The thunderstorm started at 5am. Cathy’s dog, Hennessey, got me up not long after. Dogs generally aren’t fans of loud noises and this dog isn’t a fan of thunderstorms. I knew then it was going to be a long day.
Today was the second event that we had to plan around on this vacation. Originally, the only event was the Louis Tomlinson concert. But after Janice died in April, we had to add her wishes to our agenda: an internment in St. Thomas.
Janice’s grandfather had acquired several plots in the St. Thomas Cemetery for his family and their descendants. How far down the line he’d expected the burials to go, I don’t know, but there was more than enough room to cover to Janice and her siblings. And it was Janice’s wish to be buried alongside her parents.
Well, interned. Janice was cremated a few days after she passed, and it would be some of her ashes that would be laid in the ground. And to be really pick, the term on the paperwork was “contained”, as if we were becoming Ghostbusters to intern her vengeful spirit. (Honestly, the words some people choose…)
First, though, we had to get to St. Thomas. We needed to be out of the house around 9am to give us enough time to get to the Cemetery on time, including any delays and necessary side-trips (such as lunch). To a bit of my surprise, the QEW wasn’t a nightmare heading west (we got to the Royal Botanical Gardens in a mere 20 minutes), and were well on our way past Hamilton before long.
The drive was uneventful and relatively swift, needing barely 1.75 hours, including a missed exit and a detour to avoid a closed road (someone’s getting a large highway upgrade north of St. Thomas). We found ourselves driving down St. Thomas’ main drag, Talbot Street.
I’d been to St. Thomas only once before, a little over 20 years ago, when Alex and I had flow out for her grandfather’s funeral. (Sadly, I ended up not being able to attend due to work requirements – I’d VIA’d back to Toronto and flown out the day of; remote work wasn’t yet a thing). I remembered precious little of it. Except for the primary railway things, which we’ll get to…
St. Thomas is a lot larger than most people will think. It’s in Southwestern Ontario and isn’t London, therefore it’s small. At over 42,000 people, it’s much larger than most, and that’s due in part to its history as a rail centre. St. Thomas owes its existence and much of its growth due to the railways (yes, plural), which led to the founding of several businesses that used said railways due to their connections.
In particular was the Canadian Southern Railway (aka CASO), founded by the Michigan Central Railroad in the 1880s to provide a shortcut between Buffalo, NY and Detroit, MI. The CASO ran across southwestern Ontario in very straight lines, as the grade is fairly flat. CASO sat itself in St. Thomas, roughly halfway between Niagara Falls, Canada and Windsor, the two gateways into the United States of America.
The CASO survived various failures and mergers over the years, becoming parts of New York Central, Penn Central, Conrail, before being purchased by CN and CP equally to avoid anyone else owning it. The last passenger train was in 1979, the last end-to-end operation in 1996. In the early 2000s, the tracks were mostly pulled. The only active part of the CASO that remains today is the tunnel built under the St. Clair River between Windsor and Detroit, which is owned and operated by CPKC. Only the artefacts remain, notably tunnel, the bridges over the rivers, and the St. Thomas station (which was also the CASO headquarters) and the St. Thomas Shops (now the Elgin County Railway Museum).
The other railways (remember, plural) also eventually left. The Pere Marquette had tracks from Windsor and Sarnia to St. Thomas, after which it was trackage rights on the CASO. After it was merged with C&O (later CSX), the railway’s access vanished. The Wabash, a storied American railroad, had leased the Great Western Railway (later amalgamated into the Grand Trunk) across Southern Ontario, also securing its Canadian headquarters in St. Thomas, until the Wabash was acquired by Pennsylvania Railroad, which had trackage rights on the CASO, and sold its line to Canadian National (the successor to the Grand Trunk). The London & Port Stanley, an electrified line, ran passenger services until the late 1950s alongside its freight, but the rise of the automobile left only shipments to and from Port Stanley’s cargo docks. CN bought the line in the 1960s, renaming it the Talbot Subdivision. Eventually, the line to Port Stanley was severed entirely by CN and the tracks pulled from a junction just north of CN’s east-west Cayuga Subdivision. Today, the remains of the L&PS are the Port Stanley Terminal Railway, which is a tourist train running between Port Stanley and St. Thomas. CP’s tracks were eventually leased to Ontario Southland, which handles the small freight requirements still operating between St. Thomas and Woodstock.
