Tuesday, July 01
I was up at 09:00. Took some messages uptown then met Walt. He was on his way across so I went over with him and we got back at 14:00. I came down to the station. Jack was here. A message came thru that Col. Forde was enroute from Edmonton and would be here this afternoon. He is coming in with a RCAF plane. We did some cleaning up and got things ready for inspection if he came. They held their annual sports here but owing to the fact that we expected the Colonel here at any time, we did not take part in the baseball as was planned. There was a dance at Lanouettes and we all went up. I had 2 dances and came home about 01:00.
Wednesday,July 02
No word of Col. Forde yet today. Punch Dickens came in from McMurray and said that he would be here tonight. There was a RCAF plane come over at 19:00 and Jack and I went downy he hill to meet him and bring him up to the station but it was a false alarm. I went back to Pearsons and stayed there till about 23:00 then went uptown and had a cup of coffee and came home to bed. When I got there Kay told me that the Col. had arrived and was upstairs in bed. He had just gone up.
Friday, July 04
Started the Delco at 09:00. The Col. arrived here at 10:00 and looked over the place. About 11:00 he and Jack were in the office having a conference and I was upstairs reading when there was a crash and thump down in the engine room then silence. I went downstairs on the gallop and Joe was just ahead of me getting to the engine room. The piston had broken and the connecting rod bearing and what was left of the piston crashed thru the crankcase and spread out on the floor and there was oil all over the place. The oil in the Delco had flashed and fire was spouting out so I put it out with the pyrene. The flywheel was still revolving and I had to wait till it stopped to do anything. As soon as it stopped, I took it down to see what was needed. We needed a new crankcase with cover, crankshaft, piston assembly and cylinder. Col. Forde ordered them right away to be shipped from Edmonton via plane and instructed the operators to reduce transmission to a mere essential. A service was sent to all stations advising them of the breakdown. I started in to see what could be done in the way of a temporary repair. I made a plate to fit over the hole which was about the size of a dinner plate and when it was screwed on I set about putting in the spare piston assembly we had. The crankshaft is badly dented but it may last out till the new one gets here. I ground it as smooth as I could with sandpaper. I sealed the joint in the tin plate with Smoothen ( an iron cement ). Walt heard about it and came over about 23:00 to help me. He tried to get over before but couldn't get over as the cars were in Fitz. I was finished when he got here so we tried it out. The engine ran smoothly and didn't leak any oil so I shut it off till morning. We went back uptown and had a cup of coffee and I came home. Joe and Cecil were at Fitz at the dance.
Saturday, July 05
Started the Delco this morning but after 2 hours operation the seam began to open out and leak oil. I shut it down and patched it some more and allowed it to set but the voltage was getting low and I decided that it would have to go whether it threw oil or not. It did and after I shut down at 18:00, I mopped up 3 quarts of good oil. The Col. was down today and chatted with me for a half hour. He told me that I could bank on coming out to Borden next spring. I was slated for Camp Borden this spring but they had to postpone it owing to several new stations going in.
Went over to the Halfway after supper.
Epilogue:
I hope that some of the families of the other characters find this.
Unfortunately the journal ends here. But not the story, Nona comes back in a few weeks, with baby Yvonne and spends another winter in the North till they go to Camp Borden where Gris becomes a teacher for other Signalmen. Other than for short times, they are never apart again for the next 65 years.
Gris spends his working life (post army much later) in electronics going from radio, to TV and eventually to computer parts. He was laid off when he was 86 because the electronics wholesale he worked for went into receivership. I remember how ‘mad’ he was and would say things like “ Who will hire me now? (at 86), so he grudgingly retired. But through an era of such rapid change, his first and true ‘love’ always remained the radio.
--- Deborah Cousins
PS No wonder they were so good at Bridge.
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