The Long Run (10 page)

Around this time, Robertson wrote a fourteen-page letter about his hearing difficulty, his penmanship much worsened by what he had endured over the few previous years, the words running uphill, and much underlined.
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The response, dated August 22, 1957, from Ottawa—concerning 497—Robertson, Eric—relayed that two “recent lengthy and poorly written letters have been received from this veteran, one at least obviously being written ‘under the influence.’ His main compliant seems to concern pension assessment for an ear condition.”

Robertson’s health was declining, his deterioration fueled by his drinking. In 1957, he fell down some stairs and was admitted to hospital, where he was assessed along familiar lines:

This veteran is becoming rather more rambling in his conversation and at times would appear to have hallucinations. Still drinks whenever he has the chance. He has been separated from his wife [since 1949] but states that she would come back from Boston if he got a job and gave up drinking. Showed a letter from his wife which was certainly most friendly and showed absolutely no animosity.

In 1958 an Investigator’s Report found:

He now states he is without funds or a boarding house, and most of his clothes are at the Cleaners and different laundries. His history of boarding in this city is well known and no one risks recommending him to [the] one or two that remain [in] which he hasn’t stayed. His health generally will fail if he continues in his present way of life. Domiciliary care is now his only hope of survival.

On June 17, 1958, he was re-admitted to Lancaster. “He has not been a difficult patient, but does drink from time to time,” wrote the social worker. “He never gets nasty but is a great talker.” One of the things he liked to talk about were his friendships within the Nova Scotian track-and-field clubs; after the war, he said he had managed different teams in Newfoundland and they often competed on mainland Canada, particularly Halifax. He talked about renewing these relationships and perhaps even his business “although, from his history I would think this would be doubtful […] Mr. Robertson has adjusted well to hospital life but is simply getting tired of it here now.”

At this point, Robertson hoped to be transferred to Camp Hill Hospital in Halifax, but this was denied, and he requested a discharge so he could return to Newfoundland. Lancaster complied but warned it “would be most reluctant to accept him back because of his alcoholism.”

In 1959, P.J. Neary, Senior Pension Medical Examiner with the CPC, found, “He appeared to be neat in appearance but he is inclined to take an occasional drink.” Neary thought he might now be more financially responsible, but the cheques still needed to be issued care of the District Treasury Officer, as Robertson had no fixed address.

On January 28, 1960, Robertson wrote Welfare Services, DVA. His own explanation for returning to St. John’s was
that he had been kept waiting so long for the transfer to Camp Hill to come through he “got fed up.” Of his stay in Lancaster he said, “I stuck it out for one year and two weeks (not bad). I went through a very hard time of it (half nut crowd) but I took it occasionally opening up when forced to it. But rough as I was I never broke as much as a glass there and that’s honest.”

His living conditions were not good:

Since returning home I have had a very hectic time of it. Naturally I realize that I am on my own but I’m forced to take $60.00 boarding houses (rat traps). They promise you good food and heat and as soon as you pay your board in advance all you get it soup, soup and cold—three in a room and nails driven in the wall to hang your hat on. They are all alike. I moved and moved for a better place and ran into the same everywhere—I’m really worn out. You[‘re] treated (soldier) as if you were a civil welfare bum, they get a fairly good show we get nothing and the works and naturally I don’t stand for it. Even in the middle of the month (board in advance) I have been forced to clear out frozen to death and unnourished etc…all my clothes and laundry is outstanding. I can pick all this up if I had my cheques. At present I’m filthy, no change of anything—running on two shirts etc. and they don’t even give you a drop of hot water to wash them out…I don’t know exactly what to do. They are only a crowd of gold and grave diggers and money is their God.

His health was about the same: a “small thin man of very poor nutrition.” He wore glasses and was very hard of hearing. He was talkative, hard to keep on track. His right leg was really hurting him, especially in the cold, and if he turned quickly he lost his balance.

He seemed to think a new environment would be best, and again he requested admittance to Camp Hill in Halifax. And he added, “I have good real friends in Ottawa.” The DVA gave this implicit threat the credit they felt it deserved, but did pursue a spot at Camp Hill. Camp Hill again declined the request and suggested a return to Lancaster. But this was not acceptable to Robertson.

At sixty-eight, he stood five-foot-seven, weighed 105 pounds, and had a fair complexion and grey eyes. Doctors found him difficult to assess as he was so verbose and jumped from subject to subject. Both his legs had abrasions, probably from his stumbling into objects. He said his legs ached at night “‘when the heat is turned off ’ by his boarding mistress.” He was evaluated as needing institutional care.

