbers commercially. They were
pretty easy to grow but involved a lot of work gathering them for the pickle factory,
and after a couple of years we abandoned it.
Between 1967 and 1970 we hosted several weekend Baha’í seminars in our large
back yard. Elizabeth Rochester came and hosted one, and Fred Graham another
one. When there were a large number of Baha’í youth enrolled at Paris (47 miles
ENE of London, Ontario), we hosted a youth weekend and large numbers came. We
slept 18 of them in our house and others stayed at the Marsolais’, who lived on the
street behind us.
We also went to Paris for events and at one time we dropped the kids off and
went to nearby African Lion Safari.
When traveling groups came through, we often went with them. One group
called themselves “Five Young Baha’ís” and we went with them once to Glencoe (30
miles SE of Forest). Some fifteen years later, we ran into one of them in Conway on
the north coast of Wales, UK.
The next group to arrive was Jalal, a rock group that included Jack Lenz. They
played several places in the area including Parkhill, Exeter and Forest. They would
play a concert and dance and afterwards would hold an informal fireside for anyone
who wished to stay.
We made a number of contacts through these concerts and a few declarations.
Young people in Exeter, Bayfield and St. Marys, where we went every week through
one summer, and we had ten declarations. I have no idea what happened to these
kids but there is now a Local Spiritual Assembly in St. Marys.
58 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
Some of these young people came to Forest a few times and some attended a big
Naw-Ruz party (Persian New Year) we held at the St. John Fisher Separate School
one year.
12. Introduction to Iceland,
pioneering decision and two weddings
In 1971 we received an unexpected gift of $1,000 from Uncle Lister and we used it
to book and attend the Baha’í Oceanic Conference in Reykjavík, Iceland. In the
meantime we went to the National Baha’í Convention in Halifax in April. We drove
to the Maritime Peninsular in Maine where we picked up Mary Allen who was living
in Old Town, 11 miles NE of Bangor, Maine. At the Baha’í Convention there was a
small group of young people from Iceland who entertained and talked to us. The
reason they were there was because it was the responsibility of Canada to form a
Baha’í National Spiritual Assembly in Iceland in April 1972. On our way home we
stopped off in Fredericton at the Eldridges and left Mary there where she found her
own way home. We had acquired a hitchhiker at the Convention who was with us to
Oshawa, Ontario, where he lived. He was a strict vegetarian and would eat hardly
anything on the way home. From Fredericton we traveled down the Miramichi
River to Bathurst and to the St. Lawrence at Mont Joli, Quebec.
That summer we volunteered to spend two weeks as house parents for a group
of Baha’í youth teachers in Rimouski, Quebec. Joan looked after the cottage while I
drove the kids around to where they wanted to go, including the newspaper and the
polytechnic where one night they put on a pageant performance in French on the
unity of the Prophets. We made a lot of contacts but no immediate declarations. We
took our three youngest with us, but Tim decided not to stay and hitchhiked home,
which we did not know until we arrived there.
In August we set out for Iceland. Mary Allen came to Forest and also Peter and
Janet Khan (b. 1940) and we all went to Toronto together. We had a long time there
waiting for the charter plane which was very late.
Eventually we were all taken by bus to Niagara Falls, New York, and finally the
plane took off and we were on our way. When we arrived at Reykjavík-Keflavík
Airport, where some of the Icelandic Baha’ís had been waiting for some hours. One
of the first people we met was Jim Willoughby who had stayed with us for about a
month back in the early 1960s.

60 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
We were assigned to various hotels in Reykjavík and we were billeted in the Eyja
Guldsmeden Hotel, although many of the informal meetings were held at the Hotel
Loftleiðir where we walked a couple of times. Most of the formal sessions were held
in the Austurbæjarbío entertainment center. In the days leading up to the beginning
of the Baha’í Convention proper we had a couple of tours. The first one was a three
hour tour of the city. The second was an all day trip where we went by way of
Hveragerði, and then to Hekla. We were treated to lunch at a community center at
Selfoss. After lunch we went to Gullfoss and Geysir, and came home via Laugarvatn
and Thingvellir.
We met some of the adult Baha’ís, including Liesel Becker and Monika
Benediktsdottir and Esla Guðmundsdottir. We had a talk with one of the members
of the National Spiritual Assembly who had heard that we had liked what we had
seen and suggested we consider pioneering to Iceland. We said we would think
about it as we had to discuss it with our family. While we were there we presented
each of the four Baha’í Local Spiritual Assemblies with a copy of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in
Canada, which we had printed at the Free Press a few years earlier.
When we got home we talked about pioneering to Iceland. They all agreed but
the three oldest decided not to go. I had earlier sold the newspaper and was only
doing job printing so I had to set about selling the business and the house. I also
talked to our Local Spiritual Assembly and made some arrangements for our
employees, all of whom were on the Assembly.
A lot of work had to be done before we could leave. There was a lot of furniture
to dispose of and some that we wished to keep. There were a couple of trunks to be
packed and about 18 suitcases. I had to dispose of our issues of the Canadian Bahá’í
News so I delivered them to the National Office in Toronto. Then I visited the
Morowety’s and went to see Norman Bailey in “Die Walkure” that night as related
earlier.
We sold the house and the business, both of which took about six months. In the
meantime we had two weddings to look after. In June I officiated, as chairman of
our Local Spiritual Assembly, at the wedding of Geoff to Barb Forbes. The marriage
occurred in our backyard on Argyle Street with several Baha’ís and others present.
A month later we flew to Winnipeg where we were met by Paul who drove
12. Introduction to Iceland, pioneering decision and two weddings 61
us to Minnedosa, Manitoba, where he was married to Debbie Bridge. The wedding
occurred on the bandstand in the park at Minnedosa.
13. Pioneering to Iceland
We set out for Iceland in August 1971. Larry drove the six of us to London where
we had to catch the 7:30 am plane to Toronto. The previous day we had to go
looking for Tim who had disappeared again. At Toronto we had a couple of hours
before our flight to New York. At the last minute the American Customs wanted us
to open our luggage, all eighteen suitcases.
There was not time, so they agreed to send it direct to Icelandair. We arrived in
New York’s Kennedy Airport around 1 pm and we found we had to wait to 8 pm for
our flight. It was a horrible seven hours. The airport was dirty and the food
expensive; there were very few places to sit and we had four kids to look after, two
of them quite young. At 8 pm we found the Icelandair flight was overbooked and
they had to lay on another aircraft, and as a result we had a lot of room on the plane.
On the flight we ran into a fellow who was going to Iceland to attend the Fischer-
Spassky chess championship match (August 1972).
We arrived at Reykjavík-Keflavík Airport the next morning. There was no one to
meet us there nor was there anyone at the Loftleidir Hotel (now the Icelandair Hotel
Reykjavík Natura) after the bus ride from the airport. Fortunately, we did have a
place to live as we had made arrangements before we left Canada to take over an
apartment from a couple of Baha’í pioneers who were returning to Canada. The
house was in Kopavogur (south of Reykjavík) and we had to hire two taxis to take
us and our luggage to the address at 123 Alfholsvegur, one of the main roads in
Kopavogur, about a mile or so from the town center. Kopavogur was more or less a
bedroom community for Reykjavík and only about 20 minutes by bus from the
capital. It stopped just outside our door.
Over the next few days, we walked down to the centre of town and contacted
some of the Baha’ís that we had met the year before, as well as two or three of the
local Baha’í community who were all young Icelanders, but who all spoke some
English.
During those first six weeks or so many things happened. One night we were
taken to a ski lodge outside Reykjavík where there was a Baha’í youth summer
school and where Dr Ugo Giachery (1896–1989), Hand of the Cause of God, and his
wife Angeline were speaking. We met Dr Ugo Giachery a few days later at the

13. Pioneering to Iceland 63
National Office in Oðinsgata, Reykjavík. During the first couple of weeks, Tim took
off and we did not hear from him for some time, when one night we got a phone call
from Husavík where he had a job in construction.
We also found there was a weekend Baha’í summer school in Isafjorður in the
northwest and I decided to go. When I arrived I discovered that I was going to give
a course on Islam. It seemed to be well received, although there were only about
twenty people in attendance. Who should turn up at this school but Tim who had
hitchhiked from Husavík.
Another event was the purchase of a car. We bought a ten year old Volvo at what
was a quite reasonable price. I think I had a flat tire the first time I drove into
Reykjavík. I also wrote to the National Spiritual Assembly of Iceland with some
suggestions for the Bahá’í News. I got a letter back in about a week appointing me
to the Baha’í News Committee. It was called Tíðindi (“tidings, news”). I had good
help from a girl in Kopavogur called Kristin who did all the translating and typing,
while I arranged for the printing.
We contacted Monika who put me in touch with some of the city printers. I went
to several printing shops looking for a job and eventually got a job with the
government printing office called Gutenberg Prentsmiðja (Gutenberg Printing
Press). My job was printing on the small Heidelberg press printing machine that I
was familiar with, printing giros, business cards, envelopes, letterheads, and so on,
in short everything smaller than letter size. After a time I was assigned in addition
to the larger rotary press, where we often printed ten giros at a time, which
involved twenty numbering machines. I also got a chance to do some colour
printing, which was mainly the paper dust jackets for books that we printed quite a
number of each year, and Icelandic translations of popular English books such as
Agatha Christie. My rotary machine also did all the perforating and die cutting that
was required.
While at Gutenberg Printing Press, they installed the first continuous form
printing press in the country. That winter, in February 1972, during Thorrablot
(Þorrablot), the festival in honour of the god Thor, the plant held a dance at the
Hotel Reykjavík Saga, the smartest hotel in the city. We were the only foreigners at
the dance, and only a few of the printers knew any English at all. Joan got her
evening gown from the neighbours in the flat above ours, who made all her own
clothes. These were the same neighbours who gave us a vacuum cleaner when we
asked to borrow one.
64 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
One of the foremen at work, Sveinar, was instrumental in getting me into the
Reykjavík City Band where I played for a year.
In the meantime Carl and Linda started school. Linda’s class had courses in
English and many of the kids wanted to practice their English with her and she did
not pick up Icelandic quickly. On the other hand, Carl’s classes were in Icelandic so
he learned the language much more quickly. On her part, Vicki did not want to go to
high school here so she found a job in a metal furniture factory not far from where
we were living. She took a lot of kidding as she was the only non-Icelander in the
plant.
Joan meanwhile was picking up the skills of shopping in places where no one
spoke any English. She got some assistance from Monika who took her to the
Hagkaup, a sort of general department store on the edge of Reykjavík. They sold
furniture and clothing as well as groceries and some of their prices were better than
the local store.
We got to know the pioneers not only in Reykjavík but also in Hafnarfjorður
(Hafnarfjarðarkaupstaður), and Keflavík as well. One worked on the fishing boats
and brought fresh fish to us when he was in port. He even worked during the Cod
Wars with Britain. One couple, who lived in Hafnarfjorður, were Roger and Patty
Lutley, Americans. Patty and Joan became good friends and it was Patty who taught
Joan how to collect the children’s allowance that had to be collected in person and it
varied from month to month.
We also became quite friendly with many of the Baha’í youth who came to our
place quite often and brought their friends. One was Oli Haraldsson who was in his
early twenties and was an active teacher as well as being bilingual. During the late
summer, a group of young people had gone on a Baha’í teaching trip to western
Iceland and had quite a number of declarations of young people in the towns of
Borgarnes, Stykkisholmur and Hvammstangi. They formed a folk music group
called Geysir. On their return from the tour they set off on the steamer MV Gullfoss,
chaperoned by Don Van Brunt, another American pioneer, to teach in Denmark and
Germany. Most were Canadian youth and they did not return to Iceland. Only Don
and Gisli came back.
Oli was anxious to do follow up on the new Baha’ís and I had the car. So the two
of us made a number of trips to meet with these kids, most of whom knew no
English. We went to Akranes first which is just across
13. Pioneering to Iceland 65
the bay from Reykjavík but takes about two hours by car. We went to Akranes
several times. On one occasion we stayed in a hotel there in a room with no lights or
lock on the door, but were okay. Another time we returned to Reykjavík on the ferry
that carried about six cars as well as passengers. You did not drive onto the ferry
but were hoisted on board by a crane—a little nerve-racking the first time.
Another trip was to Borgarnes. We went to meet the Baha’í kids there a couple
of times and on one occasion took Vicki and Erna Stefansdottir, a Baha’í about
Vicki’s age who lived in Kopavogur. Another time in Borgarnes, Oli and I had to
sleep on the cement floor in a school where there was a rock band playing up in the
auditorium.
The other place we went was to Stykkisholmur on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula.
We stayed in the hotel there and met with some of the new Baha’ís. We were not
able to follow up with this community.
After we got the car, we made a lot of trips in the area. One of the first was to
Thingvellir (Þingvellir) where we had been with the Baha’í Conference tour. We
were able to spend a little more time and we could enjoy the trip more now that we
knew where we were. We also drove to Reykjanes Peninsular (Reykjanesskagi)
where there is a lighthouse. What impressed us was the black lava with steam
coming out of the ground everywhere—it looked like a scene from Dante’s Inferno.
We returned to Reykjavík via Grindavik on the south coast, then on to Krysuvík and
the hot springs. Along the coast road we ran into several hundred yards of mud
where the water had crossed the road but the Volvo handled it okay. Then past
Kleifarvatn Lake, supposedly a very deep lake and back home through
Hafnarfjorður. On some of these trips one or other of the kids would come with us
depending on what their plans were.
The first Christmas (1972) we were there, Larry Clark, who worked at the NATO
base, invited several of the pioneers to dinner at their home in Keflavík. When
inquiring where he got the turkey, he just said “Don’t ask”. Turkeys were very
scarce in Iceland. There was one in a shop in Hafnarfjorður which I do not think
they ever sold a turkey—they were so expensive. In fact, this is one thing very
noticeable in Iceland—most things are very expensive. One of the reasons we were
able to save money there was because we hardly ever spent money on clothes,
eating out, or most imported food. There was, for example, what they called a
pioneer box, a box of clothing that went the rounds among the pioneers. We would
take from it
66 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
what we could use and put some things in that we had no further use for and pass it
on. We also bought the odd thing at the Salvation Army which the natives rarely
patronized.
Early in January 1972, Ragnar, our upstairs neighbor, came down to tell us that
there was a big volcanic eruption on Vestmannaeyar (“Western”), an island just off
the south coast where Vicki now lives. He invited us upstairs to watch it on
television, and we found they were evacuating the island. The two or three
thousand inhabitants were airlifted to Reykjavík with the aid of the US Navy
helicopters at the NATO base. With the influx of so many, the prices of everything
shot up overnight.
Later that spring we drove down the south coast to Vík í Myrdal and we could
see the volcano still erupting across the water. When the lava eventually stopped
flowing, a number of men went over to clear the ash from those houses that could
be saved.
We found out early in the summer that we would have to move. We did not
know what to do until one of the fellows at work steered us on to a relative of his
who had half a house to rent in Asbuðartroð, Hafnarfjorður. We rented the place
and stayed there a little over a year. It was there that later in the year we
experienced our first earthquake. Joan was in the kitchen and I had gone to bed.
She noticed the dishes rattling in the cupboards and I looked up and saw the
chandelier waving back and forth and heard a loud rumbling like the sound of a
subway if you are right over it. We found out later that it was centered near
Grindavík and registered about 6.5 on the Richter scale. There was no structural
damage as the Icelanders are accustomed to frequent earthquakes and their
buildings are built accordingly.
In April 1972 there was a Baha’í National Convention. Both Joan and I were
elected delegates from Kopavogur. There were nineteen delegates elected from the
four Local Spiritual Assemblies, which assured just about every active adult became
a delegate. At the election I was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of
Iceland and shortly afterwards was elected Vice Chairman. During the following
summer, the Chairman, Svava Einarsdottir, was appointed an Auxiliary Board
member and I assumed the chairmanship for the remainder of the year, a post I
retained until we left Iceland.
The first summer we took our first major trip. We had been invited to stay with
Forbes Campbell who was pioneering in Akureyri so
13. Pioneering to Iceland 67
we set out in the Volvo—Joan, Carl, Linda, Tim and myself. The trip took us to places
we had not seen before. Vicki had decided to spend her holiday with Gully so she
was not with us. We made our headquarters at Forbes’ place and made several side
trips. One was up the west side of Eyjafjorður Fjord, to the village of Dalvík, the
town of Olafsvík and Siglufjorður, a town that was entered via a tunnel. The road
around the fjords was a dirt road with no barrier and in many places it ran along the
edge of a cliff—pretty scary. On the way back we stopped at one of the shelters that
were built for stranded people. Three cabins contained some canned food, blankets
and wood for a fire. The kids had a snowball fight—in July!
Another side trip was to Lake Myvatn in the north and then over a desert to
Dettifos, the largest waterfall in Europe. We returned home around the peninsula
through Husavík where Tim showed us where he stayed when he worked there.
The Lake Myvatn area has many strange rock formations and is a volcanic area. Just
outside this area is a large sulphur mining operation.
During our four years in Iceland we had several distinguished Baha’í visitors.
Among them, aside from Dr Ugo Giachery mentioned above, we had a visit from
Hand of the Cause of God, Adelbert Muhlschlegel (1897–1980) and his wife (the
second, Ursula Kohler) who came to our place for a dinner and whom I drove
around the area. He loved touring and followed everywhere we went with a map. I
also accompanied them to Akureyri for a visit. There was Hand of the Cause of God,
Dr Rahmatu’llah Muhajir (1923–1979) who had pioneered in South-East Asia.
William Sears, another Hand of the Cause of God, came by private plane, belonging
to one of the Canadian Baha’ís. I took him to the largest newspaper, Morgunblaðið,
for an interview. He was the first to visit our Baha’í temple site just outside
Kopavogur that was acquired the year we arrived in Iceland.
Also visiting were Betty Reed, a Baha’í Counsellor from Great Britain, who came
regularly, and Baha’í Counsellor Amelisse Bopp (1921–2012) from Germany, who was
helpful in organizing our secretariat over a period of several days.
Among those from Canada who came was Evelyn Raynor, whose husband Allan
was on the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada.
14. Conferences and travel
As Chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly of Iceland, I had to visit the
Faroe Islands a couple of times to try to arrange the establishment of a Hegira.
There was one Local Spiritual Assembly there consisting entirely of pioneers from
Great Britain, Iceland, Norway and Eskil Englebert Joachim Ljungberg (1886–1985)
from Sweden who was a Knight of Baha’u’llah in the Faroe Islands (1953–1985). One
trip was in the winter, and the trip from the airport to Thorshavn (Torshavn), which
was on a different island, was pretty scary over the mountains with slippery roads
and no side barriers. Another trip I went with a couple of young Baha’ís and we
went to Vestmannaeyjabær, a town on the way to the airport, where I gave a talk to
a hall full of people and which was translated by Svanur Thorklsson. The Baha’í
youth arranged entertainment for the children of the community during the
afternoon and I gained the impression they were very appreciative.
The third time was to a Baha’í North Atlantic Conference, which was arranged by
us and was attended by Baha’ís from Iceland, Britain, Norway and Denmark. We all
slept in the school building where the conference was held. Other times I visited I
stayed with one of the British pioneer couples. At this conference Joan came with
me as well as Asgeir. This was before he and Vicki were married. It was from this
conference that I went on my month long teaching trip.
Each time we went to the Faroes Islands we had to stay a week because there
was only a weekly flight to Iceland. On the winter trip the flight was held up one
day because of weather and they put us up in a Faroese farmhouse overnight. I was
the only person who spoke English and I did not understand either Icelandic or
Faroese, but it was interesting.
While living at Asbuðartroð, Hafnarfjorður, our house was just below that of Max
and Mona Bossi, Baha’ís who had returned from Akureyri. Max worked at
Straumsvík, an aluminium plant just west of Hafnarfjorður. During the winter he
would have to take the car battery into the house to keep it warm, but it did not
seem to make any difference. Each morning we would see him pushing the car to
the edge of a small hill on the road and jump into it as it got moving.