St. Thomas has endured all of that, including the loss of industry that depended on those key railway connections: a Ford plant, a Sterling trucks plant, and some automotive-adjacent businesses. That’s not suggest that St. Thomas doesn’t have its challenges – there are a number of people with mental health challenges and drug addition that roam the downtown.
The family almost simultaneously spotted Purely Wicked, a “witch” store. We’ve found several of these over our travels and they’re often interesting. We ended up circling the block to find a place to park (conveniently out in front). Time was not on our side for today, but a quick glance told us that closer inspection was required tomorrow.
First, lunch. Someone spied a sign about “Railway City Brewing”, which I think was Alex, and that decided lunch. There’s something about breweries and food that seem to go well together.
Railway City lives up to its name: it’s all train-themed beers, including one called “Dead Elephant”. That’s a St. Thomas-specific reference to when Jumbo the Elephant was killed in an accident not far from where Railway City operates. It’s a moment that St. Thomas seems to perpetually atone for – there’s elephants all over the city in murals, and a life-size statue was erected, sitting near the Elevated Park on the west side of the city.
The food was acceptable, though I wouldn’t call it stellar. However, given the cost of the food, I couldn’t complain – it was by far one of the least expensive meals we’ve had in ages.
We headed over to the St. Thomas Cemetery in the southwest. We parked on the street as we saw Dugauld arrive in the Cemetery office to talk with the attendant. We followed in, as there was some matters to attend to. In particular, the burial box.
Dugauld had spend the previous couple of months working on a very special box for Janice’s ashes. I think Alex and I had envisioned a nice, orthogonal box. Dugauld had understood the assignment from his sister: it had to be artistic. It was as if someone had taken a rectangular box and pushed it on its long side, then pulled it up, making the box both curved and slightly tapered. Then he nested boxes within boxes as a purpose: The largest box was for Janice. The next three boxes, all nested within each other, were for Alex, Monkey, and Choo Choo. A final cutout from the smallest box was for me.
We quietly opened and unsealed the bag containing Janice’s ashes and added them to the largest box, adding in some fur from her cat Ceyx, and a tag from the last teddy bear she had purchased (she collected many bears). We then headed out to the small tent top erected over the grave site.
The hole had already been dug, a temporary lid overtop made of plywood and fake grass with a handle. The crowd, mostly family, assembled and the minister now running the church in Kintore where Janice once preached, made a speech while we eyed the skies: thunderstorms had been predicted and we didn’t know how much time we had.
In lieu of an around-the-table opportunity for people to speak, Dugauld suggested something where people offered 1-2 words that would describe their view of Janice. “Generous”, “creative”, “independent”, “curious”, “hugging” were a few of the dozen suggested. Mine was “cursed”. Because amongst those other words, Janice had a habit of trying to fix her computer problems on her own, which tended to make her problems worse. I know I will look back on those moments and smile.
The box was placed in a beautiful dark blue bag, created by Janice’s sister, Kenella. (She couldn’t attend the ceremony today, as she’s caring for her husband, Allan, who has health troubles of his own. Her sons Blair and Alistair were both in attendance.) Alex then laid her mother’s ashes to rest in the shallow grave, replacing the lid. The minister resumed with a prayer, some of the speech cut short as thunder continued to rumble above as the skies darkened considerably.
As spots of rain started to fall, we collected things and shook hands. In particular, I thanked (a different) Allan, who now owns the Campbell Family farmhouse outside of St. Thomas, who has been more than generous in his contact with the Campbells (Janice, Dugauld, and Kenella) about the renovations they’ve been doing to bring it back to its original state. It had meant a lot to Janice to see her childhood home and to walk in the forest that she’d known as a child.
