Oh Canada

My Dad and Me

Somewhere in Canada

Summer 1993

   In the summer of 1993 my parents and I traveled to Canada to attend a family reunion for my dad's side of the family.  My dad's mother, Mary Walsh Maguire, was born in Canada and immigrated to New York, where, among other things, she became a nurse and got married and had six children.  As for my Canadian ancestors, my gggg-grandparents, Donald Bah McDougald and Catherine McKinnon McDougald immigrated to Canada from Scotland and acquired a homestead on Lot Number 5 in the 4th Concession of the township of Kenyon in 1790-ish.  In 1993, my dad's Canadian family were celebrating 200 years at 5/4 Kenyon so we loaded up the car and drove from Tennessee to Alexandria, Ontario to be there.  I'll admit that at the time I was a just a little bit reluctant to take a several weeks long car trip with my parents to Canada, but am so happy now that I "agreed" to go. As it turned out, this was the last trip my parents and I took as a family of three (Joel and I started dating that fall) and the weeks we spent in Canada were the last we had before my mother was diagnosed with MS (her doctor waited until we got back to give her the diagnosis because he said he didn't want to ruin our trip).    And I did have fun, in spite of my twenty-two year old self.

My Mother and Me

Shortly before she told me I needed an attitude adjustement.

That's my cousin, Edward, there on the left.