He did seem to be losing capability to handle his own affairs. On July 3, 1961, CPC correspondence relates, “Mr. Robertson, who incidentally imbibes quite freely, he cashed his June pension cheque, Friday past, and for some unknown reason he either lost or mislaid $60.00 which he had set aside to pay his Board and Lodging. Mr. Robertson was asked to leave the boarding house and was successful in securing another boarding house.” Both landladies involved wanted to deal with the DVA, and Robertson asked to have the office administer his pension. His residence changed constantly, counting down a rosary of low-class, even shady, addresses: Casey Street, Barter’s Hill, a couple of different places on Colonial Street, the Cochrane Hotel. He moved so much he sometimes missed his cheques, and the DVA hoped he would acquire “a somewhat permanent address […] this man is continuously moving from one boarding house to another.”

Four years later he was still assessed as having “no fixed abode. He drifts from one boarding house to another, each successive one being in a poorer location and lower standard.”
He was “unfit for any type of employment,” and had “no car, property, or interest in business.”

In January 23, 1964, he was hit by a car and taken to General Emergency where he needed some stitches to close several lacerations. He was told to return to have the sutures removed but did not do so. However, after this, things did improve. On May 7, 1964, he was accepted as a patient at the DVA Pavilion in St. John’s and was approved for Domiciliary Care on June 1. He was now seventy-two.

Among the care and support he now received were regular allotments of new clothing from Ayre’s Ltd.: hats, fifty-dollar suits, shirts, an overcoat, and handkerchiefs, as well as necessities like an electric razor. His health was much better attended to. His ears, for example, which had never stopped bothering him, were fitted with new hearing aids. His living conditions were better than they had been for years. He had company and he was looked after.

Robertson and his wife never reunited, but he did not forget his obligation to her. In his many, many letters to the CPC and the DVA, he always stressed her right to a portion of his pension. Their relationship was certainly cordial enough that she felt she could approach him about finances, and he always tried to push through the appropriate response.

Their correspondence
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shows that Robertson always tried to help Gertrude. This financial support was informal as it appeared they had no court order or separation agreement, but he seemed to have great sympathy for her situation. In correspondence with CPC he continually sought to increase payments to her; at one point this “model patient” even offered to discharge himself from the DVA Pavilion if that would increase the amount going to his wife by $20 or $50.
He kept up his insurance payments as long as he could and the benefits were in her favour.

Many times the various officials who assessed and observed him remarked, “The veteran and his wife are on amiable terms.” Gertrude continually sent him letters and kept him up-to-date and informed about her health problems, the weather, family visits: “You didn’t answer my last letter, I think it was written July 7th. Did you get any work yet? I’ll probably write again in a couple of weeks. Bye, love, Gertrude.”

They never divorced.

Robertson died of natural causes (congestive heart failure) July 28, 1975, at the Veteran’s Pavilion at General Hospital.

When Robertson died he left “cash in hand and in the bank” $6419.33. After funeral expenses—from Carnell’s with burial at the General Protestant Cemetery—there was $4500, which went to his wife. His epitaph, written on a Latin Cross, reads, “Eric M Robertson, Sergeant, Royal Nfld Regiment, 28 July 1975, Age 82.”

“He was generous, he wanted to share,” said Dr. W. David Parsons, who knew Robertson, and helped with arrangements for his funeral. “His family were very wealthy and a fair amount of family income came to him and he spent it. He never talked about the war…He never talked about the war, and he never talked about the Olympics. He finished thirty-four or thirty-five out of fifty, but he did finish, and he was the last to finish.”
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Indeed, in 1611 pages filed with the DVA, including summary sheets, requisition standing offer agreements, treatment activity records, applications for domiciliary care, disbursement vouchers, case sheets, discharge reports, medical examiner
reports, and numerous detailed personal histories, Robertson seems to have never even mentioned running the Olympic marathon.
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A handwritten note in his file simply reads, “Pensioner died 28-7-75, ‘NF’ district.” No newspaper reports noted that he was one of the First Five Hundred, was wounded at Beaumont-Hamel, or the only Newfoundland-born athlete who had or would ever try to represent his once independent country at an Olympiad.

From the track at St. Bon’s, to his sprint into No Man’s Land at Beaumont-Hamel, through completing the full marathon course in Antwerp, throughout his continuous moves between downtown St. John’s boarding houses most of the latter decades of his life, Eric Mackenzie Robertson had finished his long run.

153
Joseph R. Smallwood, Premier of Newfoundland 1949-1972.

154
See Appendix 2.

155
See Appendix 3 for an example of these correspondences.

156
W. David Parsons, personal interview, 3 March, 2014.

157
Although it may have been referenced (probably not by him) in one of his arguments with the Board of Pensions Commission, “New-found,” 312, footnote 29.

APPENDIX ONE