Then came the downpour. Biblically torrential rain upended on the tiny tent, people fled for their nearby cars. Ours was 200 metres away on the street. I was elected to retrieve the car.
Normally, in cemeteries, I stick to the roads and rows between graves. When you’re faced with potential drowning, you make other decisions. Mine was to run diagonally across every green space, over numerous graves, passing other family members with umbrellas. By the time I got to the car, I was well-soaked.
And suck it, Sixt – you assholes won’t refund us for the reservation you wouldn’t honour, so I drove the car. Bite me.
The tent was nearly collapsing under the load of water being dumped upon it. As I pulled up next to it, Alex and the girls sprinted out. Alex took the nearest door, behind me, forcing Choo Choo to run around to the passenger side.
We headed over to Pinafore Park, where we would shelter under one of the “century old” covered areas to chat a bit until the rain finally ceased about an hour later. Some of the family then had to depart for their return trips, the rest of us continued our journey south to Port Stanley.
Port Stanley is, today, a sleepy community on the shores of Lake Erie, bracketing Kettle Creek as it empties into the lake. We were staying at the eponymously-named Kettle Creek Inn, at the junction of Sunset, Joseph, and Bridge streets. It’s a small place, which according to Alex, Dugauld, and Lynn, has been slowly worse with each passing year. But there wasn’t a B&B to be had for this week.
Although it was still spattering somewhat, I went for a walk down Main Street on the east side, eventually crossing over to the riverwalk for a better view of the water and the town.
Port Stanley has a storied past. At the turn of the previous century, it was a major port and shipbuilding location on Lake Erie. It was also a tremendously popular destination for Londoners to come for lakeside relaxing and entertainment. As it was a significant port (thanks to the L&PS’s connection with St. Thomas and London), it was a port of call for ferries from Toledo and Cleveland, coal imports from the US, and a significant fishery (which still exists in a small version today).
And there were huge attractions, like the Stork Club, which featured a 13,000 square foot dance floor (the largest between Niagara and Windsor), which attracted big name performers like Guy Lombardo and his orchestra.
But as with all things, the automobile allowed crowds to go other places and the attraction of the lakeside waned. The need for coal diminished, the ferries stopped coming, and slowly Port Stanley shrank. It’s still a weekend destination and there are many B&Bs and cottages for rent, but it’s heyday has long since passed.
I crossed the King George VI bridge (a bascule-style lift bridge) to the west side to check out the PSTR terminal station and the trains parked there. It was closed today, unfortunately, and won’t reopen until after we leave tomorrow, so the best I could do was look around at the the equipment parked on the two tracks. I had to imagine what it once looked like, where there were several tracks going around the station, and extending over Bridge Street down to the old steamer terminal (which is today a restaurant and a brewery).
Spying more equipment up the line, I wandered up Carlow, which parallels the track, to get a view of what PSTR has stashed in their small yard. Also festooned with “No Trespassing” signs, I opted to look from above on the hill, before heading back down to the station.
I toyed with the idea of stopping into the Port Stanley Brewery for a pint. As I was approaching the proscribed 5:30pm dinner time at Riva, the restaurant adjacent to the Brewery in the old steamer terminal building, I opted only for a peek into the brewery before finding my way to our table.
Slowly the family collected. Riva is quasi-Italian. It certainly has Italian names for the dishes, but is by and large a regular restaurant. It’s not terrible, but tries to punch higher than it is. I still got my Port Stanley pint.
Dessert was ice cream at Broderick’s, a small shop on the way back to the hotel. We crowded the sidewalk as we licked away at our treats. After, we gathered in the gazebo at the Inn to chat further. The very early morning finally caught up to me, however, and I had to pull the plug and retire for some much-needed rest.
Tomorrow, with luck, will be more trains.
