The Long Run (9 page)

During my drinking period (the brain was gone) I drew up to nearly Six thousand dollars
¹⁴⁹
on my business building. I decided to sell it, and fix things up, including another two thousand [in] personal accounts. I got $12,000.00 for the building—which left me finally about $3,300.00—this was a few months before I went to hospital. Well, that $3,000.00 got the Works (as I was still drinking) and the boys saw to it that it did—the tail end of it was $600.00 (Cash Cheques) during my stay at one of the hotels in the city, in 10 days; previous to going to hospital from there. The hospital bill was around $500.00, and I spent several hundred dollars playing “Santa-Claus,” to the patients etc. I bet $500.00 that Mayor Carnell (late) would be re-elected, and lost it.
¹⁵⁰
I signed a note [for] $350.00 to help out a Doctor (who was nearly as bad as I was) to get him on his feet again and got stuck for it, but he is okay now, and paying it back gradually.

When I left the hospital I had just under $1000.00 left. I struggled along, and when it got down to around $750.00 the Doctor’s note came due, and he was unable to meet it, so they very nicely charged it into my account, that left me with less than $400.00. I struggled along until June 1950, when I had exactly one dollar & 62 cents left, in my account which is still open, with that handsome amount in it.

During the period, July 1949, to May 1950, I was sending my wife a substantial amount (I don’t know how much, it is only a brain puzzler to try and think how much) to keep things going in Waltham.

Since May 1950, I have been unable to send even one dollar, as I have earned very little, and as you know that is non-support. My wife had to take a position, to live and look after our daughter, who was then in High School. The daughter
they have worked it out, somehow or other, between them.

My Wife is now 45 years old (Dec. 8th) and she is just entering a dangerous state of life, and from now on will find the going very hard, and may have to cut down work to 3/4 days a week.

There is fortunately nothing wrong between my wife and myself, and she is willing to return here, as soon as I can obtain a position, with a reasonable salary, so I can support her, and give her the standard of living, we were always used to.

I have made a great fight the last two years to adjust myself, and I have succeeded, but on account of my age, 59 (lively for my age) find it rather difficult to get placed.

Fortunately, I joined the Liberal Party in the election just over.
¹⁵¹
“Spontaneously”, as I absolutely believe in Premier, Hon. J. R. Smallwood’s “Economic Development Programme.” etc., and fought for St. John’s West End district. I got lots of friends in Joey’s Cabinet and Party and I have no doubt that I will be placed within a reasonable time, especially when the Industries open
up,
¹⁵²
and they know, that they can rely on me.

Now that is exactly my position at the present time and all I need is a little lift for the wife to tide her over until I can get her back here—and in the meantime I got to knock it out somehow, in spite of my War Wounds,—discharging-ears, Varicose Veins, small hernia, and a run-down Condition. I was 127 pounds last year—on Dec. 5th I tipped 107 pounds on the “DVA scales.”

My only income at present is my 10% pension, $9.40 a month. $6.00 per week I get from the Doctor, and the odd resale I make around town. I got two weeks work, with the Liberal Party, and starting today (Dec. 10th) I am getting two weeks work at the General Post Office (Xmas rush).

I owe
$533.70 (arrears) board & as they have a very small income, they need it badly, and I cannot expect them, to
support
me.

I am receiving absolutely nothing from the DVA, or any organization, in allowances, or benefits etc.

I could write a lot more, but I guess this “episode” is to[o] long now.

I feel sure that you will give my application every consideration. (Nothing ventured, nothing won) and I sincerely hope for a little break, for my wife and myself.

Yours truly
Eric Robertson

“
Confidential
”

136
See Appendix 1 for the original letter.

137
Though he no longer owned the house, he was staying with his sisters.

138
Douglass.

139
These gaps due to DVA redactions.

140
Eric Robertson was 53, Gertrude 39 (birthday Dec. 8, 1906), Douglass 14.

141
These events were concurrent with the ending of WWII. Hitler’s death was April 30, 1945, with German surrender May 7, and V-E Day May 8. War in the Pacific theatre continued until Japan surrendered on September 2.

142
Probably his wife’s aunts, who had helped raise her.

143
Boston-based department stores, now owned by Macy’s.

144
A rival Boston flagship store, now closed.

145
J. B. White, a defunct chain of stores in the southeastern US.

146
The Foreign Exchange Board was created by the Commission of Government on September 1, 1939, one of the components of the Act for the Defence of Newfoundland.

147
Inflammation of one or more nerves.

148
LSD was another treatment for alcoholism at this time.

149
All 1951 amounts worth about ten times more in 2014 dollars.

150
On November 8, 1949, Harry G. Mews defeated Andrew C. Carnell for Mayor of St. John’s in the general municipal election.

