By Ben McIntyre – Nanaimo, B.C.
At the age of 20 and with only one year of teaching experience, I was sent to the new town of Uranium City, Sask., in September, 1952 to open the first school in that northern mining community.
It was my first real airplane ride, starting in Prince Albert in a WWII Avro Anson. We made stops in La Ronge and Stony Rapids before continuing on to the Beaverlodge Airport at Uranium City.
On my arrival in the new town of Uranium City, I found the school did not yet exist and that the materials for building the school had not even arrived yet!
In mid-November, the one-roomed school (with me working alongside the carpenter crew) was finally completed and I welcomed 40 children in Grades 1 to 10. It was soon drawing near to the Christmas break and my very first Christmas away from home.
Lonely and alone
One evening a few days before Christmas, feeling lonely and alone, I sat in my tiny two-room apartment (built onto one end of the classroom) and composed a poem which I called, Away From Home At Christmas as I envisioned a very lonely Christmas Eve:
I know the tree is all alight,
In my far away home tonight.
All the kids and Dad and Mom,
I know are having loads of fun.
I wish that I could be there too,
Instead of sitting here so blue.
Oh, I can almost see them hanging stockings
‘Round the tree.
I wonder as I reminisce,
If they’re hanging one for me?
Of course I’m not the only son,
Who isn’t home for all the fun.
There’ll be many a mother say a prayer
For her boy who isn’t there.
But still it is so sad to be,
Away from home on Christmas Eve.
The next day while walking to the post office, I met a diamond driller whom I knew only slightly. We stopped to chat and he inquired, “What are you doing Christmas Eve, Ben?” I sadly replied I would be spending it alone in my apartment.
“You can’t spend Christmas Eve alone. Come and have dinner with my wife and me,” he replied. So on that, my first Christmas Eve away from home, I went to the home of Simon Jutras. While his wife prepared Christmas dinner, Simon and I played with their preschool children.
After a sumptuous meal with all the trimmings, the children opened their gifts. Just before midnight, I warmly thanked my hosts and returned to my abode feeling much less lonely and sad over my first Christmas away from home and family.