14. Conferences and travel 69
Vicki continued to work at the furniture factory while the two youngest started
in new schools. Linda attended the big black high school on top of the hill while Carl
continued in a new elementary school.
The first Naw-Ruz we were there, the celebration was held in a hall in
Hafnarfjorður. Among the entertainers were Tim and Gisli who had teamed up after
Gisli returned from Denmark. Gisli lived in Gardarkreppur, now Garðabær, the
township between Hafnarfjorður and Kopavogur and where the Icelandic
President’s home was. We drove out there one time after the road was paved on the
occasion of President Richard Nixon’s visit.
Geoff and Barbara came over from Canada at this time and stayed with us. We
tried to take them out to Thingvellir (Þingvellir) but could not make it as the road
was blocked with snow. The interior of Iceland has spring later than the coastal
areas; in fact they do not have a spring, summer starts April 21st and winter October
21st. These are the dates that you have to change your tires on the car from winter
to summer and vice versa.
One Mother’s Day, second Sunday in May 1973, we decided to drive up to
Gullfoss. We went to Thingvellir (Þingvellir) and tried to take the road via
Laugarvatn but it was snow-blocked. We had to backtrack and take the other route
via Geysir. There was still much snow around but the roads were passable. When
we arrived at Gullfoss we were the only ones there.
That autumn of 1973 there was a National Spiritual Assembly Conference to be
held in Langenhain, Germany and we were asked to send two representatives. Erla
Guðmundsdottir and myself were chosen. Meanwhile, Mona Bossi wrote to her
sister in Hamburg and made arrangements for me to stay with her family for a few
days. I flew to Hamburg via London and was met at the Lufthansa office. They were
a Persian family and one was an Afnan, a descendent of one of the Bab’s uncles.
During the days there, I was on my own and I explored the city. It was quite easy
as they have a very good subway system. I visited all the sites including the
waterfront of the River Elbe (one of the busiest ports in Europe), the Alster River,
the Inner and Outer Alster Lakes in the city center, the Hamburg City Hall
(Hamburger Rathaus, one of the few historic buildings that was spared during
World War 2).
On leaving Hamburg, I flew to Stuttgart where I was met by the Slikers, American
Baha’í pioneers who had visited Iceland during the summer.
70 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
They lived in Esslingen, an historic town not far from Stuttgart. They were
caretakers at the Baha’í House there, one of the places ‘Abdu’l-Baha visited in
Germany. We took one trip to Ulm, a city in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg and on
the border of Bavaria. Ulm Minster has the tallest church spire in the world (161 m).
We met one of the Baha’í Auxiliary Board Members Ulm who agreed to drive me the
300 km to Langenhain the following day. On our way we stopped in Heidelberg
where we toured Heidelberg Castle and drove by the printing press factory.
I was billeted in a bed and breakfast in one of the neighboring villages along with
Charles McDonald and John Long from England, and we were bussed to Langenhain
each day and back again. The meetings were held in the Baha’í National Office of
Germany which is adjacent to the German Baha’í House of Worship. There were
representatives of all the Baha’í National Assemblies in Europe, together with the
Baha’í Counsellors and many of the Auxiliary Board Members. Erla flew into
Frankfurt from Iceland via Luxemburg so we did not travel together.
While there we ran into Kristin and her husband Gisbret who lived in Baden but
came to the center for one of the public meetings. We also had a Baha’í worship
service in the Baha’í Temple. I remember meeting one Board member, Maija
Pihlainen, from Finland who later moved to England with her husband for a few
years, although I never had a chance to see her again.
The meetings were divided into three groups, one each in English, German and
French. The French group was led by Counsellor Annelisse Bopp (1921–2012) who
was the only multi-linguist. Our group was led by Betty Reed.
Following the Baha’í conference I took the train into Frankfurt and from there I a
plane to Copenhagen where I would transfer to Icelandair.
Unfortunately my plane was held up by bad weather (this was first week of
November) and I missed my connection. As a result they had to put me up until the
next day, including hotel room and meals and a phone call back to Joan in Iceland.
During the day I did some sight-seeing around Copenhagen, including the Tivoli
Gardens which, however, was closed owing to the lateness of the season. In the
evening I travelled north to visit the Baha’í House in Hallerup, the caretakers of
which I had previously met in Iceland. The next day I returned to Iceland.
The Baha’í teaching trip that I undertook following the Faroes Baha’í Conference
was a wonderful experience. I had to pay for my own traveling
14. Conferences and travel 71
expenses but my accommodation was provided by the Baha’ís wherever I went. My
first stop was Bergen, Norway, where I stayed with the Auxiliary Board Member for
three days. I gave talks every evening but my days were free. While in Bergen I had
a trip in the cable car up to the top of the mountain where one can see for miles with
a good view of the city. I also was taken on a trip south to Troldhaugen, the home of
Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843–1907). We were in his house and saw the piano he
worked on and also a workshop down a hill where he liked to meditate and there
were the tombs of him and his wife in the side of the hill. Bergen has a really old
section dating from the time of the Hanseatic League.
I traveled from Bergen to Oslo over the mountains by train, an eight hour
journey and was met at the station. I also spent three days there and visited the
Maritime Museum that had Thor Heyardahl’s Kon-Tiki raft as well as an authentic
Viking ship. I also saw the City Hall with its murals of the Nazi occupation and a
tribute to Sonja Henie (1912–1969). In the Radhusplassen, the main square, was the
National Theatre where the plays of Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828-1906) were first
performed. I also visited the town of As, 17 miles south of Oslo, where a Baha’í
couple lived.
From Oslo I flew to Stockholm where I was immediately placed on a train for
Karlstad where I stayed with friends. The next day I went to Gothenburg where the
main Volvo heavy-duty truck manufacturing plant is located. I returned to
Stockholm where my hostess took me to one of the newspapers where I had an
interview.
Stockholm has a huge underground shopping mall under the main squares. The
city is built on islands and I had a chance to visit the old city where the Royal Palace
is situated. One evening I gave a talk at Uppsala University where one of the Persian
Baha’ís teaches. I stayed in the Stockholm municipality of Solna, which is noted for
their printing presses.
I took a plane from Stockholm to Helsinki. I was supposed to take a bus from
there but the plane was late and the man that met me drove at great speed to catch
up with the bus which had already left the capital. We eventually reached it at Lahti
and away I went. We had a lunch break at Mikkeli which is largely a Gypsy town. I
met no one who spoke English, and I am totally unfamiliar with Finnish. I
eventually arrived at Savonlinna. At my first destination, a town quite close to the
Russian border, I was met by my host, Helmut Grossman (1933–2017; later he was a
Baha’í Counsellor at Haifa, Israel). During the day we had an interview at the local
newspaper and visited the castle there. Savonlinna is well known for its music
festival in the summer.
72 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
From there I got a car ride to Kuopio. The topography here is a lot like Northern
Ontario with lumber and paper mills the main industry. The friends there booked a
berth on the night train to Helsinki where I arrived early the next morning. The
berths in the bedrooms on the train are three-tiered and I was on the top. The other
two occupants did not speak English so I slept most of the night.
When I got back to Helsinki I found I was billeted with a Gypsy Baha’í who
treated me to a real Finnish sauna while I was there. It was a fairly large family and
I was well taken care of.
I flew from Helsinki to London on Finnair. When I arrived at Heathrow it was
the first time I had to show my passport since leaving Iceland as the Scandanavian
countries had a common market with free access between countries. I spoke at four
Baha’í centers in the United Kingdom. The first stop was at Henley where I stayed
with the Hardys. At that time Mary Hardy was on the National Spiritual Assembly of
the UK. My next stop was Kidderminster, a carpet manufacturing city in the
Midlands. From there I went to Carlisle on the Scottish border where I stayed with
a family outside the city on the Solway Firth. On the way I stopped off in
Manchester where I spoke at the Baha’í Centre and was introduced by Will C. van
den Hoonaard whom I had previously met in Iceland. I stayed overnight with Joan’s
mom in Stockport. My last stop was Glasgow which was the only disappointing
place on the itinerary. They had mixed up the dates and there was no meeting. The
next day I flew back to Iceland from Glasgow airport.
Some other trips we took while we lived in Iceland included two that Joan took
to visit her parents in England. Each time she took one of the girls with her.
One trip we took was up to the head of Hvalfjorður (“Whale Fjord”) and then
over the hills to Borgarfjorður. We went up the road as far as Reykholt, a village
with a residential school which, like other residential schools, is used as a hotel in
the summer. It was at Reykholt where Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) lived while
writing (or recording) the Norse sagas and the Prose Edda, which are Iceland’s
oldest literature. We returned via Borgarnes and Akranes.
Another time we went up to Stykkisholmur, the area where Eric the Red (Erik
Thorvaldsson, c. 950–c. 1003) lived and we could see where his homestead was
before he was banished and where Lief Ericsson (Leif the Lucky, c. 970s–c. 1018 to
1025) was born. We toured the whole of the Snaefellsnes peninsula, including
driving around Snæfellsjokull, the extinct
14. Conferences and travel 73
volcano, which can be seen from Reykjavík on a clear day and which Jules Verne
(1828–1905) chose to begin his Journey to the Center of the Earth. Some of the more
spectacular sights were the large bauxite columns and the weird rock formations
caused when hot lava hits the ocean.
One time when the Baha’í Richard Hainsworth was visiting from England, we
took a drive up Borgarfjorður and the Kaldidalur (“Cold Valley”) Mountain Road
between the Þorisjokull and Ok (or Okjokull) glaciers. This road is not open all the
time so we were lucky to be able to drive it. The north end of the road is marked as
a fordable river bed; it turned out to have had a small bridge built over it since the
map was made. We came out at Husafell, a place where Icelanders sometimes come
for camping and where there are quite a number of trees, albeit small ones.
Toward the end of our time in Iceland, we decided to take a trip to Skaftafell.
This trip was impossible for cars until 1974 when a series of bridges were built over
the glacial runoff rivers covering a distance of about 25 miles. We reached Vik (or
Vík í Myrdal) without incident and as we approached Myrdalssandur we saw great
clouds ahead of us. A car approaching us told us it was a sandstorm that could
remove the paint off a car if we decided to proceed. We turned around and got a
hotel room in Vik for the night. The next day we set out again and after crossing the
sands reached Kirkjubæjarklaustur. Then we crossed the bridges. They were single
lane with passing places every kilometer or so and were built of wood. We reached
Skaftafell, but nothing was open there so after a time we turned around and
returned to Hafnarfjorður.
One spring we took Blain and Doreen McCutcheon and Carl up to Borgarfjorður
and up the valley until we came to a sign saying road closed. We did not know what
to do since we had purchased half a salmon when we crossed Borgarfjorður on the
way. We were sitting there when we saw a farmer coming down his lane whom we
stopped and asked why the road through was closed. He said he did not know but a
small Volkswagen had gone through earlier and had not come back so we decided to
chance it. A little way on we found out why. Runoff streams had cut the road in
several places. What we did was to stop, gather rocks and made a possible bridge
over the breaks and drove very slowly and eventually got through. When we
reached the Kaldadalsvegur turn we headed south and finally arrived at Thingvellir
(Þingvellir). It was really beautiful in behind the hills.
74 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
One winter there was a Baha’í school held at one of the union holiday cottages in
Borgarfjorður during the Christmas break. I was to give a course so both Joan and I
went, and Joan worked in the kitchen with Monika. These camps are separate
cottages that are fully furnished—even to having books and magazines, and can
sleep four to six per unit. They are centrally heated and quite comfortable. Classes
and most meals were held in a large central building and we had to draw our linen
from a central place. This was at the time of year when there is no daylight and
there was snow on the ground and it was quite windy.
After the Baha’í school ended, I had to leave early to get back to work, so one of
the Baha’ís who was returning by car gave me a ride. Instead of driving all the way
around Hvalfjorður we took the ferry from Akranes.
It was pretty scary in the winter, with the snow blowing in a high wind and in
the dark. The main bus took the long way around and when they stopped at
Botnsskali the people could hardly get back on the bus, the wind was so strong and
the road so slippery.
During our last summer in Iceland, 1975, some of us decided to climb Mount Esja,
across the bay from Reykjavík. We set out about 3 pm in the afternoon and arrived
at the foot around 4 pm. We took the long way up from the back of the mountain
and finally reached the summit about 9 pm. We took the short way down ,which
only took a couple of hours, while John Spencer went on ahead to go around to the
other side for the car. We arrived home about 1 am in the morning. Beside John and
myself, there was Blain and Doreen, Doreen’s mother and Renata.
15. Adventures exploring Iceland
After working for a year at Gutenberg Printing Press, I was offered a better
paying job at Leturprent Prentsmiðja (Letterpress Printing workshop), down the
road. It was a smaller shop and was both letterpress and offset. The typesetting
was sent out. We did most of the Post Office printing, other than stamps, and a lot of
chocolate bar wrappers in full colour. We could work Saturdays if we wished if
there was work to be done, but it was not mandatory. It was while working there
that the printers had one of their periodic strikes and we were out for three weeks.
While there, Joan and I and the two youngest were invited on a weekend
camping outing by the management of Gutenberg Printing Press, where I no longer
worked. We took a safari bus to Thorsmork mountain ridge behind Myrdalsjokull
Glacier and one of the lushest places in Iceland. Ordinary cars cannot get there
because several glacial rivers had not been bridged, if fact cannot be because they
are constantly changing course, so it was a real treat.
We pitched our tents and settled down. We then went for a walk over the hills to
another campsite, and it was on this walk we thought we lost Carl. He went on
ahead and thought he would take a short cut that did not work. It was also on this
trip that he got his finger caught in the bus door when it shut, and after some first
aid, had to wait till we got back to Reykjavík to have it seen to properly. On our way
back we stopped to examine some lava caves that were quite a long walk from
where the bus had to park. We did a lot of walking that weekend.
On another occasion we drove down to Vik and explored all around that area
going into some back roads and also down to Dyrholaey promontory to see some
strange rock formations. Also went once in behind Hafnarfjorður and took a track
off the main road to Djupavatn (Deep Lake) where there were a couple of cottages.
A couple of times we went into the interior behind Hafnarfjorður five or six km
to Helgafell, a rocky volcanic hill about 500 metres high. We tried to climb it but
could not find the way. The last time we made

76 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
it while Carl, Vicki and Asgeir went up a different way and beat us to the top.
It was while we were living at Hjallabraut that several Americans from the NATO
base became Baha’ís and they often came to our place where occasionally we held a
party. They were all members of a helicopter crew. There were a couple of
Americans living downstairs and we once invited them for dinner. Also the
daughter of the Commanding Officer became a Baha’í and she eventually married
Svanur Thorkelsson, although they are now divorced. We also had our second
earthquake there while Joan was shopping with the lady downstairs and the lights
went out in the market and startled her friend.
On one occasion, in late September 1973, while driving along the south coast, we
saw a sign pointing to Solheimajokull (a glacier), 5 km away down a track to the
north. We thought it a good opportunity to see a glacier close up so down we went.
The road was terrible and in some places the road was under water and Carl, who
wore his Wellingtons, walked ahead of the car testing its depth. We finally reached
the end of the road where there was a muddy turnaround. The glacier was covered
with volcanic dust from Vestmannaeyjar (Western Islands) and was not beautiful.
We could not help thinking that if we were stuck or the car broke down, then we
could be there till spring—we were the only ones on the road. However, all’s well
that ends well, and we got home safely.
We went to Vik several times as we were fascinated with the black sand and the
rugged coastline.
After we left Iceland, we returned for a month in 1980. We stayed most of the
time in Hveragerði with Vicki and Asgeir. One day they took us for a drive up the
Hvíta River valley past Gullfoss Falls to a new moving glacier from Langjokull (the
“Long Glacier”). While there we went into Reykjavík and visited with Geoff.
Geoff had arranged a Baha’í travel teaching trip to three places. The first was to
Isafjorður where I stayed with Inga Daw and met with the Local Spiritual Assembly
there, which included Erna and Dagny, whom I had known before. From there I
went to Akureyri. This was an interesting trip, since the plane was a ten seater, five
on each side of the center aisle and the pilot collected the tickets like on a bus. The
plane followed the road pretty well and the pilot had a road map. The plane
window by my seat was broken.
15. Adventures exploring Iceland 77
At Akureyri I stayed at the hospital where a couple of the Baha’ís were nurses. I
met with some of the members of the Local Spiritual Assembly because many were
unable to attend. The next day they put me on a local plane to Egilsstaðir and we
flew over the new eruption at Katla, which I could plainly see and which I had
visited by road four years earlier with the Reykjavík Symphony.
At Egilsstaðir we had to take a bus the rest of the trip to Neskaupstaður, which
took over two hours traveling around the fjords and over the mountains. The bus
took us through Seyðisfjorður and Eskifjorður.
I stayed two days at Neskaupstaður. One night there was a disco dance with
Geoff who was the disc jockey. He had gone there directly from Reykjavík.
Neskaupstaður was the place on the east coast that had recently had an avalanche
which wiped out several buildings including the fish processing plant.
While in Reykjavík one night we had dinner with Roger and Patty Lutley who
lived in Hafnarfjorður and who had been there when we lived there.
16. New beginnings and adventures
Towards the end of 1975 I lost my job at Leturprent Prentsmiðja—there was a
recession and the foreigners were first to leave. For the next few months we were
supported by the Baha’í Pioneer Committee, and Vicki, who was still working,
helped out. In the spring I learned about an opening at the British Publishing Trust
as assistant manager. Therefore in May I was invited to the UK to an interview with
the National Spiritual Assembly of the UK and a chance to look over the operation of
the Publishing Trust. This went well. I had a medical and was able to stay at the
National Baha’í Centre in Rutland Gate and I traveled to Oakham in Leicestershire to
see the office as well as the old warehouse in Ryhall and the new one in Kelton.
While in Oakham, John Long, manager of the Baha’í Publishing Trust, took me on
a tour of the area, including the area around Empingham and Edith Weston, which
when we finally moved was under water as the Empingham Reservoir.
Unfortunately, when it was time to return to Iceland, I learned Icelandair was on
strike and there were no flights available. For the next two weeks I was allowed to
stay at the centre but then the National Spiritual Assembly had to meet and they
needed the space, they arranged for me to stay with Baha’í friends in Berkhamsted,
just northwest of London.
During this time I was very short of money so I went to all the places I could see
for free. I was within walking distance of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the
Natural History Museum and the Geological Museum. I also went to the National Art
Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Wallace Collection and I visited the
British Museum.
Finally I was able to return to Iceland and we began to make preparations to
move to England. We arranged to send our books and other valuables via air freight
through Loftleiðir1 Icelandic. This did not cost anything as John Spencer worked
there and was able to send it through on his allowance. The furniture that we
wanted we sent by sea to Oakham via Felixstowe. In the meantime I undertook the
tour of the Reykjavík Symphony to the north of Iceland.

