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A tribute to the life of Hilda Geddes
The Frontenac News printed a full-length feature story on Hilda two years ago (
Down Memory Lane by David Brison, March 30, 1999). We are reprinting that article here in its entirety as a tribute to her life. It is her story, as she wanted it told. D. BrisonDown Memory Lane
March 30, 1999by David Brison
Last week I motored up to Snow Road to visit with Hilda Geddes, our Snow Road reporter, and one of North Frontenac's treasures. Hilda herself has been travelling by train, buggy, and car around Eastern Ontario for most of this century, having missed only the first seven years.
Hilda greeted me at the door of her home -- a small, spry, feisty, and articulate woman with an active and intelligent mind. There wasn't a lull in the conversation the next two hours, except for my own memory lapses.
Her home sits next to the K & P abandoned rail bed. Her family moved to this house from the home she was born in just south of the Mississippi River, in 1912. Her father, John A. Geddes, became the Caretaker/Agent for the K&P railway and the family lived in and operated a store and the Snow Road post office in what is still Hilda's home.
The house now sits alone, but in former days the Snow Road Railway station stood between the house and the tracks. Another building which became known as the Geddes Dance Hall (more about that later) was about 20 feet away. A large warehouse stood on the other side of the tracks -- a reminder of the days when large quantities of maple syrup and pulpwood were hauled in from as far away as Watson's Corners by sleigh and shipped out of the Snow Road Station.
Hilda lived through the heyday of the K&P, when two passenger trains and two freight trains passed through this small complex of buildings every day. In her later years she has preserved that history for others in a series of books on the K&P railway, mail stations, the adjacent Mississippi River, the Snow Road itself, and the Snow Road Presbyterian Church.
The history of the region comes alive in conversation and in her books but it is a mistake to think that Hilda lives in the past.
Her family (parents Blanche and John A., two brothers, and two sisters) and the place (Snow Road) form the backdrop canvas. These have been constants, but the core has been a never-ending series of improvisations on the themes of music, history, writing, bookkeeping, her church and service to her community.
Her response to a general question about aging clearly shows her active approach to life, "I've never minded it (aging), it never bothered me any, I enjoy it, can't do as much as you used to but there is still lots to do. I keep busy and really don't think about getting old ... sometimes I do stop and think, old girl you are 91."
In 1930 she and her sister (Katharine Barrie of Perth) went to Taber Business College in Perth. In addition to bookkeeping and stenography, they were trained to work on the 1931 federal census and both were employed by the Bureau of Statistics for a year. This was the start of an interrupted 28-year career as an Ottawa civil servant sandwiched between return trips back to Snow Road.
She returned home and continued work at the station, store and post office for 9 years. Then in 1939, she studied on her own ("I went upstairs to a room and shut the door') and passed the civil service exams. From 1940-46 she worked in the Dependents Allowance and Assigned Pay department of the Treasury Department, rising to supervisor of filing. From 1946 until she retired in 1967, she worked in the Treasury office of the Department of Trade and Commerce and ended up in auditing at the highest civil service level then open to women.
Hilda returned home most weekends while she was in Ottawa. She had a bad accident while home in 1967. She fell on a wet spot on her kitchen floor and badly injured her leg. She had intended to work for another 5 years in Ottawa but the accident, which left her with a shortened leg (later corrected by surgery), prevented her from returning.
When asked how she learned accounting, she said, "I did the railway, store, and post office books in here", pointing to the comer of the room we were sitting in. "I sat at the post office counter and did the books." She thought she was about 13 at the time.
Her formal education ended at 4th class, equivalent to grade 8 today. Her parents mentioned high school, but didn't insist on it. "At that time girls didn't often go," Hilda says.
Her mother did, however, insist that she practice the piano every day for an hour. Hilda is still making music. She has been the organist at the Snow Road Presbyterian Church since 1924, and just last week played a few chords at music night at the Snow Road Caf
The Geddes were a musical family. In 1925, Hilda (piano), brother Ralph (traps, now called drums), sister Katharine (tenor banjo), and cousin Ray Millar (violin) formed a band which played every Saturday night at the Geddes Dance Hall, a converted workshop next to their house. Men were charged 25 cents and women got in free. 5 gallons of ice cream were shipped in on the K&P and sold at the dances. The band played alternating sets of round dances (waltzes, fox trots) and square dances.
Katharine and Hilda remember that there weren't any fights at their dances like there were in Mississippi, where the caller usually got drunk and started a fight. "My father wouldn't allow any drinking," said Katharine. The band members split the money between them. Katharine remembers that they sometimes made $5.00 -- a big sum in those days,
The Geddes children, along with other young people from Snow Road, also put on a series of three-act plays at the local Oddfellows Hall. The first play in 1927, "Aaron Slick from Punkin Creek," starred Katharine Geddes, Ralph Geddes, and Mabel Millar. The play was presented 7 times to overflowing crowds -- all the way from Plevna on the west, to Ferguson Falls on the east. The Geddes band played between acts, which must have kept Ralph and Katharine busy.
Towards the end of our interview, Hilda recalled that she also acted in 1949 when she was in Ottawa. A Dominion United Church group put on a production of the play, "Mooncalf Mugford". Hilda played the female lead. When the play was first presented, the adjudicator said that he thought Hilda was miscast in the part because she wasn't "crazy" enough. At the final judged performance, at the Little Theatre in Ottawa, Hilda decided on her own, without talking to the other actors or her Director, that she would play it crazy. She did and won first prize.
Hilda wrote her first book in 1975 when she was 69. The book on the Elphin, Snow Road and McDonald's Corners churches was written on the occasion of the Presbyterian Church Centennial in Canada (1875 - 1975). She had not thought of writing for publication, but was urged to do so by her pastor, Orville Forrester (who is still living near Westport). Since then she has published 4 more books: The First Hundred Years: Snow Road Presbyterian Church (1885 - 1985), written with Don St-Pierre and Max Millar; The Canadian Mississippi River (I992). Our Pony Express: Post Offices and Mail Delivery along the old Kick & Push (1997), and Rails & Trails of North Frontenac: The Kingston and Pembroke Railway and The Old Snow Road (1998).
One of the major sources for these books has been the diary kept by her father, John A. Geddes. He started writing in 1907, the year Hilda, who was his oldest daughter, was born, and wrote continuously until shortly before his death in 1966. Hilda also has kept a continuous diary from 1931. Her diary forms the basis for the columns she writes for the Perth Courier and the North Frontenac News. She has been filing these reports from Snow Road since the early 70s.
Hilda has had major surgery and radiation treatments in the last six months, but if she hadn't told me, I wouldn't have known. It seems not to have dampened her spirits.
Music, writing, bookkeeping, history, church and service to her community continue to engage her as she enters her 90s. She still sits down to work at her desk every day. The desk is one that came out of the old train station. She keeps it up to date with an electronic typewriter and fax. I wouldn't be surprised if the next time I came to her home, she had added a computer.
