These three letters have as their background the centre of the Junior’s life: classes, term papers and particularly exams. Yet there is also attention to family matters, i.e., waiting for a baby to be born, the new house being built on the farm, promised family pictures, and birthdays!
IGNATIUS COLLEGE
Guelph, Ontario
Jan. 12, 1964
Dear Mum and Dad,
This letter was going to be written during the weekend but missed it by a day. It would have missed by a week but fortunately the electricity failed and so it is too dark to do any reading or studying and so…..
What ridiculous weather we are having these days! Today it is almost forty degrees [F] and rain is falling. Last week it was close to thirty [F] most of the time. It creates great havoc with the hockey rink and it freezes suddenly the roads will be like skating rinks. I hope that you are having some decent weather at home.
How is Bernice [eldest sibling]? Is there no news yet [about the birth of her baby]? I will probably get a letter right after I mail this letter.
Well believe it or not it has been a rather busy time for me during the past week or so. Right now we are in an [daily] order that we call ‘repetitions’. This time is set aside, to prepare for the exams on the Greek and Latin authors, to read ahead in the other courses for the next term, and anything else you have time for. I also have classes at the O.A.C. [Ontario Agricultural College] now, so that takes a good chunk of the week. (Last week in the lab we took apart a shark. I should say every two students dissected a shark. What we do is the same thing you do when you clean a fish, only we work with smaller tools, draw what we find, and identify it. We will be taking all the systems of the frog next month and after that the pig. Imagine me doing that type of work!) I was going to do a bit of review of German during this time but…..
I have only gotten one mark from the term exams so far, from the O.A.C. Since we haven’t finished the exams here yet, those marks are not out. I was fortunate enough to make an ‘A’ in Zoology. It is doubtful if the rest of my marks will be as favourable but one can only do so much.
Before I go any further I should thank Marlene for her letter. I should also remark on the lovely pictures you sent me They really did back the pleasant memory of your visit. The falls really do look impressive in your snaps and the fall pictures are beautiful. I showed the picture of me and the skunk to one of my brothers. He naively asked, “Which is which?” I hope the pictures I am taking for you will all turn out. Up to now I have been very particular about the subject and the lighting etc. so they should.
Right now we are having forty hours devotion. The devotions will end tomorrow morning. I will take a picture or two of the solemn high mass because the gold vestments add somuch to the beauty of the ceremony.
Last week I had a visitor. This came as a pleasant shock. I ought to be kicked, but I have forgotten the lad’s name. Perhaps it will come back to me later. In any case, he is a seminarian in Regina whose home is here in Guelph. Apparently Father Bartin [the priest at St. Pete’s, the family home parish in SK] met him at Christmas time and told him about me. He came to the college with his people to have a parlour [visit] with another brother they know here and so I metand chatted with him.
Well, I’ve run out of words so I’ll have to close. I hope you are all well and that the water system etc. [at the new house in SK] is working well. There is abit of flu going around here but it does not appear to be very serious. It is a good thing we all had shots or I suppose there would be trouble.
Please say an extra little prayer for me on Thursday and Friday because on those days we have our exams. Besides a written exam in each language there is also oral exams. It will be an experience to stand before a number of examiners answering (or I should say trying to answer) questions.
Love
Frank
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IGNATIUS COLLEGE
Guelph, Ontario
Feb. 8, 1964
Dear Mum and Dad;
Well, exams are all over for another term and the new work is already piling up for this one. They did not go too badly except for orals. It is a good thing they can not affect the mark we receive in the written exams. You see they [oral exams] are to prepare us for Philosophy, during which time most of the exams are oral exams. I must say it was quite an experience but next time it will be much better.
Please thank Myrna for her lovely, long letter. It was good to hear from her. All the best to her whole family and special greeting to Charles senior and Charles junior. I’m look forward to receiving those pictures she promised to send.
Thank Lil for her long letter too. It was good to hear she is much better and getting back ‘into the groove’. I was especially glad to hear the Marlene, Ed, Bill and Lil took advantage of that new retreat house [St Michael’s Retreat House, Lumsden SK]. I am of the opinion that every Catholic should make retreats regularly. It is impossible now but perhaps sometime in the future it will be. Speaking of retreat houses, our retreat house is really coming along. [Now called Ignatius Jesuit Centre and Loyola House] All the walls are up, in fact, the whole buildingis already closed in. There is a hold-up because the windows are delayed (because of a strike) but everything is covered with plastic. It should be quite lovely when it’s completed. I shall takea picture of it so you will be able to see it.