1 Loftleiðir is Icelandic for “air+way”.
16. New beginnings and adventures 79
We went to Britain in early summer to arrive in one of the hottest summers they
had had for years. Linda and Carl came with us; Vicki decided to stay in Iceland as
she was contemplating marriage and Tim also decided to remain and would follow
us later.
In the meantime Geoff and Barb had moved to Iceland with their infant son and
lived with us for a while. Barb did not like the winter and decided to return to
Canada, leaving Geoff behind, who shortly found a new girlfriend. Barb and Geoff
were divorced shortly after. So Geoff was also left in Iceland.
When we arrived in London we decided to spend a few days there and show the
kids the city. We took a room in Earls Court and did some sightseeing including a
tour on one of the double decker buses. We also took them to a play “Arsenic and
Old Lace” at the Westminster Theatre.
On the last day I went to the National Baha’í Office and arranged to move to
Oakham. We went on the train and were met by John Long who had arranged
accommodation for us on Mount Pleasant, next door to the office of the Baha’í
Publishing Trust, which had two employees and where I was to work. We made
arrangements to rent a television and we had to buy a car. I made arrangements to
get an Escort station wagon.
Prior to leaving Iceland we had made arrangements through the National
Spiritual Assembly of the UK to attend the Baha’í International Conference in Paris
in August. Therefore Vicki and Asgeir came from Iceland to Oakham and we all
drove together to London. I had made arrangements to park the car with Moqbels
in Harrow and took the underground down to the Baha’í National Office where we
were to travel in a group to Paris by bus.
We went first to Dover where we boarded the ferry to Calais. We arrived in
Paris in early evening and were taken to the Hotel Spot which was our home for a
week. The conference was held in the Le Meridien Etoile on the other side of Paris,
which we had to travel to by Metro. We were met in Paris by Blain and Doreen
McCutcheon who had driven from Iran. He had taken a job there the previous year
with the United Nations. Their motor trip from Teheran was quite an experience.
We arrived in Paris on Sunday and the Baha’í Conference did not begin till
Wednesday so we had two days to ourselves. We went to the Eiffel
80 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
Tower, naturally, and went partway up, and the Jardins du Trocadero across the
river. We went to the Place de la Concorde where the Bastille once stood and spent
several hours in the Louvre Museum where we saw the Mona Lisa painting, the
Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace sculptures, among other items.
Then we walked the full length of the Tuileries Garden to the Arc de Triomphe de
l'Etoile (Arc de Triomphe).
During the Baha’í Conference they laid on a boat trip on the Seine at night. We
went up the river from the docks near the Eiffel Tower, around the Ile de la Cite
with the Cathedral of Notre Dame. It took about an hour and a half.
The last day of the Baha’í Conference Joan had her purse stolen while sitting in
the lobby of the Le Meridien Etoile. We lost nearly everything including travelers
cheques, cash (quite a bit because Joan did not want to leave it at the house in
Oakham) and the passports except for my own that I had carried in my jacket
pocket. I had to go to the nearest police station that was open late at night, which
was in Montmartre, to report the theft and I took a couple of the Baha’í youth who
could speak French. They had to issue us a temporary paper that allowed us to reenter Britain.
We left Paris in the morning for the return journey home, which went without
incident as Philip Hainsworth (1919–2001), the National Spiritual Assembly
secretary, loaned us $10 to tide us over. While at the Baha’í Conference I was able to
renew several acquaintances I had met in Scandinavia as well as those I had met at
Langenhain earlier.
17. Oakham UK and side trips
We stayed in Oakham for two years. After a year my job was terminated, which
resulted in my writing a letter of complaint to the Universal House of Justice in
Haifa, Israel. The result was that the National Spiritual Assembly of the UK was
required to move us wherever we wanted to go. Before my job ended we had
moved from Mt. Pleasant to a house on Noel Ave, mainly because of Linda’s health
which had suffered because of the dampness in the old house.
After returning from Paris, John Long went on a three week Baha’í teaching trip
to Sweden and Finland and I was left in charge. On one weekend we received an
order from Lowestoph in Suffolk and we decided to deliver the books and see a bit
of East Anglia, and then went by way of Ely and Thetford Forest.
We did a lot of traveling around that first year. We went to Skegness, a summer
resort in Lincolnshire, by way of Spalding, Boston where the famous “Boston
Stump” is St Botolph's Church, and Tattershall. Tattershall Castle is a magnificent
15th-century red brick castle with octagonal turrets at the corners of the square
structure.. We went to Grantham, where Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) was born
and where Isaac Newton (1643–1727) went to school, and to Woolsthorpe Manor in
nearby Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth where Isaac Newton lived and watched the
apple drop from the tree.
Among other trips was to Sherwood Forest, north of Nottingham, where the
Charter Oak was where Robin Hood was supposed to have hidden and the church at
Edwinstowe where he was supposedly married.
We went to Lord Byron’s home at Newstead Abbey near Mansfield. While in
Nottingham, we went to the castle and the old inn below that we had visited thirty
years earlier when we were first married.
On some of these trips we took visitors from Iceland who turned up including
Vicki and Asgeir with Gully, Baldur Bragason and his wife, and Barbara and Svana
dropped in once.
Occasionally we went into Leicester to Bailey’s Nightclub where we saw such
music artists as Acker Bilk (1929–2014); Dana Rosemary Scallon (b. 1951), known
professionally as Dana; and the Brotherhood of Man. Other places in the area were
Melton Mowbray, famous for Porkpies, Stanford, one of the oldest towns in England
dating from the Danish days, and Peterborough. South of Peterborough was Stilton
of cheese fame, and Fotheringhay Castle

82 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned, tried and executes. We also visited
battlefields at Naseby and Bosworth where the War of the Roses (1455–1487)
resulted in the death of King Richard III (r. 1483–1485), and ended with the death of
John de la Pole, the 1st Earl of Lincoln.
One of the conditions of my employment was that I would be secretary of the
National Baha’í Teaching Committee. As it turned out, Ann Moqbel was secretary so
the duties became divided and I became recording secretary and Ann remained as
corresponding secretary. This meant traveling to London once a month for
meetings. The first few times I drove and parked the car in Hyde Park, but then I
found it was easier for me to drive to Kettering and take the train to King’s Cross
where I could get an underground direct to Knightsbridge Station and then a short
walk to the National Baha’í Office in Rutland Gate.
One of the first jobs I had to do was to go to Bishop Stortford where George
Ronald had his warehouse pick up a wagon load of new books and take them to the
hall in Bromfield Road where there was to be a weekend Baha’í conference. This
was the first time I had driven in London with right hand drive, but I got along okay.
Another time I went to Bungay in Suffolk to pick up galley proofs for a book the
Baha’í Publishing Trust was having printed there.
Another time I had to take a carload of books to a National Baha’í Teaching
Conference in Sheffield. I was beginning to get good at driving around strange
cities. The first spring there I was elected a delegate to the National Baha’í
Convention, so the whole family went to Liverpool for this. We had a hotel room
just around the corner from the Empire Theatre. We stayed on a day or two after
the Convention and went out to Huyton where we were married and down
Greydene Lane (?) where Joan lived. We also visited all three of Joan’s nieces and
nephews who all lived in the area between St. Helens and Risley.
On one day we went to Burghley House near Stamford, Lincolnshire, and since
1801, the home of the Marquesses of Exeter. David George Brownlow Cecil (1905–
1981), 6th Marquess of Exeter, conducted the tour of the house; he was a former gold
medal Olympian 400 m hurdler and was for some years on the British Olympic
Committee. Burghley House is famous for its horse trials, and Princess Anne often
competed there.
17. Oakham UK and side trips 83
Another trip we took to Kirby Muxloe Castle, is a ruined, fortified manor house,
west of Leicester and then to Ashby de la Zouch Castle, a ruined fortification in the
town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where Carl had fun in the tunnel that ran across under
the courtyard. The climax in Ivanhoe (by Sir Walter Scott) occurs at Lincoln
Cathedral and includes a scene known as “the [archery] tournament at Ashby-de-la-
Zouch”. We went on from there to Benton-on-Trent, noted for its brewery.
Another day we took both Carl and Linda to Alton Towers in Derbyshire where
there is an amusement park as well as extensive botanical gardens. We had to leave
fairly early as Linda took ill, the beginnings of her lupus, which seemed to have
started while living at Mount Pleasant.
While in Oakham we visited Joan’s mother and sister in Stockport several times
as it was only a couple of hours drive. On one occasion we had her mother down to
Oakham for a visit. On one trip to Stockport, when Vicki and Asgier were with us
during Christmas break, we had an accident that totaled the car and obliged us to
get another one, also a Ford Escort. No one was hurt but we had to cancel the trip
and we spent several hours waiting for the police.
A couple of times we went to Belvoir Castle near Nottingham. It is a picturesque
castle that was used in the movie “Little Lord Fauntleroy”. One of the artefacts kept
in the castle is the bugle that was used in the Charge of the Light Brigade during the
Crimean War (1853–1856). One time there we attended a medieval tournament of
tilting and jousting. It was quite real and the St. John Ambulance stood by to treat
injuries. The participants not only used lances but also fought on foot with
broadswords and maces—exciting. Another time they had a re-enactment of a
revolutionary war battle between the English and the Americans. They used to put
on exhibitions regularly at Belvoir (pronounced “Beaver”).
There were other trips. We took Mandy, a friend of Linda, with us to Stratfordon-Avon where we visited Ann Hathaway’s Cottage. We also went to Kenilworth
Castle in Warwickshire, made famous in Sir Walter Scott’s novel Kenilworth. In the
same area was Warwick Castle, the ancestral home of the Earls of Warwick, which
we went to several times, one time with Vicki and Asgeir.
There were many trips in connection with the Baha’í Teaching Committee, most
of which I attended on my own. One of the first was a weekend trip to visit the
Baha’ís in Kent, going to Canterbury, Ashford and Maidstone. I had also prepared a
teaching seminar on the Baha’í Covenant that I
84 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
gave in many places, beginning with Northampton. I presented it also at Lancaster
University, Reading University and Cardiff College.
Other visits were made to the Baha’í communities in Bristol and Bath. On this
trip I took a side trip to visit the striking chalk-cut figure of the White Horse on the
hill near Uffington, and also Evesham where Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of
Leicester (c. 1208–1265) was defeated by the forces of King Henry III. I visited the
Baha’í community in Wandsworth (northeast of Wimbledon) in London and
Crawley near Gatwick Airport. On the way home from Crawley I went to Henley to
pick up Linda who was attending a Baha’í youth weekend, passing by Shepperton
Studios, Runnymede, and Eton School north of Windsor.
The Baha’í committee took me elsewhere as well. One meeting was held in
Glasgow and I went by bus from Oakham. It was a night trip so I did not see a lot.
When I returned I had to come by Stanford and wait there for a bus to Oakham.
Several times we went to visit one of the members of the Baha’í committee who
lived in Moulton in Suffolk, 3 miles east of Newmarket. She was American and her
husband was in the US Air Force stationed at Mildenhall, which we visited on one
occasion. We took her and a friend to a Baha’í teaching conference that we were
holding at Conwy in north Wales. We had visited the castle there once before when
we were first married and we wanted to stay an extra day or two to look around.
Our passengers, who had to get to work, had to find their own way home. We went
to Wales by way of Leicester, Cannock, Shrewsbury, Llangollen, and Betws-y-Coed.
After the conference we drove around Llandudno, which is on a little peninsula
in northern Wales, and returned home by way of Denbigh. Denbigh is where Aldie
Robarts was living but we did not call in. We learnt he lived there when we were in
Liverpool at the Baha’í Convention and we went around to the office of the
shopper’s paper he published.
On my first visit to Brecon in mid Wales to visit the Baha’í community, one of the
community members took me on a little drive around the area. We went first to
Talgarth where one community member lived and then to Builth Wells.
18. A change of direction and a wealth of history
After ceasing to work for the Baha’í Publishing Trust, I had to go to the
unemployment office each week to collect my dole money and see if there were any
suitable vacancies anywhere in the UK. They would pay my transport for
interviews and during the year I investigated several positions. One of the first was
to Barrow-in-Furness, which is a beautiful area near the Lake District, but we did
not like the city or the printing plant. In any case I did not get the job. We drove
through West Yorkshire (including Ilkley), and nearby Skipton (North Yorkshire),
etc.
Another prospect took us to Brecon where I interviewed the paper there. I was
glad I did not take that job as it went bankrupt within a couple of years. While there
we stayed at a pub in Sennybridge, Powys, Wales, and watched some sheep dog
trials.
One of the nicest trips was to Cupar in Fife, Scotland. It is north of Edinburgh
and near St. Andrews. Instead of driving, we took the train, which was more
comfortable. We had good views of Durban Cathedral and Edinburgh Castle.
Thurston was nice but the offered living conditions were not suitable for four
people.
The next interview was in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is a new
“toon” comprising several communities, including Bletchley, Wolverton and Stony
Stratford. Less than an hour from London with a frequent train service, it would
have been okay but I did not get the job.
There were a couple of other shorter trips we took while in Oakham. We went to
Market Harborough, Leicestershire, to buy a sewing machine and we also went to
Doncaster where we visited an Icelandic woman who was married to an Englishman
and had become an inactive Baha’í. We learned later that they had moved to
Iceland, settled in the Vesturbær district of Reykjavík, and become active Baha’ís
again. On this trip, and also going through Newmarket, we were able to see the
famous race tracks and stables.
Finally, in August of 1978, I received a letter from the Baha’ís in Wells, Somerset,
that contained a help wanted advertisement from the Wells Journal. I made
arrangements to drive down for an interview and stay