151
November 26, 1951. The Liberals won 24 seats with 63.6% of the vote: the PCS 4 seats and 35.6%.

152
Smallwood’s early plans for industrialization included mining iron ore in western Labrador, constructing a third pulp and paper mill in Bay D’Espoir, and opening a cement mill in Corner Brook. The Stephenville linerboard mill and Come By Chance oil refinery would also become part of this strategy.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

T
HE
W
AR
V
ETERAN’S
Allowance District Reviewer’s Summary confirmed, “At one time he owned property valued at from ten to twelve thousand dollars,” his share from the family estate. Now Robertson’s “bank account shows a balance of $1.62.” His appearance was described as “pale, frail, delicate strained expression…looks all of stated age,” and “his past mental history poor.” At fifty-nine he still listed his career as a manufacturer’s agent, but at this point he was considered “permanently unemployable.”

In 1951 he was living at 24 Bonaventure Avenue, noted as his sister’s home. His gunshot wounds were judged “10% in extent,” and he was awarded a pension based on this. Payments were effective May 30, 1951. This was the beginning of a continuous back-and-forth between Robertson and the CPC over issues of his health, pension allotments, and support for his wife.

On January 9, 1952, the War Veterans’ Allowance Board investigated Robertson’s W.V.A. application. This was the beginning of more than two decades of periodic and detailed assessments that would sound a similar tenor. By regular systematic routine, his identity was established by documents and personal acquaintance. It verified the story Robertson related in his letters and found “a definite financial need.” A
consultant’s report on Robertson’s psychiatric condition, submitted by C.H. Pottle, M.D., detected a history of hypo-mania, a mood state characterized by disinhibition and energetic talkativeness, “a definite flight of ideas.”

Robertson had been “a heavy drinker,” suffering “mania bouts and during these episodes has been resorting to alcohol.” Pottle added a “Diagnosis (2) Manic depressive psychosis.”

In December of that year, Robertson protested a clawback on his pension attributed to some short-term work as a messenger with the province’s Tourist Division (then a subset of the Department of Economic Development): “I received a phone call from the Premier’s
¹⁵³
office that I was wanted there. I immediately went to Canada House […] I feel I received this three months temporary employment (light work) out of sympathy.”

Robertson had tried to report this, but due to some misunderstanding and the July St. George’s Day holiday, the allowance was cancelled. “Why all the haste,” he wrote, “I need this little increase badly & I am helping myself, in spite of all I have gone through, & I am still struggling along […] Between the Department & Ottawa you got me ‘all arsed up.’”

In this letter, Robertson also mentions that he is “trying to pay arrears of board.” Although Robertson lived on Bonaventure Avenue with his sisters into the early 1950s, and seemed to list that as his address for a period after, around this time he had, as the Head of Medical Social Service later wrote,

Gone on some kind of veteran’s outing and started drinking heavily […] At this time too, he left his sisters and boarded out […] He pointed out that they remained very friendly and he went there for meals, but it was better for him not to live there.

By February 1955, he was dismissed from his tourism job “due to unsatisfactory service.” From this point, he never really worked again, nor did he settle into a new home. Again and again his assessments and War Veterans Allowance Investigative Reports record that he was not “presently employed,” his income was “Nil,” and (not unsympathetically), “It is this writer’s opinion that because of his present physical condition it is doubtful whether this pensioner will be successful in obtaining work.” He continued to press for coverage for his ear trouble, and in 1953 received an increase in his disability pension for this reason.

The reports of his on-and-off drinking binges continued. Another report mentions Korsakoff ’s syndrome, a psychiatric dementia syndrome named for Russian neuropsychiatrist Sergei Korsakoff linked to severe Vitamin B deficiency and including episodes of confabulation, of inventing memories to fill gaps in one’s personal internal narrative.

He tried to obtain an advance on his pension, and a loan, from the Bank of Nova Scotia. This was brought to the attention of the Canadian Pension Committee, and they sought to administer his financial affairs “in view of this pensioner’s indebtedness and recent drinking episodes.”

Admitted to Lancaster Hospital in Lancaster, New Brunswick, June 28, 1956, he had bronchitis, weighted “109 (striped to the waist),” and complained of ringing in his right ear (“Get a noise in my right ear all the time”), as well as a number of other non-critical problems including swollen feet and aching legs (“The right leg is weak. Feel not too bad”). He was warned about and reprimanded for drinking.

Even from within the institution, he was still connected to his family. On June 2, 1956, it was noted, “Patient is on pass attending his daughter’s wedding in the States.”

He was discharged “at own request” from Ridgeway Health and Occupational Centre on March 7, 1957, and returned to Newfoundland on March 16, 1957, “very thin, and extremely talkative.” His economic situation had not improved. “No bank balance. No cash on hand.” Mr. Ash had written Oliver Vardy, then Director of Tourist Development, to see if there was any hope of Robertson returning to work there, but that was “impossible,” Vardy replied, (using the word twice in his short letter) “as our staff is now at maximum.”