Well, Bernice is sure having to wait. It’s one month now isn’t it? Every day I watch the mail to see if there is any news yet. All the best to her and the whole family. [Her son, Raymond, was finally born February 5]
Lillian tells me that Alex [brother-in-law] is doing quite well in curling this year. I hope his luck continues through the rest of the season. (I suppose that is an insult because curling takes a lot of skill, so I’ll say I hope his skill surpasses all his opponents’ for the rest of the season.)
Do you still have Valentine parties at school, Rosemary and Mathew? How are you doing in school and what are you doing for entertainment and to keep busy? What is like doing chores without having to drag water?
How’s the house coming? I hope you’re almost done so that you can relax a bit before the spring sets in. What’s it like living in the new house? (My, I am in an inquisitive mood this afternoon.) What do you do in the evenings? Is it the same as when I was still at home (E.g. T.V., sewing, etc.) or do you paint etc.?
During the past few weeks we have been having the strangest weather. It was so warm that we couldn’t skate. In fact most of the snow melted. However the weather is now colder and quite a bit of snow has fallen in the past two days. The last couple days have thus been busy ones because if we wanted to play hockey for the next fews days, which are ‘sort of’ holidays, we had to keep the rink clean and try to flood. But the snow foiled most of our flooding.
I am trying to finish that Christmas film [photograph film] so I will send it next week. I made a new mural for our recreation wall for lent and Easter so I will take a picture of that also.
Well, my brain seems to be dry at the moment and I can think of only two more things to tell. First, last night I was elected president of our debating society. (So that means I will have to study up on how to run meetings, debates, forums ‘und so weiter’.) Secondly, I will be chanter for Palm Sunday and most of the Easter Ceremonies. This is a ‘job’ I will share with another brother for there are always two chanters. All they do is intone most of the singing for the choir and the rest of the congregation.
So with those last two fragments I must close.
Please remember me in your prayers.
Love
Frank
P.S. – Happy Birthday to Charles Jr. (My next letter might not make it on time.) He’ll be three won’t he?
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IGNATIUS COLLEGE
Guelph, Ontario
Mar. 11, 1964
Dear Mum and Dad;
Yesterday I had a small qualm of conscience, for it seemed that I did not write home for quite a long time. I think it has only been two and one half weeks but it may be more. Last month and this month were and are such busy ones that time is going faster than it has ever done for me before, so that accounts for my slip of memory.
Two weeks ago we had a mid term exam in Zoology, and low and behold I achieved something I have not done since grade eleven geometry, that is, full marks in an exam. True, it is just a mid term exam but it will certainly help my term mark and also my final, for the final mark is the average of the two term marks. I still haven’t received my marks from the Xmas exams but I know they weren’t too ‘hot’, especially Latin composition. For some reason I have always had difficulty with composition, whether it was in English or Latin. Perhaps I just did not get enough practice in composition in public school. In any case I shall have to make up for it now. (Although I don’t know my marks I have been told that there was a pass mark in all exams)
At present I am head over heels in work. There are deadlines to meet in a lot of subjects. You see all of us have to write two or three term papers. These ‘essays’ are to be from five to nine typed pages long. In them we are to discuss and give our learned opinions (I say ‘learned’ because the amount of research necessary is astounding. However it is a fabulous method learning because you can pick a subject that you are interested in. But, of course, it must be related to the subject you are writing it for, e.g., literature, Greek history, American history etc.) on certain aspects of certain subjects. (I must say, that last parenthesis was too long!) I have my English term paper all lined up. My subject is Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I intend to outline various critic’s views on why Hamlet delayed so long in killing his uncle, the king; then I will try to explain why there are so many different views. I have a general idea what I will do for my Greek term paper but I have not done enough research yet to decide exactly.
[Page 2 of the letter is missing. Considering that the letters were circulated to family and relatives, it is not surprising that this should happen.]
…the visibility almost nill. I do not think that this snow will last too long though. I hope this cold weather will not freeze out the little tulip bulbs that were starting to peek out. (We planted them under the big ‘bay’ window you can see in the front of the building; so it being such a sheltered place and so close to the building I guess the bulbs began to grow.)
Last night one of the old fathers passed to his reward. You probably saw him when you were here. He was the Father in the wheel chair. When someone does so close to home it strikes to a person how fleeting this world is and shows how important it is to prepare well for your own time.
Please remember me in your prayers.
Love
Frank
P.s. – I am finally sending that film and also the Society year book. – Also a happy second birthday to Myrna’s Susan!
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All photographs courtesy of Frank Obrigewitsch, SJ