86 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
overnight with Gordon and Giser McKenzie. I had the interview and was offered a
job as proof reader beginning immediately. I said I had to return to Oakham but I
was prepared to start work the first of the following week. The McKenzie’s offered
to put me up at their house until I was ready to move the family down. I also learnt
that the District of Mendip would be able to form their first Baha’í Local Spiritual
Assembly as soon as Joan arrived.
I moved into a small room at the McKenzie’s place the following weekend and
started work on Monday. There were two of us readers, a John William and myself
and we each had a copy holder. The Wells Journal also published two other weekly
papers, the Shepton Mallet Journal and the Mid-Summerset Journal for Glastonbury,
Street and the Cheddar Valley. We also did a lot of job printing, including law and
medical journals and the printing for Butlin’s holiday camps at Minehead and Barry.
When I interviewed for the job I had given the manager all of my qualifications,
so after about a month I was transferred to the job of a linotype operator. The plant
had seven linotype and three monotype machines to set all the type, as the paper
ran an average of twenty-four pages a week. I started out setting straight copy, but
soon I was setting classifieds and eventually tabulated material such as bowling
scores. All of this stuff was in 5-1/2 point with the first word in bold face in the
classifieds. The machines had features that we had not had in Forest, such as
automatic lead feeders, quadders and we often had to change magazines. The
mould disc had six moulds and it had adjustable ejector blades.
I would drive home back to Oakham every other weekend, leaving Friday night
and returning Sunday night. It was about a three hour drive and I went via Bath,
Swindon, Oxford, Silverstone (where the Formula One races are held),
Northampton, Kettering, Corby and Oakham.
One weekend at the beginning of November I brought the family down to Wells
for the Guy Fawkes parade. This is one of the biggest carnivals in Europe and there
were an average of a hundred floats decorated very professionally. There were
both tableaux and active floats. The carnival was taken to several communities in
Mid-Somerset including Glastonbury, Shepton Mallet and Bridgewater. Some of the
floats also went to London for the Lord Mayor’s parade.
I got to know Christine and Jeremy Herbert who lived in Glastonbury. During
the autumn we made a couple of trips since I had a car
18. A change of direction and a wealth of history 87
and they did not. The first was to London. For this Jeremy rented a car and we
drove in to the Alexandra Palace (which subsequently burnt down) to a meeting
with Hands of the Cause of God, Ruhíyyih Khanum and ‘Alí Furutan. It was at this
meeting we ran into Jim Willoughby, whom I had met several times—the first time
at a Baha’í summer school that first year at Geneva Park, Ontario, in 1953, then in the
sixties he came for a weekend to our home in Forest, Ontario, and stayed two
months; the third time was when we went to Iceland to the Baha’í Oceanic
Conference. Needless to say I did not tell him where I was living.
Following the Baha’í Conference, we all went to the North London Cemetery to
visit the Guardian’s (Shoghi Effendi’s) grave, which I had visited once before. While
there we ran into both Hands of the Cause of God, separately. I was quite surprised
when ‘Alí Furutan said he remembered me from his visit to London, Ontario, after
the Dedication of the Baha’í Temple in Wilmette, Illinois, back in 1953.
The next trip I drove and went to the Baha’í National Teaching Conference in
Blackpool that was held at the Winter Gardens, Blackpool. It is quite okay to go to
these places in the off season. We all stayed at a bed and breakfast with which we
were not impressed, to put it mildly.
At the end of the year Jeremy and Christine decided to go pioneering again, this
time to Brecon in Wales. They had come to the Mendip district from Gloucester.
This time they settled in a little hamlet called Llangynidr near Crickhowell in Brecon
district where they stayed for several years, and which we were able to visit from
time to time as it was not too far from where we were living.
19. Glastonbury and lots of history
We were able to take over the lease of the Herbert’s house in Glastonbury, so
during the 1978 Christmas holiday period we moved in. We needed a new bed, even
though the house was rented furnished, so we bought a new one in Shepton Mallet
on New Year’s Day 1979, the one we are still using. We lived in this house for about
eighteen months and I drove into Wells to work every morning and took my
lunch—it was only about five miles but I had to go through a couple of villages and
you never knew when you were going to be held up by sheep or cattle on the road.
It was no trouble and I always arrived home for supper on time except on one
occasion when the Somerset Levels, a coastal plain and wetland area of Somerset,
were flooded and I had to take a lengthy detour.
While living in Glastonbury we took advantage of the lore of the town, which is
indicated by the sign at the entrance, calling itself the Isle of Avalon, the spot where
King Arthur is supposed to have returned to die. In fact there are graves in
Glastonbury Abbey reported to be of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, discovered
in the 18th century by King Henry II. Glastonbury Abbey is an old ruin that we
visited many times. It was destroyed by King Henry VIII on the dissolution of the
monasteries, but it was very old and said to be on the site of a church erected by
Joseph of Arimathea after the Crucifixion of Christ. He was supposed to have stuck
his staff in the ground at Wearyall Hill, a long narrow ridge to the south west of
Glastonbury, and it blossomed into a hawthorn tree. A cutting from the original tree
was planted within the Abbey, and it blooms every Christmas, the only one that
blooms at that time of year. Some flowers are sent to Buckingham Palace every
year.
Another prominent piece of Glastonbury is the Glastonbury Tor, a hill with the
ruins of an ancient church on its summit. We climbed it several times.
There is said to be a tunnel running from the Abbey to Glastonbury Tor but no
one has ever found it. Near Glastonbury Tor is the Chalice Well (or Red Spring)
where the Holy Grail is said to be buried. There is a stream that runs from the
Chalice Well down the hill that is reported to have healing qualities. In the house
adjacent to the well, the second floor is set aside as the upper room representing the
Last Supper.

19. Glastonbury and lots of history 89
On the main street of Glastonbury is the George and Pilgrim Inn, a hostelry
dating back to the 12th century. There are also numerous shops dealing with the
lore of the area, as well as books and articles dealing with the occult. Just below
Glastonbury Tor, on the main road, is a public house called the Rifleman’s Arms
where Joan worked for nearly a year and Linda babysat the owner’s two children.
The whole area of the Somerset Levels is loaded with history and legend. At one
time the Somerset Levels were swampland and much of it under water, which is
why the hills were called islands. Just northwest of Glastonbury, at Meare, were
discovered the ruins of a lake village (Lake Meare Village mounds) that existed a
couple of thousand years ago.
Between Street and Taunton is the “Isle of” Athelney, not really an island, but
there is a statue of Alfred the Great (King Alfred’s Monument). This is where Alfred
hid out from the Danes in the swamps and where he is reputedly said to have
burned the cakes. It was from here that he spied the enemy on the Polden Hills to
the north, and where he eventually defeated them and established the Kingdom of
Wessex, and the Danes were confined to the northeast of England.
Just south of Glastonbury is South Cadbury, and many consider Cadbury Hillfort
(north east of Yeovil), Somerset, to be the site of the ancient Camelot. The “castle” is
the ruins of an ancient Celtic hill fort on top of the hill that could probably house a
thousand inhabitants.
Also west of Glastonbury is Westonzogland (south east of Bridgwater), and just
outside is the field of Sedgemoor, the site of the last battle on English soil. It
occurred when James Scott (1649–1685), the First Duke of Monmouth, invaded to try
to overthrow King James II (1633–1701). The Duke advanced as far as Bath, but was
turned back and finally defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. He was convicted of
treason and beheaded. His followers were subsequently tried in Tauton and many
were hanged. The Bloody Assizes were a series of trials, presided over by five
judges, which started in Winchester.
Not far from Glastonbury is the Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, a large multirole air station, and the site of the Fleet Air Arm Museum. We attended two air
shows there and Carl went to more. It was here we saw the prototype for the
Concorde and the first Harrier Jump Jets that were capable of vertical take-off and
landing flights. At one show Her Majesty’s Royal Marines Band Plymouth, was there
and I was
90 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
able to talk to some of the players and requested a number that they played for me.
About 25 miles from Wells are both Bristol and Bath, both teeming with history.
It was from Bath that I would take the train to London for my Baha’í meetings. It
was a non-stop trip and the train covered the 125 miles in a little over an hour.
Bath was known in Roman times as Aquae Sulis and was famous for its healing
thermal baths located on or near three hot water springs. The old Roman baths
have been excavated and they are open to the public. Just above was the famous
Grand Pump Room where people at one time would drink the water that is pumped
into the room from the baths; now it serves tea. Bath was very popular during the
Georgian period and the architecture reflects that era, especially the Royal Crescent
and the Royal Circus. They also have a well-known Museum of Costumes in the
Assembly Rooms. There is also the Burrows Toy Museum.
We went to Bath often as it was more interesting and easier to move around
than Bristol. One time we went to Claverton Manor where we saw a re-enactment
of an American Civil War Battle put on by people from the American University
there.
Just behind the thermal Baths is Bath Abbey and between the two is an open
square where entertainments are performed. One time we saw a student
performance of “Hamlet” done in 15 minutes, and when it was over they did an
abridged version in about three minutes.
There were numerous trips we could take from our home in Wells in any
direction that did not require overnight accommodation. Just outside Wells to the
west is the village of Wookey Hole, where a series of limestone caverns in the
Mendip Hills area can be explored. The Mendip Hills is a limestone range south of
Bristol and Bath, in Somerset, which means caves are readily formed. One of our
favourites are the caves at Priddy, on top of which there is an entrance into many
unexplored caves. Nearby are the Priddy circles and Stone Age monuments.
Carl worked at a Wookey Hole restaurant one summer and it was close enough
for him to walk to work. We did take the tour through the caves once, an interesting
experience—not only for the caves themselves, but also for the auxiliary places of
interest there. There was the fairground museum with its collection of historic fair
attractions such as roundabouts (merry-go-arounds).
19. Glastonbury and lots of history 91
There was also Madame Tussauds warehouse, where were kept all of the wax heads
that have been on display in the past in London. Then there was the paper making
plant where paper was being made while we watched.
Further along the valley, which we have driven both above and below the hills,
was Cheddar Gorge and the nearby Cheddar Caves named for the village nearby that
also gave its name to its famous cheese. Then there was Burrington Combe, another
small gorge that contains the famous Rock of Ages, which gave its name to the wellknown hymn. Other places were Rodney Stoke, the birthplace of a famous British
admiral (the first Baron Rodney was George Brydges Rodney (1718/19–92), a British
naval admiral), Westbury-sub-Mendip, Draycott and Axbridge. The valley is also
famous for its strawberries that are plentiful and produce two crops a year.
Further along it was not far to the seaside resort of Weston-super-Mare (or
Weston) with its beach and pier and the nearby nature reserve of Brean Down
promontory. Compton Bishop is the home of comedian Frankie Howard (1917–1992)
who was often seen in one of the pubs in Wells. Another resort nearby was
Burnham-on-Sea, a much quieter and more sedate place than Weston, which was
always bustling. Between Wells and the M5 motorway there is a hamlet called Mark
with its Mark Causeway to its west, another indication that the area was at one time
under water.
The first large town encountered along the M5 motorway was Bridgewater,
which had a public library with recordings to rent, and I went there often.
Bridgewater is also the gateway to Exmoor. About five miles from Bridgewater
is Cannington; if you turned right to the north here you came to Hinckley Point
Nuclear Power Station where Gord McKenzie worked. The next place is Nether
Stowey where Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived (1797–1798) and wrote, and where
there is a small museum (Coleridge Cottage). Further along is Holford where his
friend William Wordsworth lived for a time. Next comes the harbour of Watchet,
said to be where Coleridge composed “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.
Turning left off the main road on a back road one comes to the village of
Roadwater where I gave a Baha’í fireside once and farther up the hills there was a
cottage in the middle of nowhere where I gave another Baha’í fireside. It was
owned by a thatcher and there was no electricity or running water.
Just west of Watchet is Blue Anchor where friends of ours, sort of contacts, lived
and whom we visited several times. The next main town west is Minehead, a
seaside
92 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
resort with a Butlin’s holiday camp where we held a couple of Baha’í proclamations
as West Somerset was one of our goal areas.
Going east from Wells we come to the village of Croscombe where we were at
one point offered a house but it was too small. Then there is Shepton Mallet.
Shepton Mallet is on the Fosse Way, one of the old Roman roads that can still be
seen in places. It is also the home of Babycham, a kind of champagne made from
pears, and also where Jill and Farhad Shahbahram, two of our Baha’ís, have a home
and market garden. Still going east was Irlanmore with the East Somerset Railway
and Nunney where there is an old castle, and then Frome, still in our Baha’í district
of Mendip.
On the Mendip Hills above here is Stoke St. Michael where Jill and Farhad lived
for a time, and Oakhill Manor, Oakhill, with its railway museum.
Also Mells (west of Frome), a small village, and Mells Manor to its north was the
home of the Horner family, about whom the nursery rhyme “Little Jack Horner” was
written. The next town is Westbury, Wiltshire, which has a famous white horse on
the hillside.
Going north from Westbury is Bradford-on-Avon where we held a Baha’í
proclamation and a fair exhibit at nearby Holt. Beyond that is Chippenham where
there was a Baha’í who was originally a Canadian. On the way is Lacock, a National
Trust village that has been used in many films which need 17th and 18th century
locales.
South of Westbury is Warminster where we also did some Baha’í teaching. It is
the UFO capital of England and more recently the site of many mysterious crop
circles midway between Frome and Warminster at Longleat House.
Longleat House is the stately home of the Marquis of Bath and we went there
several times. It has the oldest safari park in the world and also the largest hedge
maze. It covers a large acreage and on the hill above there is a picnic site called
Heaven’s Gate that we used a couple of times.
The road from Warminster to Salisbury goes through Wilton, the original county
seat of Wiltshire and the home of Wilton rugs. Salisbury Cathedral has one of the
tallest spires in Britain and dominates the countryside. We toured the area but did
not go inside because they charged admission. Just north of Salisbury on Salisbury
Plain is Stonehenge, the very
19. Glastonbury and lots of history 93
famous pre-historic site, and to the east is Parton Down, the very top secret wartime
bacteriological research centre.
Southwest of Salisbury there are a number of hill figures in the chalk, not really
old, and Wardour Castle that we visited once.
On one occasion Wendi Momen came down and stayed with us for a few days.
We took her for a drive through Dorset. We first went to Yeovil and then to
Sherborne and from there south to Dorchester, the home for many years of Thomas
Hardy, whose novel The Mayor of Casterbridge uses a fictionalised version of
Dorchester as its setting. On the way we stopped to see the Cerne Abbas Giant,
carved in the chalk hill as an old fertility symbol. In the Dorchester area we visited
Thomas Hardy’s cottage just outside the town. Further along the highway we
passed through Puddletown, on the Piddle River, whose name (and many others
along the river) was supposedly changed by Queen Victoria. There was Tolpuddle,
the site of the Tolpuddle Martyrs,1 during the fight for farmers’ unions.
We then went north through Blandford Forum (the headquarters of the Royal
Signal Corps is nearby at Blandford Camp) then on to Shaftesbury where we
stopped for strawberries and cream, and took a picture at Gold Hill, often used in
films and especially a famous commercial for Hovis Bread.
On another trip in that direction we visited Golsi Azizi in Lyndhurst in the New
Forest; it was the year she and I were delegates to the Baha’í National Convention in
Harrogate. While in the New Forest we saw the wild ponies for which it is famous,
and the place where King William II (1057-1100; known as William Rufus) was killed
while hunting. We also saw the grave of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) in the
village of Minstead, 2 miles north of Lyndhurst.
We visited Winchester (where our Baha’í Auxiliary Board Members lived) and
toured Winchester Cathedral. The cathedral is beautiful inside and we saw the
tombs of both King William II, and Jane Austin who lived there most of her life.
Behind the cathedral is the famous Winchester School.
Another trip took us more or less in the same direction where we visited Corfe
Castle on the Isle of Purbeck. This is where King John kept his mother, Eleanor of
Aquitaine, as a prisoner. We also visited Chisel Beach, just west of Weymouth,
where the Moonfleet Manor Hotel is situated, and the Abbotsbury Swannery a short
distance north west along the coast. Further northwest is Lyme Regis, which we
visited several times.
While we were in Wells, the film “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” was
produced there and the company repainted and changed the entire waterfront of
the town to make it look like the 19th century.

1 Six agricultural workers who were convicted and transported to Australia. Later
returned to England after mass protests by sympathisers.
94 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
Northwest of Lyme Regis is Axminster, another famous rug manufacturing town,
and between Axminster and Wells is Somerton, the ancient capital of Somerset.
As a member of the Baha’í teaching committee I had several times visited other
places to the south, including Exeter and Newton Abbott where one of the
committee members lived. I also visited isolated Baha’ís in Taunton and Milverton.
Along the coast of the Bristol Channel, west of where we lived, are a series of
hills called the Quantocks, the Brendon Hills and Exmoor. They are really a
continuation of each other and we have at times driven all around these areas.
Along the road between Taunton and Watchet is the West Somerset Railway, which
at one time carried iron ore down to the coast where it was taken across to Wales.
This part of the country is apple cider country and every January there is an Apple
Wassail1 ceremony among the apple trees.
We also visited several places north of Wells besides Bath and Bristol. One time
we went to Badminton, Gloucestershire, where they hold well-known Badminton
Horse Trials and where the cross-country horse trials first began in 1949. To the
northwest is Badminton House where Princess Anne and Prince Charles sometimes
stay. This area is known as the Cotswolds, and when I had to go to meetings of the
Baha’í teaching committee with the chairman and secretary, we met at Leamington
Spa where one member lived (Patty Vicker) and the other at nearby Kenilworth. I
would drive via Cirencester and such quaintly named villages such as Stow-in-the-
Wold, Moreton-in-the-Marsh, and Burton-on-the-Water.
I drove back one time through Broadway where I saw the horsemen and dogs
getting ready for a fox hunt and through Evesham and Tewkesbury, both places
where battles were fought by Simon de Montfort during the Wars of the Roses.
We also visited Berkeley, Gloucestershire, and Berkeley castle (on the south side
of the town) where King Edward II was murdered. The home of Dr Edward Jenner
(1749–1823) is just north of the castle; he is the doctor who pioneered the concept of
vaccines and created the smallpox vaccine, the world’s first vaccine. Berkeley Castle
is the oldest castle inhabited by the same family (since the 11th and 12th centuries).
At one time the Berkley family owned land over which they could ride all the way to
London. The last piece sold was Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London. They also
produced a famous philosopher, Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753), after whom
the city of Berkeley, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, was named.

Wassail is a beverage made from hot mulled cider, ale, or wine and spices.
19. Glastonbury and lots of history 95
Another time we drove across the Severn Bridge by Chepstow Castle and up the
Wye Valley as far as the ruins of Tintern Abbey made famous by the poet William
Wordsworth.
To the northeast we sometimes visited Aveberry on the A4 motorway east of
Chippenham. It is known for an ancient circle of stones about a mile in diameter.
The village is in the centre of the circle and was made famous by the film “Children
of the Stone”. Many stones are now missing, but enough remain to tell where they
were and also an avenue of parallel stones leading from the circle to Silbury Hill, the
tallest prehistoric, human-made mound in Europe and one of the largest in the
world, the purpose of which remains unknown. West Kennet Long Barrow, an
ancient burial site, is 0.5 miles southwest of Silbury Hill.
Southeast of Marlborough (1.3 miles) is Savernake Forest. Five miles southeast
was Totnam Lodge (the present building is Tottenham House), home of the
Seymour family (including Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII). All
along this part of the Wiltshire Downs are various figures carved in the chalk hills
by removing the thin layer of soil and grass from the chalk underneath.
Several times we visited the Herberts, the couple who occupied the house in
Glastonbury before we moved into it. Christine was also a member of the Baha’í
National Teaching Committee, and they had moved to the Brecon District as Baha’í
pioneers. They settled in a cottage in the village of Llangynidr on the River Usk
about halfway between Brecon and Abergavenny. They were usually weekend trips
and about a two hour drive from Wells. We would drive through Bristol, onto the
M4 motorway, the Severn Bridge, via Chepstow Castle and Raglan Castle.
One time there, Jeremy, who was a Baha’í Auxiliary Board Member Assistant, and
I went over the hill above Llangynidr to Tredegar and down the valley to Blackwood
and Newbridge where he contacted some of the new Baha’ís who lived there. We
came back via Ebbw Vale. One drive from there was into Brecon and around the
Brecon Beacons to Merthyr Tydfil, then along the top of the valleys.
On one occasion they took me north past Builth Wells, Wales, to the Elan Valley
Reservoirs. There are three of them and they supply most of the water for the West
Midlands. The scenery throughout Wales is pretty spectacular. It was there I saw a
rook for the first time, a very large type of hawk.
One time Christine took me through some back roads through the Black
Mountains. We visited the Church of St Martin at Cwmyoy (rural parish in
Monmouthshire, Wales), parts of it have settled so it appears quite crooked on the
inside. We also stopped at
96 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
the ruins of Llanthony Priory. Beyond Hay Bluff (Welsh Penybegwn) where a lot of
sportsmen do hang gliding, is Hay-on-Wye, which has the greatest number of book
stores, new and used, in the UK.
20. Holidays around Britain
While in Somerset we took a holiday each year. In 1980 we went to Iceland
for a return visit, and in 1982 we went to Canada for three weeks—more of this
later.
In 1979, the first year we were in Glastonbury, Joan and I took a one week
vacation in a holiday camp in Ilfracombe on the North Devon coast. While there
we took side trips every day. One day we toured Exmoor and we visited
Malmsmead and the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Oare, Lynton, both
associated with Lorna Doone by Richard Doddridge Blackmore (1825–1900). We
climbed Dunkery Beacon, the highest point on Exmoor, and we visited the Tarr
Steps, an ancient stone clapper bridge across the River Barle in the Exmoor
National Park, northwest of Dulverton.
On the way to Ilfracombe we went through Porloch, east of Minehead, with
its famous hill that is too steep for cars with trailers, who have to take an old
toll road around the hill. We took the alternate route on another occasion when
Vicki and Asgeir were visiting. There were more steep hills at Lynton and
Lynmouth. These steep hills have escape routes, consisting of several dozen
metres of sand that will stop vehicles whose brakes fail on the downgrades. As
well as the main road we also took the coast road.
Another day we headed south through Barnstaple and Bideford where we
left the main road and took the secondary road through the Taw estuary to the
towns of Appledore and Westward Ho!, Devon. From there we went to Clovelly,
a village on the coast with a very steep street impassable for cars. We walked
part way down. This place is associated with the writer Charles Kingsley who
lived here for a time while his father was vicar. He is most famous for The
Water-babies.
From there we followed the coast down to Tintagel whose castle is
associated with Merlin and King Arthur and his father Pendragon, and
supposedly Arthur’s birthplace. We did not walk all the way down to the castle,
which is on a cliff overlooking the sea. It was just too much of a climb and it was
cold and windy.
Another time we drove down to Dartmoor and had a flat tire in Princeton,
the site of the maximum security prison, and were there for a couple of hours.
Then we went to the village of Widecombe in the Moor, famous for

98 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
the folk song about Widecombe Fair; and Hound Tor (a heavily weathered
granite outcrop), made notable by Arthur Conan Doyle in The Hound of the
Baskervilles. On the upper elevations it was quite foggy, which made for quite an
eerie atmosphere.
In 1981 we took a large trailer at a holiday camp in Perranporth, Cornwall,
for a week. This place had laundry facilities and a couple of night clubs where
there was entertainment every night. The camp was on top of a hill and
sometimes Joan and the kids, Linda and Carl, walked down to the beach, which
was quite wide and sandy.
On the way down there we went across the top of Dartmoor through
Launceston, the ancient capital of Cornwall. Then across Bodmin Moor where
we stopped at Jamaica Inn, Bolventor, made famous by Daphne du Maurier
(1907–1989) in her adventure novel Jamaica Inn. Nearby to the south is
Dozmary Pool, the legendary small lake where the “Lady of the Lake” rose out of
the lake with the second Excalibar sword for King Arthur. It was supposed to
be bottomless but actually it is not very deep.
Each day we took side trips. Perranporth was fairly central so we could
cover the entire county. One day we drove along the north shore to St. Ives,
which has become quite an artistic colony. From there we went to Land’s End,
the westernmost point on mainland England. It was quite a cold and windy day
so we did not stay long outside. On the way home we stopped in Penzance and
saw St. Michael’s Mount, a historic castle, garden and island community off the
coast of Marazion in Cornwall. We came home through Helston, the home of the
well-known Cornish Floral Dance. We passed many abandoned tin mines,
especially around Camborne and Redruth.
Another time we went to the Lizard Peninsular where there is a large
lighthouse. It is the most southerly point in England. On the way we passed a
large radio telescope facility. We traveled by back roads to Helford and visited
Frenchman’s Creek, also made famous by Daphne du Maurier who lived in
Cornwall and was well acquainted with the county.
We stopped in Falmouth and walked down to the beach there and saw
Pendennis Castle. Finally we stopped in Truro, the county seat with its modern
cathedral.
Another day we went to Newquay, not too far up the coast from
Perranporth, and a much larger place with a big amusement area which pleased
the kids. We came home to Wells via Liskeard and Tavistock and across
Dartmoor.
20. Holidays around Britain 99
The third holiday we had in Britain was in 1983, the same year we returned
to Canada. By this time we had sold our car and had a real cheap one for the
rest of our stay in England. This time Linda came with us as Carl was unable to
come. We booked a trailer in Portmadog in North Wales. It was touch and go
every morning to see if the car would start.
This time we went via Brecon and Builth Wells to Rhayader and across
Wales to Aberystwyth via the Devil’s Bridge. We then went north via
Machynlleth, past Cadair Idris, the second highest peak in Britain, to Dolgellau.
Then via Barmouth and Harlech to Portmadog.
One day we took Linda to Portmeirion, a fantastic folly tourist village with
many styles of architecture that was used extensively in the TV series “The
Prisoner”. Joan and I had been there once before and never grew tired of
visiting the place.
Another time we took her to Caernarfon and its famous castle. Then we
drove to Bangor and crossed the Menai Straits to the Anglesey Island where we
visited Beaumaris Castle, another of the castles built by King Edward I when he
conquered Wales. We also visited the town of Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll, the place
with the longest name anywhere. The railway station still exists and you can
buy tickets although the trains do not run anymore.
Back to Caernarfon where we drove to Llanberis where we took the train up
to the summit of Mount Snowdon, the highest point in the British Isles, 1,085
metres. It was up grade all the way and the train had to stop half way up to take
on more water. At the top there is a restaurant and there were a lot of people
up there. There are many paths to walk to the top but it would be quite a walk
and could be dangerous if the weather changed.
From Llanberis we went up the pass to Capel Curig and Betws-y-Coed and
back to Portmadog. On the way we stopped at Blaenau Ffestiniog where there
are slate mines and no trees. This is the terminus of a mountain railway that
runs to and from Portmadog, a distance of over 12 miles.
Another time we went to Betws-y-Coed via the other side of Snowden
through Beddgelert, a pretty town in very mountainous country. We also drove
the coast road from Caernarfon through Pwllhel and Criccieth to Portmadog.
21. Homeless and holidays abroad
In 1980 we received a letter from Geoff in Iceland enclosing air fares for Joan
and myself to visit Iceland. We were uncertain about it because we had
received a letter from the owner of the house in Glastonbury, wanting the home
back. We consulted the Somerset Council and they said there would be no
problem so off we went.
When we returned we found ourselves homeless as we had been evicted.
We hastily contacted the Somerset Council and also our local Member of
Parliament and we were moved into a temporary shelter in Shepton Mallet. It
consisted of a kitchen, large living room and a small pantry that Carl used as a
bedroom. Linda slept in the living room and we slept in the kitchen. We had
one storeroom for furniture downstairs and the bathroom was down the hall.
While there we were visited quite surprisingly by Tony Marsolais who had
been on holiday in Spain and was now in the George and Pilgrim Inn in
Glastonbury. How he found us, he would not tell us but he stayed with us for
several days. We were quite crowded.
It was also while here I developed a rash all over my torso that the local
doctor could not identify. It did not cause any particular discomfort and I did
not miss any work. I had to go and visit a dermatologist at the Royal Victoria
Hospital in Bath. I visited him several times; he found out what it was and was
told it would disappear by itself. It did after a couple of weeks.
From Shepton Mallet we were moved into a Somerset Council house on
Hervey Road in Wells. We had looked at a house in Croscombe (between
Shepton and Wells) but it only had two bedrooms. The house in Wells needed
considerable work, including carpets throughout and we had to put in some
portable heaters to keep warm. We walked home from downtown through the
cathedral grounds and past the Cathedral School, famous for its music program.
We had been there barely a year when the Somerset Council told us they
were going to remodel all the houses on

21. Homeless and holidays abroad 101
Hervey Road. They were fairly old and in need of upgrading. They offered to
move us to a new council estate in Davies Court further from downtown Wells,
but much better and larger. We decided to stay in the new place even though
the rent was higher. We were there for two years.
When we visited Iceland, we took the train from Bath to Reading where we
traveled by bus from there to Heathrow. We thought we would miss the plane
as our luggage came on a later bus and it was touch and go.
We landed in Keflavík and were met by Vicki and Asgeir Einarsson who took
us to their home in Hveragerði. We stayed there most of the two weeks. One
day they took us up the Hvíta River past Gullfoss and behind Langjokull, the
“Long Glacier”, where they heard there was a new glacier flowing. The two of
them walked up the hill that was some distance away while Joan and I stayed
down by the river.
We stayed with Geoff in Reykjavík a couple of nights. Geoff had arranged for
me to take a Baha’í travel teaching trip. I went from Reykjavík airport to the
first stop, Isafjorður. I was met and stayed overnight with Inga Dan who had
pioneered there. We had a meeting in the evening and renewed acquaintance
with Erna and Dagny, both of whom were married with young children by that
time.
The next day I took a plane from Isafjorður to Akureyri where I stayed
overnight at the hospital where a couple of nurses were Baha’ís. It was a fairly
small meeting due to other commitments. The flight was a new experience.
The pilot collected the tickets on the plane that only seated ten people, five on
each side. The window by my seat was broken so it was a breezy trip. We
pretty much followed the road as we were not very high.
The next day I got another plane which took me to Egilsstaðir. We flew over
Kafla, the newest volcano that was spilling out lava as we passed. At Egilsstaðir
we took a bus that took over two hours to get to my destination, Neskaupstaður,
going by way of Eskifjorður (or Eskifjordur) and Seyðisfjorður. I was in
Neskaupstaður two nights, staying with one of the Baha’í friends there who
took me on a drive up the valley one day. I held a Baha’í deepening one night
and the other night was a dance at which Geoff, who had gone on ahead, was the
disc jockey. Then back to Reykjavík.
102 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
The morning we were to leave Iceland, John Spencer offered to take us to the
airport but we must have got our wires crossed because even when we went to
the Hotel Loftludor the last bus was leaving and no John Spencer. Eventually
we started to panic and got in touch with his home and finally got a ride to
Keflavík with one of the Baha’ís. We barely made it as they were holding the
plane for us.
Getting back to Bath was no easier. We could not find our train ticket stub
and they were not going to let us out even though we were vouched for by Jill
and Farhad who had come to Bath to meet us and bring us back to Wells.
The holiday in 1982 was to Canada. Carl and Linda had very little memory of
their home as they were so young when we left for Iceland. We had three
weeks, so we booked our flights and left London from Gatwick. We got a bus
from Bristol that took us all the way to the airport, which is near Crawley in
Surrey.
We landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport and were met by Larry
who had arranged to meet us ahead of time. He took us to Sarnia via the 401
and the new 402 that had been built after left Canada ten years earlier.
Larry lived in an apartment block on Devine Street where we met his two
kids Tina and Bruce, the latter of whom was a real pest at that time. Larry and
Gladys took us to the new mall downtown (it was the first indoor mall we had
ever been in). While there I contacted the secretary of the International
Symphony Orchestra, Sarnia, and I was able to get a ride to a rehearsal in Port
Huron. There were only a few of the old players still with the orchestra.
We had decided to go to Alberta and visit Paul who lived in Red Deer at that
time. We traveled out west by bus in order to give the kids a chance to see
something of Canada. It took three days to get to Calgary and on the way Carl
met Cathy who was also going to Calgary. We were met at the airport by Paul
who took us to Red Deer. While we were there we attended a Baha’í fireside
and visited the high school where one of the Baha’ís was a teacher.
Paul also took us along with Michael to Drumheller, Alberta, where the big
dinosaur fossils were discovered. We drove around and saw some of the
21. Homeless and holidays abroad 103
Hoodoos (a group of stone columns with cap rocks) in the area. Another time
he took us into the mountains past Sylvan Lake to the Rocky Mountain House
where a Baha’í resided. We returned to Red Deer by a different route.
When it was time to return, we flew to Toronto where we were met by Tony
Marsolais who had arranged rooms for us at the YMCA on College Street. One
evening we had dinner at the home of his new girlfriend. During the day I took
Carl to the Ontario Science Centre while Joan took Linda to Casa Loma, a Gothic
Revival castle-style mansion and garden in midtown Toronto. Carl also went to
the top of the CN Tower1 on his own.
We returned home via Gatwick and Bristol, where we discovered we had
come back a day earlier than we were expected so we had to call Farhad, get
him out of bed on a Sunday morning and come to Bristol to pick us up.

Concrete communications and observation tower in Toronto.
22. More travels around Britain
There were many trips I had to make as a member of the Baha’í teaching
committee. These were usually in the south west, but I also at times had
responsibility for Wales and the Welsh Marches. On one trip both Joan and I
took a weekend and went to visit the Baha’ís in Stoke-on-Trent. This is the area
known as the Potteries (including Wedgwood, Spode, Royal Doulton, and Royal
Stafford). We visited and toured the Wedgewood. A lot of the decorating is still
done by hand.
One time when we visited Joan’s mother and sister in Stockport, we
returned via Wales traveling via Welshpool, Newtown and Llandrindod Wells.
One weekend, we had a Baha’í teaching conference at Llandrindod Wells,
which at one time was a famous spa town. It was attended by Baha’í friends
from south Wales, Hereford and Worcester.
One weekend I visited the Baha’ís in Truro. This was in the winter and we
took a drive over to the seaside resort of Perranporth, Cornwall, which at that
time of year was quite deserted. In the evening we picked up some Baha’í
friends in St. Ives and drove to Penzance where the meeting was held. I drove
down this time by way of Plymouth where I picked up a lady and took her to her
sister’s place in St. Austell.
I had another meeting with the Baha’ís in Swansea which was also attended
by those from Llanelli, not far away. During the day I took a drive around the
Mumbles, headland on the western edge of Swansea Bay, on the southern coast
of Wales.
I attended most of the Baha’í National Conventions to which I was a delegate
on two occasions. It was held in Harrogate twice and Joan came once; that was
the last spring we were in England. At the Baha’í Convention in Watford, I was
named to compose a cable to the Universal House of Justice, along with Marian
Hoffman (of George Ronald Publishers) and another Baha’í. At the one that was
held in Great Malvern (an area southwest of Worcester) I was appointed chief
teller for the election of the National Spiritual Assembly of the UK. It was at
Malvern that we woke up on Sunday morning to about a foot of snow on the
ground. I had great difficulty getting to the conference hall, our car having to be
pushed a couple of times. Very few Baha’ís showed up that morning and right
after lunch I set out for home.

22. More travels around Britain 105
By the time I got down off the hills there was no snow. This was quite
surprising because it was the end of April and it was the first snow we had had
that winter.
Most of the Baha’í National Teaching Committee meetings were held at the
Baha’í National Office at Rutland Gate, London, but when the National Spiritual
Assembly of the UK was meeting the same weekend we had to go elsewhere,
except when they wanted to meet with us, which happened about once a year.
On one of these occasions we met at a bed and breakfast in Ealing, West
London, where the food was pretty grim.
Other times we met at the Baha’í Centre in Liverpool, and once at the
University of Newcastle. I traveled by train to these places, because it turned
out to be more convenient. The trains left from Bristol. When we met at the
Manchester Baha’í Centre, Joan and I drove and we stayed with her mother.
In 1982 I had to chair a Baha’í National Teaching Conference in Cheltenham
along with Jodi Munsiff, who had visited our place in Forest, Ontario, when she
was a little girl. I drove back and forth daily from Wells as it was only about 75
miles away and there was a motorway nearly all the way.
The year before I represented the Baha’í National Teaching Conference at a
North Sea Teaching Conference held in Saxmundham in Suffolk. There were
representatives there from Holland, Belgium, Denmark, France, as well as the
UK. I drove there via London taking the inner ring road (the M25 motorway had
not been built yet) and through Chelmsford, Colchester and Ipswich. It seemed
to take forever so when I came back I traveled via Bury St. Edmonds, Cambridge
and Oxford. It was further but took less time. This was on the Easter weekend,
so it was a three-day affair. We all stayed at the homes of Baha’ís in the area.
One weekend I was invited along with a dozen or so other people to the
home of Norman Stanley Bailey, an operatic bass-baritone, for a conference on
the arts. He had purchased a large house in the country near Reigate, Surrey.
Some of us stayed in the 8-room gatehouse but we had our meals in the main
house. In the house he has a fully equipped recording studio. Joan and I had
visited them when they lived in Bedford, while we were in Oakham. At that
time he was preparing for the role of Amfortas in Parsifal for the Royal Opera,
Covent Garden, central London.
106 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
There is a castle in Farleigh Hungerford, which is at the north-east corner of
Somerset where Avon and Wiltshire come together. We were there a couple of
times. There were antique fairs that we attended in Mells, Frome, and Nunney,
and we also visited Nunney Castle.
During the summer of 1983, Linda, Joan and I took day trips to the Isle of
Wight. These were bus trips direct from Wells and were quite reasonably
priced. We went by ferry from Southampton to Cowes, Phillip Island. The ferry
ride was interesting as the Queen Elizabeth 2 was in port at the time and the
Royal Yacht Britannia was at anchor in the Solent. The first trip was a journey
around Phillip Island via Ryde, Sandown and Ventnor to Blackgang Chine
Family Theme Park), which is right on the Channel. We did not walk down to
the Blackgang beach, which was quite steep. We next stopped at Brighstone, an
old fashioned village where even the post office is thatched and rose covered.
Our last stop was at Yarmouth before returning to Cowes for the trip home.
The second trip was during Cowes week and the Solent was full of sail boats
preparing for the regatta. It was a shorter trip so we had more time at the bus
stops, the first of which was at Osborne House, a summer home belonging to
Queen Victoria. It had a Swiss type of chalet on the property that was a play
home for her many children. The second stop was a Carisbrooke Castle where
we had lots of time to explore. This is where King Charles I was held awaiting
execution. From the ramparts we could see Parkhurst, near Newport, where
one of England’s main maximum security prisons is located. On the way home
we returned via back roads and got held up in some village where we were
stopped until one of the natives was found and asked to move her car which
was parked on the street so we could not get by.
There were several events in Wells, including the annual Guy Fawkes
Carnival, which was known all over England. In fact several floats were asked
to take part in London’s Lord Mayor’s Parade. One May Day the market square
was cleared of cars and a May Fair was held complete with a May Pole and
Morris Dancers all in costume. Then one summer the Queen Mother paid a visit.
We were so close to her car that we could almost reach out and touch her.
Prince Charles also came to Wells from time to time as he was chairman of the
Wells Cathedral Restoration Project.
22. More travels around Britain 107
I have already mentioned the performance of “Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat” which was performed in the Wells Cathedral, in which
Carl took part. And the two times I met the Bishop of Bath and Wells on behalf
of the Baha’í Community. It was around the time of the resumption of the
persecutions of Baha’ís in Iran.
Then there was the Siege of Wells. This was a re-enactment of a Civil War
battle put on by the Sealed Knot Society. This is a volunteer organization that
often performs in period films. There were about 1,800 of them who came,
soldiers, horsemen and camp followers and they camped in the field behind our
house.
23. Time to return to Canada
We decided to return to Canada in September of 1983. Larry had provided
me with literature from the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA), which meant
I was able to receive a pension that would hold me over until I reached 65 when
I would receive the Old Age Security pension. This time we hired a mover who
came to the house and wrapped everything. We did not need to do anything
except tell them where things were, and they were very efficient.
After they had gone we discovered that Carl’s passport had been packed and
panic stations were in order. We called the movers and found our stuff was
already in the big container at Avonmouth. Carl and I took off and managed to
retrieve the missing passport. Fortunately the container was not filled and they
were very helpful to us.
Before leaving the staff at the Wells Journal presented me with the gift of a
book on Somerset; and I also received a pen set from my snooker partners at
the British Legion, which I had joined.
When we arrived at Toronto, flying from Heathrow, we were met by Larry
who took us to his home in Sarnia where we stayed for a few days. At that time
Bruce was only a little over two years old and was a real pill. From there we
took the train into London and we stayed a few days with Ruth while I
contacted DVA and Joan and Ruth went house hunting.
We finally found one, a duplex, on McClary Street, London, which was within
our price range. We moved in in October but we had to threaten the landlord
with the Department of Health before he would properly clean it up. Having no
furniture we were helped out by several people including Gladys’ father, Keith
Greenham and Bob and Dorothy Smith. The place was pretty small for the four
of us, but we managed.
The biggest disappointment was when our furniture and the rest of our
household did not arrive until February, and then they wanted to charge us
extra because we were a few miles beyond their limit, but we managed to talk
them out of that.
In the fall I contacted a Dr Mayor who had an office around the corner on
Grand Avenue and whom we still go to although he has moved a

23. Time to return to Canada 109
couple of times since.
Before leaving England we had received a letter from the Local Spiritual
Assembly of London and we contacted the secretary after we had settled in. I
attended my first Baha’í Feast at the home of Chet and Ruby Turner whom we
had known before and who lived on Grand Avenue. At this Baha’í Feast there
was a by-election to fill two vacancies on the Local Spiritual Assembly and
Terry Drakhs and myself were elected. I remained on the Assembly for about
the next seven years.
In the spring Terry went with me to buy a car. We found one at a lot on east
Dundas Street for $1,500, a red Chevette, so I cashed in my life insurance policy
and bought it. Terry also went with me for my insurance, road test and driving
licence, and I am still with the same insurance broker who has also moved twice
since his first office on Bradley Ave.
During that year we lived on McClary Street we would walk downtown as
Eaton’s was on Wellington (closed 1999) and it was the largest store in a small
indoor mall. I also did quite a bit of walking along the river, which was close by
and had a walking path its full length. Over several weeks I walked from
Highbury as far as Springbank Park in the Byron district.
Joan and Linda would walk to the A & P Food Store on Byron Baseline Road
(now Metro Supermarket and at a different location) for groceries and only
when they had a lot to carry would they take the Richmond bus that stopped
within a few houses of where we lived.
Both kids eventually got jobs, Carl in an electronics firm on Dundas Street
and Linda in a video rental store, first on Baseline Road and later on
Wonderland Road near Commissioners Rd. They both went to work by bus but
occasionally when the weather was bad I would pick them up.
By fall, when we had been in that house for nearly a year, we decided we
needed more room so we started looking for another house. The real estate
agent we contacted talked us into buying rather than renting so Joan looked at a
110 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
lot of properties that were within our price range. I also went to see many of
them. We eventually settled on the place we are in now, a townhouse in a condo
complex, three bedrooms, one and a half baths, and a recreation room and
laundry and storage in the basement.
We moved in in October and have been here since. Carl decided to go to
Venezuela, where Cathy Khan was living, once he had worked long enough to
pay for the flight. He had been corresponding with her since they met on a bus
to Calgary back in 1982.
In May of 1985 we decided to take a trip down to The Maritimes and Linda
decided to come with us and share expenses. We left on a Sunday and stopped
overnight at a motel just outside the town of Gananoque, Ontario. The next day
we drove down the St. Lawrence Parkway and took the Long Sault Parkway
drive out into the St. Lawrence River, the other side of Cornwall.
We got on to the wrong road through Montreal and were held up quite a bit
so we did not get as far as we had planned. We stopped at a motel in
Plessisville, Quebec, overnight. From there we carried on down the St.
Lawrence on the Trans Canada as far as Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec, where we
turned south and stopped overnight at Grand Falls, New Brunswick. Our motel
was right beside the falls. From there we followed the St. John River first to
Hartland where we crossed over the longest covered bridge in Canada. It is a
good thing there was no traffic on it as we found out it was a one way bridge
and we were going the wrong way. Next we drove through the city of
Fredericton instead of taking the city by-pass. We had thought of visiting the
pioneer village at Kings Landing ,but it was not open yet.
We carried on to Moncton, New Brunswick, where we stopped for the night.
The next morning before continuing, we visited the famous magnetic hill and
experienced the sensation of feeling the car coasting up the hill. From there we
went to Fort Beausejour (renamed Fort Cumberland in 1755). It was cold and
windy and there were very few people there but we wandered around anyway.
At Amhurst, Nova Scotia, we turned off the Trans Canada and followed the
lighthouse route along Northumberland Straits through Pugwash and
Tatamagouche to Pictou where I spent three months during the war. I did not
recognize anything; even the dockyard, which was outside the town and where
we were undergoing refit, was now inside the town. From there we
23. Time to return to Canada 111
went through New Glasgow and east the Canso Causeway, then northeast to
Baddeck where we got a good deal on a motel for two nights. The next day we
followed the Cabot Trail through the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. The
following day we visited the Alexander Graham Bell museum in Baddeck, which
contains many of his inventions. Bell spent his last years in Baddeck where he
experimented with aircraft and hydrofoils. His home is nearby and is still lived
in by his descendants.
We went east from there to the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site,
which has been much restored and is inhabited in the summer by students
dressed in the 18th century clothing. We were there on June 1st, the first day
they were officially open. Leaving there we followed the south shore of Bras
d’Or Lake back to the mainland and stayed overnight in Sherbrooke, Nova
Scotia, on the west shore of Sherbrooke Lake, where it was pouring rain.
Sherbrooke is another community that is attempting to preserve it as it was
back in the 19th century.
The next day we followed the Nova Scotia south coast to Dartmouth, the first
time we had been there since just after the war. The city has expanded
considerably and we went out to the naval air station, now called HMCS 12 Wing
Shearwater, but we could not find Marion Heights where we lived for nearly a
year. We crossed the nearby, new Angus L. MacDonald Bridge to Halifax, but we
did not stop there but went northwest up the valley to Grand Pre where the
Evangeline Statue and church are located. We stayed the night to the west in
Kentville.
From there we left Nova Scotia and drove up through New Brunswick to
Campbellton. On the way, between Miramichi and Bathurst, the road was under
construction and we lost a lot of time there. It was not a very nice place where
we spent the night Campbellton.
In the morning we crossed into Matapedia, Quebec, and decided to drive
around the Gaspe Peninsula. We had a nice day and were able to see Ile
Bonaventure and Perce Rock. We stopped for a while in the town of Gaspe
where my ship had put in for a boiler cleaning during the war. We continued on
around the peninsula, which is a very scenic route, and we stopped for the night
in the little village of Grande-Vallee where no one could speak English.
We went on the next day through Rimouski and Riviere-du-Loup until we
reached Quebec City where we stayed two nights. The next day
112 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
we took a well worth while sightseeing bus throughout the city. We covered
both the upper and lower town, as well as the Plains of Abraham.
From there we drove to Montreal along the north shore of the St. Lawrence
River. We hit the city at rush hour and it seemed to take forever to get through
the city. Eventually we reached Ontario where we stayed the night in
Gananoque and returned home the following day.
24. Illness and university
After coming back to Canada, I considered the idea of going back to
university when I found it would not cost me anything for tuition as a senior
citizen. So I went and secured a syllabus and found I could take a second year
history course in music providing I had permission of the head of the
department. I found out the head was Jeff Stokes so I made an appointment for
an interview.
As luck would have it, before I could see him, I took quite ill and was
admitted to hospital. I went into the emergency room and do not remember
anything after that until a week later. I learned that I had been in the intensive
care unit during that time with tubes all over me. Joan was with me a good deal
of the time and when I came to in the recovery room I was transferred to a
ward. I found out that Joan had called Dr Stokes and postponed the interview.
I came out of hospital after about five days and then went to the school for
the interview. It went well and I started in September. I went to the registry
office where they were able to obtain my transcripts from high school and the
University of Toronto, but they could not give me any credits for the courses I
took back then.
The only reason I can think of for my illness was as a result of the stress and
pollution I experienced when we went through Montreal during rush hour.
I obtained a parking permit for the university and parked the two days a
week in the Medway parking lot. The course itself was a lecture, one with
tutorials and my tutor was Jeff Stokes. The other professor was Philip Downs.
It was a large class of about 75 students, and I was the only one over 25 years of
age. I only got to know a couple of kids that first year but they seemed to accept
my presence with no difficulty. I had to write three essays that first year,
something I had not done for nearly 50 years.
Before starting school, I took a two-day course at the public library through
Fanshaw College to prepare me, consisting of how to take notes, prepare for
examinations, etc., and I think it helped. I ended the year with a B average.

25. A trip back to Britain
The next year, 1986, we decided to go back to England. I would be 65 that
year and I wanted to sort out my pension, both from the paper and from the
government. I had some money in the bank in Wells and it would be a good
opportunity to close the account.
We left around the 25th of May and flew into Cardiff airport because it was
close to Wells. We had arranged to rent a car for a month and we picked it up in
downtown Cardiff. I had been feeling not all that great and by the time we got
to the service centre just over the Severn Bridge, I was bushed. I sat in the
parking lot while Joan got some coffee.
We went on to Wells where we had arranged to stay a few days with Gwen
and Gordon McKenzie. Since we had returned to Canada they had moved out to
Coxley, a little village between Wells and Glastonbury. While there I went to the
bank in Wells and to the Wells Journal and renewed acquaintances. Another
day we drove over to Shepton Mallet to visit Jill and Farhad Shahbahram who of
course knew we were coming. We learned that one of the men that worked at
the Wells Journal had become a Baha’í since we left. When we arrived at Wells, I
went on Prednisone medication and it seemed to help.
While in Wells, we went to Bath. I left Joan there while I took the train into
London where I sold some of my stamps of Greece. I also visited the Baha’í
National Office at Rutland Gate and took the 4 o’clock train back to Bath. On our
way out of Wells we stopped to visit Josie at the Rifleman Arms where Joan
worked for a while.
After a few more days in Wells, we set out. We drove south through
Glastonbury and Street to the M5 motorway and past Taunton. We left Exeter
and crossed the north boundary of Dartmoor and entered Cornwall at
Launceston. We spent a short time at Jamaica Inn. From there we drove south
to St. Austral and then turned back east and visited the castle at Restormel, just
north of Lostwithiel. From there we went northeast to Liskeard and Tavistock,
then through the Dartmoor National Park and spent the night at a B & B at
Bovey Tracey.
The next day we went to Exeter and drove along the Dorset south coast. We
stopped for an hour or so in Lyme Regis, which we had visited

25. A trip back to Britain 115
several times before. From there we drove east through Dorchester, bypassed
Bournemouth, Southampton and Portsmouth, then through Chichester and on
to Brighton, East Sussex. Here we left the south coast and went to Lewes and
then to the opera house at Glyndebourne. There was a performance about to
begin and we could see over the fence the patrons in their evening dresses
strolling in the garden before the curtain went up. The theatre is located in an
old manor house. We did not attend; as well as not being properly dressed, it
was much too expensive.
We left there looking for somewhere to spend the night. We headed north
towards London, confident that we would find a B & B somewhere along the
route, but there were none. When we reached the M25 motorway (the ring road
around London), we decided to bypass the city and head north. We did not
realize that we were on the ring road going clockwise for over fifty miles before
we left it. We came off at Enfield and drove north; the first place we came
across was a pub in Ware. Joan went in and we managed to get the last room
available. However, we were able to relax and a little after 8:30 pm we came
down and had an excellent pub meal in the bar. The place was right on the
highway and there were trucks passing by all night long but we were tired
enough that we slept well.
We headed the next day north east by back roads. We went through
Sudbury to the pretty little town of Lavenham where we had a lunch. Then we
went east to the north of Ipswich, we took a “B” road north to Snape where,
although it was a miserable drizzly day, we wandered around The Red House,
the former home of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, and where many of their
operas were first performed. As well as Snape Maltings Concert Hall, an arts
complex on the banks of the River Alde at Snape, Suffolk, where there were
master classes, piano workshops, etc.
We did not go to the coast at Aldeburgh but headed northwest through
Saxmundham, Suffolk, where I had stayed one weekend, to Framlingham Castle.
Then by back roads through Eye, and by-passing Norwich, spent the night at a B
& B in West Rudham.
Next day we went to visit the royal residence at Sandringham. We did not go
into the house but wandered in the garden and bought a souvenir booklet.
From there we went on to King’s Lynn where we stopped in the centre of the
town. It was pretty dead as it was Sunday afternoon and we drove out of the
parking lot the wrong way on a one-way section but
116 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
did not meet anybody. When we left there we crossed the Ouse River and
headed straight for Grantham where we stayed for a couple of days with Tim
and Lyn.
The following day we visited some people in the morning and in the
afternoon we went to Tattersall Castle where I got a great picture of a peacock
with its tail feathers spread; it seemed to do it on queue when its picture was
about to be taken. The next day we decided to go to Skegness. It was cold and
windy and there were not many people at the Butlin’s Holiday Camp there (now
the Butlins’ Skegness Resort). Tim and I played a couple of games of snooker
but a lot of the attractions were not open. Maybe it was too early in the season;
it was the first week of June.
The third day we went over to Oakham to see if it had changed much in the
past eight years. The only person we saw that we knew was Tony, the cobbler
who was a member of the local Baha’í community.
The next morning we set off fairly early and drove straight up the A1
motorway as far as Wetherby where we turned off to the east. A few miles
down this “B” road we came to the site of the civil war battle of Marston Moor
(1644), west of York.
There was nothing there except a monument. We carried on to Castle
Howard, by-passing the city of York. This is one of the stateliest manor houses
in England and was used in the TV series “Bridgehead Revisited”. It rained all
the time we were there and we were able to tour of the interior but had to
forego the grounds. They had a shuttle service to the house from the parking
lot.
The next place we went to was Riveaulx Abbey, one of the five large abbeys
of Yorkshire that were looted during the reign of King Henry VIII. It is situated
in a kind of hollow and above it is a terrace with Greek styled temples at either
end. There were not many people there as it was quite dull and drizzly most of
the day. The walk to the terrace was quite a distance from the parking lot
through the woods.
We decided to get a B & B in Ripon and it was here we had the unfortunate
experience of getting some chicken in a restaurant that was inedible; Joan
ended up with a hot dog we got from a street vendor.
The following day we went to visit Fountains Abbey. It is in a large park
area and the abbey itself is a good mile from the parking lot. We had coffee in
the visitor centre and set out. I was unable to walk the full distance to the
abbey but we walked far enough that we were at least able to see it.
25. A trip back to Britain 117
When we left there we headed north. We went by way of the interior
avoiding the heavily traveled roads, through Heapham, Lincolnshire, before
joining the A1 motorway north to Newcastle upon Tyne, and then west where
we got a B & B in Haydon Bridge, a quiet little town in Hexham. We spent the
night there and next day visited Hadrian’s Wall. We did not have time to go to
the Roman town there but we drove along the wall and at one point walked a
bit along the wall for a short time. We stopped at the Roman Army Museum,
Greenhead, and saw a lot of artifacts. Many new items are still being
discovered. Joan bought a little model of a Roman soldier. From there we went
north via Jedburgh to Galashiels where we got a B & B. It was very nice so
decided to stay two nights.
That evening it was quite nice out so we drove back over to Melrose Abbey,
made famous by Sir Walter Scott and where Robert Bruce’s heart is supposed to
be buried.
The next morning we drove east to Kels and onto Coldstream, where we
visited the church at Culloden, the battle site, 1746, of the last battle on English
soil between the Scots and English. From there we drove over to Lindisfarne or
the Holy Island, to visit Lindisfarne Castle and the ruins of Lindisfarne Priory.
This is the place where the Vikings first raided the coast of Britain. We crossed
to the island on a causeway at low tide, so we had to return before high tide
when the road is under water. Then we went south to the town of Bamburgh,
Northumberland, which has one of the largest castles in the northwest. It has
been used in many films including “Mary Queen of Scots”. On the way west to
Galashiels we stopped at Floors Castle northwest of Kelso. This castle has been
the estate house of the Innes-Ker family for over 300 years, and was used in the
movie “Greystoke, the Legend of Tarzan”.
Next day before setting out we visited Abbotsford House, the home of Sir
Walter Scott, on the banks of the Tweed River, just outside Galashiels, and
where his great granddaughter still lives. Much of his possessions are
preserved in the house. We then drove north, by-passing Edinburgh, and
crossed the Forth Bridge. We drove north through Perth, past the ancient city
of Scone and arrived in the early evening at Braemar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland,
where some of the famous Scottish highland games are held. We stopped at a B
& B, and went downtown for some pizza. I phoned Wendi Momen from a call
box and we had a good chat. Back at the B & B we went into the common room
where there were quite a few guests.
The next morning the rain was pouring down. We set off east, past Braemar
Castle and stopped at Balmoral Castle, another royal residence. In
118 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
spite of the rain we walked the considerable distance to the house where we
went through those parts of the castle open to visitors and had coffee in the
coffee shop. Then we went north across the Lecht, a ski area. The elevation is
fairly high and we were surprised when the rain turned to snow—this was June!
Coming back down the snow turned to rain and we stopped at Cawdor Castle.
We did not go in as it was so wet.
When we turned back east it cleared up somewhat and we stopped at the
Culloden Battlefield, the last stand of Bonnie Prince Charlie. We only stopped at
the visitor centre as it was so miserable and windy, but we saw a film on the
battle. From there we went to Inverness where we found a very nice B & B. The
only other guests were a couple on leave from the Israeli army.
The following day we drove down the north shore of Loch Ness. The road is
right on the edge of the loch but we did not see any monster. We left the loch at
Invermoristan and turned west along the lonely road to Kyle of Lochalsh,
passing through Glen Moriston and near the Eileen Donan Castle made famous
in many photographs and paintings, on the tidal island of the same name. We
took the ferry on the short ride to the Isle of Skye and drove north as far as the
capital Portree where Joan went to do some window shopping. We would have
liked to drive on to Dunvegan, but did not feel we had time. We returned to the
mainland via Kylerhae over a rough track and took the ferry that does not run
often and we had to wait for it. The road came down a little grade over a hill
and ended right on the edge of the water.
On the other side we stopped for coffee in a nice coffee shop, and then drove
on to Invergarry, Scotland, where we stopped for the night. Our
accommodation was not a B & B so we had to drive up the road for food.
Next day we drove south, past Fort William to Ballachulish where instead of
crossing at the bridge we drove all the way around Loch Leven to the village of
Kinlochleven, and down the other side. We stopped at the Glencoe visitor
centre. Glencoe was the site of a great museum at one time but is now a ski
centre. From there down Loch Linnhe to Dunstaffnage, where the HMCS Orkney
underwent a refit back in 1945, and we stopped and toured the partially ruined
castle there.
We then drove through Oban south as far as Lochgilphead and back north to
Inveraray. We did not arrange B & B’s there so we went on east to Arrochar at
the head of Loch Long. The next morning we went back to
25. A trip back to Britain 119
Inveraray and stopped at the castle. It is a kind of fairy tale type castle and it is
where Rudolph Hess detained during World War II. We returned to Arrochar,
travelled east to Loch Lomond, down the west shore of the loch and south to
Dumbarton, then southeast to Kilpatrick where we crossed the Erskine Bridge
over the River Clyde. We then turned west to Greenock and nearby Gourock, but
we could not find the place where we lived or where I was stationed that last
year of the war. We headed south and stopped for lunch at Largs, and then
drove on past Ayr to Culzean Castle. This is where General Dwight Eisenhower
had apartments during the war, where he lived when he could find the time,
then down the coast past Ballantrae, South Ayrshire. We could see the small
island of Ailsa Craig out in the Firth of Clyde. We stopped for the night in
Newton Stewart.
In the morning we drove to Castle Douglas where we had coffee and on to
Dunfries where we took a side trip through Lockerbie to Ecclefechan, the
birthplace home of Thomas Carlyle whose most famous work was The French
Revolution: A History. We visited the house and then west on to Gretna Green,
which at one time was a favourite destination for English couples who wanted
to get married in a hurry. They still capitalize on this heritage, although it is no
longer serving that purpose. We crossed back into England and stopped at
Keswick, in the Lake District National Park, where we stayed for two nights.
The next day we went back towards Penrith and drove down the shore of
Ullseater glacial lake, and then continued south until we came to the tourist
visitor centre in Windermere. We had coffee or coke there and then to Leven
House in Windermere where there was an exhibition of the work of Beatrix
Potter who wrote her Peter Rabbit books near here (Hill Top Farm, east of Near
Sawrey, is 3 miles to the southwest).
On our way back to Keswich, we stopped at Dove Cottage, where William
Wordsworth and his sister lived for a time and where he entertained other poet
friends.
The next day we drove down the west side of Lake Windermere and then
drove around Coniston Water (a lake). We then headed for the M6 motorway
through Kendal and headed south. The weather turned quite warm. The M6
motorway enabled us to by-pass Birmingham, and apart from a short side trip
to visit the battle site of Edgehill, we arrived at Banbury for the night. We went
in the centre of Banbury for dinner. It was here we had a slight accident with
the car backing out of the B & B driveway.
The next day we went into Woodstock and spent the morning at Blenheim
Palace, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Marlborough. From there we went
to Moreton-in-Marsh (the Cotswolds district) and Bourton-on-the-Hill where
we stopped as there was a kind of fair going on. We then headed for the M40
120 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
motorway through Broadway and stopped at Rose-on-Wye for coffee. Leaving
there we came down through Monmouth to join the M4 motorway at Newport,
which we left to drive into Llanelli and found a B & B at Pembrey where we
stayed for 2 nights.
The following day we visited Kidwelly Castle and then went to the tip of
Wales through Carmarthen and Haverfordwest to St. Davids, the cathedral city
of Wales. We visited the cathedral and Bishops Palace, which was at the bottom
of a hill. From there we went to Fishguard where we watched the Sealink Ferry
(now with the Stena Line) setting out for Rosslare, Eire, and saw a couple of
young people struggling with a sailboard. We stopped on the way back to
Pembrey at Cardigan for coffee.
In the morning we visited the local park before setting out for Brecon. We
went via Llandovery and spent some time finding Jeremy and Christine’s house
which was off the main road between Brecon and Sennybridge. We spent the
evening there but had to sleep on the floor downstairs as their daughter had
chicken pox. In the afternoon of the next day we set out for Cardiff over the
Brecon Beacons to Merthyr Tydfil and Pontypridd. We spent the night at a
motel there and returned the rental car and took a taxi to the airport where we
left for home the next day. We caught the Robert Q Airbus back to London.
26. Holidays in Ontario,
Alberta and British Columbia
The next year, 1987, we had planned to take a long trip around Ontario going
up to Hearst and across to Cochrane but it did not pan out. We set off okay and
drove part way along the Lake Huron shore through Kincardine and
Southampton. We stopped for the night in Wiarton at a motel just to the north
of the town. The next day we drove along the western shore of southeastern
Georgian Bay, over near Cape Croker and stopped in Lions Head where Joan and
Rita had stayed back in the sixties. We caught the afternoon ferry from
Tobermory to South Baymouth and drove north to Manitoulin and through to
Little Current where we stayed the night in a motel on a hill. While there we
decided not to on with our original plan for some reason, and, as near as I can
remember, we returned home going around the east side of southeastern
Georgian Bay.
On our way home we stopped at Sault Sainte Marie among the Hurons, near
modern Midland. We had been there once before when the University of
Western Ontario was excavating the site. It has now been completely restored
and is quite impressive.
By the next year, 1988, Linda and Jack were living in Vancouver. They
invited us to visit them so we set out on May 12th by Airbus to Toronto where
we caught a plane to Calgary. Paul met us at the airport and we went north
straight to Innisfail, central Alberta, where he was living. The next day we took
a drive around Innisfail, saw the dam and went to the mall. That evening we
met Laddi’s sister.
On the Saturday we picked up Michael who was living with Debbie in
Calgary and went for a drive to Banff and Lake Louise, which was still frozen. It
was quite cold in the mountains. We drove along the secondary roads rather
than the Trans-Canada Highway and saw lots of elk and mountain goats, as well
as a couple of wolves. We drove on up to where the Canadian Pacific Railway
Upper Spiral, located inside Cathedral Mountain, emerges at the top of Kicking
Horse Pass. On the way home we stopped for supper in Banff.
On Sunday we spent the day at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, 6
km northwest of Drumheller, Alberta, the dinosaur capital of Canada, and also
saw where the original dinosaur find was made by Joseph Burr Tyrrell in 1884.
On Monday Michael took us into Calgary where we boarded a bus for
Vancouver. The first stop was Canmore and at Banff picked up some lifesavers.
Lunch was at Golden. There was a coffee break at Revelstoke and supper was in
Kamloops. We drove down the Coquihalla Highway, a

122 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
fairly new road and had coffee at Hope. Jack and Linda met us at the bus depot.
On Tuesday we did not do anything as we were quite tired. Not until
Wednesday did we go out and Jack was able to borrow a car for us from the
dealership where he worked.
The next day it rained so we went to the planetarium. On Thursday in the
morning we went to Queen Elizabeth Park and the arboretum there. On Friday
we drove across the Lions Gate Bridge and up Howe Sound as far as Squamish.
We were there a few hours after lunch and on the way back we stopped at
Horseshoe Bay.
Saturday we took Linda to Burnaby Mall and on Sunday went downtown to
Gastown; it rained all day. The next day we went to the University of British
Columbia to visit the Museum of Anthropology. The building itself was closed
but we could see through the windows. Outside in the grounds were several
Haida buildings and totem poles. We drove around the campus and back along
English Bay. In the evening the five of us (including Lori) went to play bingo but
none of us won anything. We had been here a week by this time.
On Tuesday morning we took the ferry from Tsawwassen, just south of
Vancouver airport to Sidney, Vancouver Island. Ferries do not go from
Vancouver itself anymore. After passing through the Gulf Islands we reached
Sidney where we had lunch. On the way south to Victoria we stopped a few
hours at Butchart Gardens which are well-known all over. We got a motel in
Esquimalt for two nights. We drove to the Canadian Forces Base in
southwestern Esquimalt where I was stationed at the beginning of the war but
nothing was familiar.
Next day we went east to downtown Victoria. We visited Miniature World in
the Fairmont Empress Hotel and parked for a few minutes on the harbour
where there was a good view of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
building. We then drove around Beacon Hill Park and then out to Oak Bay and
the Marine Drive to Uplands.
Thursday morning we drove north out of Victoria and made our first stop at
the Maxwell International Baha'í School (1988–2008) on Shawnigan Lake. We
were treated to a tour but there were no classes as it was not quite ready to be
opened. Some of the buildings were not quite ready. We stopped later for
coffee in Duncan. We got lost just past Ladysmith while looking for the
Petroglyph
26. Holidays in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia 123
Provincial Park. We arrived in Nanaimo in time for the ferry that we took back
to Horseshoe Bay where we had dinner before returning to Vancouver. We were
tired so the next day we stayed in and did not go anywhere.
On Saturday we went back to the planetarium to pick up some gifts. Then
we took a drive around the grounds of the Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.
On Sunday the 29th Jack took Lori to Victoria for a day. I took Linda to work
in the morning and at two o’clock we picked her up and went for a drive up to
Capilano River canyon—it is very commercialized now. We did not go on the
swinging bridge. We came back to Vancouver via the Narrows Bridge.
Next day we did not do much except take a walk. In the evening when Jack
and Lori returned, he took us all up Grouse Mountain in the cable car where we
had a very dinner—but there were magnificent views over the city.
On Tuesday we went to Stanley Park and after a while we crossed the Lions
Gate Bridge to Park Royal Mall in West Vancouver. It was the first shopping
mall in Canada. We stayed home in the evening while Jack and Linda went to
play bingo.
Wednesday it rained but the three of us went downtown to Chinatown. We
visited some shops and tried to get coffee in a shop but they only served tea.
We visited the Sun Yat Sen Gardens before returning home.
The next day we all had breakfast out and then went to Burnaby Mall again.
When we came home Jack took us to the Maritime Museum. When we came
home we got packed and Jack and Linda took us to the bus station. We decided
to return to Calgary by the Kettle Valley route which takes longer.
The first stop was at Hope where we had coffee, then Princeton and
Penticton where we had breakfast. Then Grand Forks for a coffee break and
lunch at Rossland. Stops then were at Trail, Creston and Cranbrook to Radium
Hot Springs. Paul met us in Calgary. We had supper on Saturday and in Calgary
on Sunday where we visited the museum. We left Calgary by plane on Monday.
27. Side trips to Ontario and Winnipeg
During the fall Tim visited us. Since leaving Waterloo where we had visited
him, he had worked in White River and then gone on to North Bay, Ontario. The
next spring we decided to visit him where he had a job as a bartender at the
Golf Club. We stopped off at Reinette’s on the way and got as far as Parry Sound
that night. We went on to North Bay the next day after picking up a map at the
Chamber of Commerce.
Tim gave us a tour of the hotel where he worked and we had ginger ale on
the house. The next day we drove to Algonquin Provincial Park where we went
into the park on the north side at Kiosh on the north side, and later drove to
Callander and North Bay. In the morning I discovered I had a flat tire so I had to
have it repaired. Then we took a 3-hour cruise on Lake Nipissing to Callander
and back to North Bay. That evening Tim treated us to a meal at the hotel and I
remember I ate venison for the first time.
On Saturday, after 3 days, we left, stopping for toast and coffee at Mattawa,
and stopping for the night at Perth. The next day we went south to Gananoque
where we stayed two nights. On Monday we took a cruise to the Thousand
Islands in the St. Lawrence River that lasted most of the day. We had lunch on
the boat.
The next day we set out for home. After having lunch at Presqu’isle
Provincial Park we arrived back in London via Guelph where we had dinner,
then home via Stratford.
Next year we did not take a long holiday but made several one-day tours in
the area. One weekend we went and stayed at a motel in Kingsville. The first
day we spent at Point Pelee National Park where we went down to the point
and also walked around the marsh on the boardwalk. The next day we went on
to Amherstburg where we spent some time at Fort Malden, part of which has
been restored. We returned home via Highway 2 along Lake St. Clair, Chatham,
Moraintown and home.
Another day we went to Dresden where we visited the Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Museum. Then we went on and drove around Walpole Island. On another
occasion we went to Brantford where we spent some

27. Side trips to Ontario and Winnipeg 125
time at the Bell Homestead. Then we went on to the Iroquois Museum and the
Chapel of the Mohawks. We drove from there to the Six Nations Reserve where
we visited the Pauline Johnson home.1 It is in a badly dilapidated condition and
needs restoration. We came home through the town of Ohsweken on the Indian
Reserve.
On another occasion we drove to Norwich and Otterville where they have an
old water mill on Otter Creek and also an herb garden.
Another time we drove up through Kitchener to St. Jacobs, Elora and Fergus.
We visited the West Montrose Covered Bridge, also known as the “Kissing
Bridge”, it is one of the oldest Canadian covered bridges, it is in Mennonite
country.
We also did used some of The London Free Press Shunpiker Mystery Tours2
vouchers that we had collected but not used. Some of these tours included the
Longwood Conservatory area and an interesting windmill near Goderich. We
generally stuck to back roads where there was less traffic. We often visited
places like Bayfield and Port Stanley as well as Sparta, Port Bruce and Port
Burwell.
The next year, 1991, we were invited to visit Tim in Winnipeg. It was late
August and very hot. We did not get away until ten o’clock so we only got as far
as Cheboygan, Michigan. The next day, after crossing the Mackinac Bridge to
Mackinaw City, we stopped at a small village for some great lemon pie.
We had lunch at a picnic area on Lake Superior near Marquette. We spent
the night near Ashland. The next day we went through Duluth and stopped on
the other side at Starving Marvin’s, a truck stop, for coffee. Stopped at Bemidji
for groceries and went on to Grand Forks, which we overshot and had to turn
around and come back to get the last motel room. After breakfast we stopped at
Pembina on the Manitoba border for some duty free and here we damaged the
tailpipe on a speed bump and had to wait an hour for repairs. We stopped for
lunch at St. Jean Baptiste and arrived in Winnipeg around four. On Saturday,
Paul, Laddi and Linda arrived from Alberta. They stayed at a motel and we all
had brunch on Sunday morning and Tim and I went back to the house while the
others went down to the Forks Market.
That evening Joan and Paul had a confrontation that had a bad effect on Joan,
which still exists. Monday we did nothing and on Tuesday we took Tim up to
Gimli, the old Icelandic settlement on Lake Winnipeg. The next day we had
breakfast at Tim’s work place—it was still extremely hot outside.

1 Chiefswood National Historic Site: the home of Six Nations Chief George H. M.
Johnson (1816–1884), the birthplace of poet Emily Pauline Johnson (1861–1913), and
the Johnson family home until 1884.
2 Shunpiking is the act of deliberately avoiding roads that require payment of a fee or
toll to travel on them.
126 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
We set out for home on Thursday and stopped at the visitor centre at the
Ontario-Manitoba border. We stopped early for the day at Kenora.
The next night we stopped at Uppsala. We bypassed Thunder Bay and got as
far as Marathon. The next morning we stopped at the White River Cafe where
Tim worked for a while; we also stopped at the Wawa Tourist Information
Centre. We stopped in Lake Superior Provincial Park so Joan could make a
sketch. We stayed the night at Batchawana Bay. The next day we got as far as
Little Current.
The next morning we arrived at South Baymouth, but there was no room on
the morning ferry and we had to wait for the four o’clock sailing. We left the car
in line so we would not miss the next one and had to spend six hours on a cold
and rainy day. Joan walked around the town several times while I stayed put;
we were on this ferry at twenty to four. The crossing was quite rough and Joan
spent the trip in the washroom along with several others. After arriving at
Tobermory, we went straight on to Wiarton, where we had a bit of supper and
on to Wingham for coffee at ten o’clock. It poured all the way home where we
arrived at 11:30 pm.
The next year, 1992, we had a fair amount of company, so we were only able
to get away for a short holiday. We decided to go back to Gananoque, Ontario,
and we set out in that direction. We took the northern route and stopped to
visit Reinette on the way. That evening we stayed at a motel just outside
Orangeville and the next day went into Kleinburg, a very pretty town just north
of Toronto where we spent a couple of hours at the McMichael Art Gallery
where they have an extensive collection of Canadian paintings, most notably the
work of the Group of Seven and Emily Carr.1
Coming out of the art gallery it started to rain and then it poured. We
stopped in King City for coffee and continued east. The rain did not let up and
the forecast was not good, so we stopped for the night in Norwood where we
had stayed before. The next day we turned back and decided to go to Huntsville
driving up the east side of Lake Simcoe, through Minden and Dorset. We stayed
at the same resort we had many years before when we had rented a cabin on
the lake. This time there was a motel and we took several drives around the
area. After three or four days we set out for home.

1 The Group of Seven, was a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933,
originally consisting of Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Frank
Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley. Emily Carr (1871–
1945) was a Canadian artist and writer who was inspired by the Indigenous peoples
of the Pacific Northwest Coast.
28. A holiday on Prince Edward Island
Next year, 1993, we decided we would like to visit Prince Edward Island
where we had never been. We got away on a Sunday morning in early June and
stayed the first night in Gananoque. We crossed the Ivy Lea Bridge into New
York State where we crossed the Adirondacks. We were held up awhile by
having to detour around Saranac Lake. We got lost in Plattsburg trying to find
the ferry across Lake Champlain but eventually made it into Vermont where we
started looking for a motel. We could not find one around Montpelier because
of road repairs but did find one at Marshfield, which looked like the Stratford
Inn on the Newhart show. Next day we entered New Hampshire and took a long
detour to go through the White Mountain Park where the scenery was quite
spectacular. We stayed the night at the Farmington Motel. Next day we went
through Maine as far as Calais where we crossed back into New Brunswick at St.
Stephen where we stayed the night.
Thursday morning it was raining. We stopped at St. George and in the
afternoon left the main road to drive through Fundy National Park. We could
not see much because of the rain. After leaving the park we also stopped at the
Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park where it was still pouring rain. We stayed the
night at a motel in Shediac. In the morning we boarded the ferry and it turned
out to be a nice day. After docking we drove to Summerside where we checked
into a motel there for three days. After lunch we toured the west end of the
island, going to O’Leary where they have a potato museum—big
disappointment, then followed the coast road up to the North Cape Wind
Station where we had coffee and then back to the motel.
Next day we visited the Woodleigh Miniature Garden where they have
scaled down replicas of famous buildings, but not so small you could not go in
them. Then on to New London and visited the birthplace of Lucy Maud
Montgomery (1874–1942; author of Anne of Green Gables and many other
novels). Then we went to Green Gables, made famous in the novel, and also
visited Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum. Then we went on to Rustico Harbour
and Brackley Beach where we had dinner.
On Sunday we drove along the south coast as far as Fort Amherst. This was
not open but we wandered about the old fort. Then to a doll

128 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
museum but it was not open either. We returned to Summerside by a different
route.
Monday morning it was raining so we went straight into Charlottetown. We
toured the Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly building, which is called
the Confederation Building because it was here that Confederation took place in
1867 when Canada became an independent nation. Joan also looked through the
Art Gallery next door while I waited for her. Then we went on to Wood Island
where we booked into the only motel. We took a ride around part of the east
coast of the island visiting Murray Harbour, Montagne and Georgetown.
On Tuesday the sun was shining when we boarded the ferry over to Pictou
where we lunched and then took the Glooscap Trail from Truro to Noel. In
Wolfville we drove around the campus of Acadia University and then down the
Annapolis Valley to Middleton where we spent the night.
Wednesday (our wedding anniversary) we went on to Fort Anne, Annapolis,
and then on to the 1930s replica of the 1605 Port Royal Habitation, which was
founded by Samuel de Champlain (1574–1635) and the first French settlement in
North America. Then we stopped at the Annapolis Power Station that is
powered by the Bay of Fundy tides, which are the highest in the world. We
went on to the Champlain Motel outside of town that we booked for two nights
as it was a quite nice place with a view over the bay. We drove on to Digby
passing HMCS Cornwallis naval training base, but it started to rain so we went
back to the motel.
Thursday we drove back to Digby and then down Digby Neck visiting
Gullians Cove, Centreville and Sandy Cove. We crossed by ferry to Long Island
and dropped into the visitor centre, then on to Flour Cove, and Freeport, and
Tiverton where we went up to the lighthouse. We then returned the same way
and stopped in Mink Cove and around Sandy Cove again, and the visitors park
at Middle Lake. Had supper, pizza, in Digby and then back to the motel.
The next day we set off across the province to the Atlantic Ocean coast, to
Kejimkujik National Park, one hundred miles of bush. At the edge there was a
visitor centre but Joan would not get out of the car because of the black flies.
We reached the coast at Liverpool where we had coffee. We drove along the
coast via Petite River and Le Havre where we took the ferry and then on to
Lunenberg, where we spent some time at the Maritime
28. A holiday on Prince Edward Island 129
Museum. This is where the Bluenose fishing and racing gaff rig schooner was
built in 1921, commemorated by a replica, Bluenose II, built in here 1963. We
went on from there and took a motel in Chester.
In the morning we drove around Chester, even though it was raining again.
Then we stopped at Hubbards for coffee—Joan would like to live here (this is
when the TV series “Black Harbour” was filmed). Then on to Peggy’s Cove that
we had visited before. We were on our way again in the afternoon bypassing
Halifax, not stopping until we reached Parrsboro, then past Springhill (Anne
Murray’s home) to Amherst where we spent the night. We had to drive down
the Trans Canada Highway into New Brunswick to find anything to eat, but it
proved to be pretty good.
Next morning we set off for home again. We stopped outside Sussex for
coffee. Another hot day, no picnic areas, so stopped at 4 o’clock at a motel at
Woodstock and had our lunch for supper. The next day we reached Riviere-du-
Loup by 2:30 pm and stayed the night at Berthier-sur-Mer just outside Quebec
City where there was a lovely view across the St. Lawrence River.
Next day was a bad one. In the morning we stopped at Saint-Antoine-de-
Tilly and chatted in our broken French with the new young owners of a
restaurant. Then we got lost crossing the Quebec Bridge. We traveled west on
the north side of the river and after by-passing Montreal tried unsuccessfully to
find a motel at Lachute. We then drove all the way to Hull and got lost again, so
we crossed the St. Lawrence River into Ottawa and headed out on Highway 7.
We did not find a motel until about 8 pm at Carleton Place—not great.
Next morning, Wednesday, we stopped at a park in Perth, then on through
Madoc to Norwood where we stayed at the Highlander Motel, stopping around
2:30 pm where we could rest up after the previous day. The next day we went
via Peterboro to Port Perry where we had coffee, then on by Uxbridge and
Newmarket to Schomberg for lunch. It was a very hot day. We stopped to see
Reinette in Palmerston then on home.
29. Short trips, golden anniversary,
graduation and failing health
In 1994 we thought we might tour Northern Ontario again but it did not
happen. We set out and lost our tail pipe in Wiarton. By the time we got it fixed
with a new muffler we did not get to Tobermory until 5:30 pm where we
stopped for the night. We caught the ferry to South Baymouth, Manitoulin
Island, in the morning.
We stopped at Manitowaning for coffee and booked into a motel in Little
Current early in the afternoon. After lunch we set out around the island. We
stopped first at Kagawoug and then on to Gore Bay. Then we went south to
Providence Bay for coffee and a walk on the boardwalk. Then north to
Mindemoya and east to Sandfield and dinner at Manitowaning. We stopped at
the Indian Trading Post at Ten Mile Point and then back to the motel where we
had to change rooms because of the smell.
The next morning we went north to Espanola and then east to Sudbury. We
drove by the Big Nickel and into Sudbury and further east to Sturgeon Falls and
North Bay where we stopped for the night, but drove south to Callander for
dinner. The following day we drove as far as Huntsville to the motel we had
stayed at two years earlier. We did nothing on the third day but we drove out
to the “Wairgaty” for dinner. In the morning we drove to Dorset and went up to
the fire tower lookout. In the afternoon went through Algonquin Provincial
Park where we saw a couple of moose and looked over the visitor centre at the
east end. We had dinner at Spring Lake.
Monday morning we drove around Hidden Valley, Huntsville, and stopped at
Deerhurst Lodge and Great Western and picked up rate cards. After lunch we
drove down to Fox Inn and then around Lake of Bays. Next day we wandered
around Huntsville in the morning and the afternoon drove to Rosseau and
Windermere and back to Huntsville via Port Sidney.
Wednesday we set off for home down Highway 11, which we left at Orillia
and had lunch at Bear Lake Provincial Park. On to Penetanguishene but we
could not find a motel there so went back to Midland. Next day we went back to
Penetanguishene and visited Discovery Harbour where we rode an old
fashioned wagon around the area and went aboard one of the tall ships that was
guided by a man who had been in the Canadian navy. Very hot today,

29. Short trips, golden anniversary, graduation and failing health 131
the temperature was in the thirties. We stopped for lunch in Wasaga Beach
Provincial Park. We stopped at Brussels and Seaforth on our way home taking
back roads, and finally home.
The next two years, 1995 and 1996, we did not go anywhere. I was admitted
to hospital in late May or early June each year and I was feeling pretty rough,
especially since we had a lot of company both summers.
Linda was staying with us and in June of 1995, Joan and I celebrated our 50th
wedding anniversary. We received congratulations from both the Canadian
Prime Minister and the Governor-General of Canada. Our children living in
Iceland came: Vicki and Asgeir came with Nadia, and Geoff came with both
Viktoria and Dagrun. Also Larry and Gladys came with Bruce, and Carl and
Cathy with their kids. We had an open house the day before and on the day we
all had dinner at Hooks Restaurant.
The next year, 1996, was the year I graduated from the University of Western
Ontario with a Bachelor of Music degree. It took ten years to get enough credits,
and when the convocation came, I was too ill to attend. The office at Talbot
College arranged to have the Dean, Geoff Stokes, and the Assistant Dean, Peter
Clemens, come to our house and perform the ceremony. The faculty secretary
and Public Relations representative were there and I got a write up in the
university Western Alumni Gazette periodical. I also got a good write-up in The
London Free Press that resulted in my receiving congratulations from people I
went to school with 50 years ago and even one from the Baha’í Universal House
of Justice in Haifa. For this occasion Tim and Aglesh came down from Iqaluit
and she brought her three children with her. For both occasions the women
decorated the house with streamers and balloons and it was quite festive.
We did not go further than Sarnia once or twice or Port Stanley in 1995–1996.
So the next year, 1997, we took two holidays—each a week in length.
We left on June 8 1997 and arrived at San-Man Motel in Manchester, a small
place just southwest of Port Perry. We had arranged with Medigas to carry a
medical oxygen tank in the car. The next morning we went to Cullen Gardens in
Whitby. This place has a fantastic miniature village, and we took two hours to
walk around it. After returning to the motel, we went down to Palmer Park on
the shore of Lake Scugog and then out to the end of Scugog Island. Next
morning we went northeast to Bobcaygeon, which is on the Trent-Severn
Waterway, and investigated
132 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
apartments overlooking the lock in Bobcaygeon. After lunch we went to
Petroglyphs Provincial Park (site with Indigenous rock carvings) to see the
exhibit, which is quite impressive. We returned to Port Perry via Burleigh Falls
and Lakefield.
The next morning we left for Huntsville, stopping on the way to visit the
Kirkfield Lift Lock (Trent Severn Waterway, Lock 36). After lunch at Carnarvon,
we booked into the Colonial Hotel, Huntsville for four nights. It is now under
new ownership. We took it easy and the next morning we went into Dwight and
Dorset and up to Lookout Point and around Lake of Bays, and took it easy for
the rest of the day.
After Medigas came from Orillia the next day to refill our medical oxygen
tank, we took off for Windermere and Port Carling for lunch. Then we went on
to Rosseau and returned to the Colonial Hotel, Huntsville. On Saturday we went
into Huntsville and looked around after having car fixed (we ran out of power
steering fluid).
We left for home on Sunday and got lost around Camp Borden. After
stopping at a park in Grand Valley, we dropped in to see Reinette before
returning home.
In September we booked into Buckeye Inn in Bobcaygeon and had Medigas
from Peterborough install a medical oxygen tank in our room. On Monday Joan
walked around town and picked up a street map and after lunch we drove
around the town.
On Tuesday we drove into Lindsay to get the tape deck fixed and on the way
saw a field of llamas! The shop in Lindsay could not fix the tape-deck, but he
directed us to another shop outside town on the way to Peterborough. While it
was being fixed, we went into mall in Lindsay for lunch. On the way back we
travelled along some back roads. Next day we went to Lagoon City on Lake
Simcoe via Fenelon Falls and looked for Frank Nutson, one of my relatives on
my grandmother’s side. After visiting him for a while we returned to Buckeye
Inn in Bobcaygeon.
On Thursday we drove to Bancroft where we had lunch and then on to
Combermere, where it took about half an hour to find Terry’s place (Terry is my
sister Ruth’s daughter). After visiting him, we had supper at Woodview on way
back to Bobcaygeon. Next afternoon we drove all around Lake Pigeon,
eventually stopping at Buckhorn for coffee. Saturday morning was Fall Fair day
and watched a parade go by Buckeye Inn. In the afternoon we drove all the way
up to Gooderham to see the fall colours which were quite spectacular. It was on
the way back to Bobcaygeon that my disabled permit flew out the window and
we drove at about 10 km an hour back along our route looking for it. After
several kilometres, we stopped to let some cars go by and Joan spotted it just
outside the car.
29. Short trips, golden anniversary, graduation and failing health 133
We left for home on Sunday stopping for lunch at Newmarket. We stopped
in to see Reinette but she was not home so visited another lady who lives in the
same place, then home.
During the winter (1997–1998), Dr Patterson referred me to Dr Richard
Malthaner, a thoracic surgeon in London who performs a lung volume reduction
surgery to make breathing easier for people with emphysema who are in
otherwise good health. Appointments with Dr Richard Malthaner occupied me
for most of the next year.
I was referred to a thoracic rehabilitation program that is exclusively for
people with lung problems. They only take eight people at a time and it consists
of daily exercise, Monday to Friday, for six weeks. It took about an hour and a
half each day and necessitated going to the hospital every day. It involved
weights, stretches, and stationery bicycle and treadmill exercises. Following
this I had numerous tests consisting of pulmonary functions, stress tests,
nuclear scans, CAT scan, ECG and echo, etc. During this time I also had to have
some liquid removed from my scrotum, and I have had cataract surgery on both
eyes over the past couple of years.
Last fall Vicki and Nadia came over for a holiday in October and this year she
and Asgeir came. We went back to Bobcaygeon for a week at the end of
September.
We did other things since returning from England, the United Kingdom. The
first spring after getting back we got in touch with Claude Lambert in
Farmington Hills, Michigan, whom I had not seen since World War II. He invited
us down and we took the bus and spent a few days with him and his wife. One
day we went to the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn that I had
never seen before. Another day we went to Belle Isle where we watched some
people flying kites.
We went to Niagara Falls several times. On one occasion we visited Norma
Wiley at Niagara-on-the-Lake, and also visited Fort George which was occupied
by the Americans during the War of 1812. Another time we attended her
birthday party but we did not see much of her as there were so many people
present.
On another visit we went towards Lewiston, just north of Niagara Falls, to
visit the Brock’s Monument in Queenston Heights Park and then to the
historical museum on Lundy’s Lane, St. Catherines. We drove home along the
Parkway to Fort Erie and home via Highway 3.
134 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
One time we took Tim with us and visited Marineland of Canada (a themed
zoo and amusement park), Niagara Falls. It was a wet day in September and we
had all the rides to ourselves. Joan would not go on Dragon Mountain, but Tim
and I did. We went to Marineland of Canada one other time with Carl, Kathy
and family but it was a hot Sunday and the place was crowded. We did not go
on any rides. We saw the whole show but that was all we had time for as we
were with a chartered bus trip and we had to leave with the bus. However, the
bus broke down on the way home and it took forever to arrive home.
The first eight years after returning to Canada, I was elected to the London
Local Spiritual Assembly and I was the secretary for part of the time. I was also
a member of the Baha’í teaching committee and remained on it after leaving the
Assembly. I was also for a couple of years an Assistant to the Auxiliary Board
Member Gordon Naylor and visited several nearby communities and also
attended meetings at Keith Greeham’s and Gordon Naylor’s place in Dundas.
While on the Local Spiritual Assembly of London, I was appointed London
community representative on the Multi-Faith Committee for this area. We met
monthly, mostly at the Canadian Pacific Railway office (where the secretary’s
office was; now the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway). Part of our duties
was to monitor inter-faith facilities at various institutions and their chaplains. I
had the occasion to visit Sarnia General Hospital, North Lambton Rest Home,
Woodstock Hospital, the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre and the London
Psychiatric Hospital. I was with the committee for five years.
30. Childhood recollections
It is really a privilege to have lived through most of the 20th century. I lived
through the 1920s and have many memories of that period, bearing in mind that
during the year 1930 I was only 8 years old.
One of my earliest memories was living at the Comfort Terrace, a quadraplex
on Jefferson Street near the tennis courts. We moved from there to the house
my parents bought on Prince Street when I was four (the house at that time cost
$2,000 and it took 15 years to pay off the mortgage). An early recollection was
very general, that of impressions of the town. At that time the streets of Forest
were not paved and the gravel streets had to be coated with oil every spring to
keep the dust down. In the winter I remember a lot of sleighs and wagons on
runners in the town pulled by horses. I can almost remember the smells at that
time.
Very few people had automobiles then and since anti-freeze had not been
invented, they had to drain their radiators, remove the tires and put their cars
up on blocks before the first freeze-up. Most car owners had either a Ford
Model T or the later Model A’s, but there was the odd Pierce-Arrow, Stutz
Bearcat and LaSalle.
At that time there were four or five livery stables in town that looked after
horses and rented buggies. There were two blacksmith shops, one of which
lasted into the 1930s. Most of these livery stables evolved into garages and
eventually car dealerships as the number of automobiles increased.
The Kineto Theatre on King St. West opened in 1917. My parents took me to
two or three films—they were silent of course. One was “Noah’s Ark” and
another was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. I did not see a talkie movie until about 1928
when I was taken to the Toronto Fair for a few days. The Kineto converted to
talking pictures around 1929 or 1930. All I remember of them was the Saturday
afternoon matinee where they showed serials that always ended with a cliffhanger to get you to come back next week. I think the admission price was 5
cents.
I remember being able to buy bubble gum with a sports or movie star card
for a penny. We collected these things avidly and traded duplicates.

136 Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
These were not the first premium cards. Cigarette packets contained cards, one
of which was a series of golf players. My father collected poker hands in his
packets and when you collected a certain number, you could redeem them for
prizes. I know we got a card table with these poker hands and probably some
other gifts.
Kids today do not realize that up to the age of ten we would have maybe one
birthday party where our friends would be invited. Other birthdays were
family affairs and then not very special.

اختر نصًّا ثانيًا لقراءته بالتوازي — ترجمةً، أو أيّ نصٍّ آخر.