52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 27 Prompt - Planes

2024

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 27

Prompt – Planes

I wrote this story way back in my first year of blogging. I hope that it is as enjoyable this time as the first time you may have read it. 

Circa 1967 - Uncle Wally, Grandmother McLaughlin and My Mother, Vivian Peters

 In 2006 we had a chance to visit our aunt & uncle in their winter home in Arizona. Wallace McLaughlin is my grandma McLaughlin's third child, a sibling to my mother. Uncle Wally, as we called him, was born in 1927 and died just 3 years after this visit. They lived in Ontario and growing up we rarely saw them. My older siblings know him better than myself. Uncle Wally was an Engineer who at one time was the Dean of Engineering at Waterloo University and in fact was president of The Deans of Canada Engineers. At the time of the visit, I was just starting to put family history together. We asked him if he knew any stories of himself and my mom when they were young.

He unfortunately could not remember many. We did learn that he was a bit mischievous growing up. He said his step-father, Benjamin McLaughlin, was strict and liked things just so, such as no talking at the dinner table. If you broke the rules you were punished by his “razor strap”. Uncle Wally knew if he got in trouble at school and in his words was “caned” at school he would get it twice as bad at home. So on his way home he would find a few layers of cardboard to put in his back so it lessened the severity.

I call this Uncle Wally story - “Have Gun Will Travel”.

It is my favourite story of my quintessential church lady grandmother. Grandmother went to church every week and sometimes more often. She baked cookies and took them to the “old folks shut-ins” She always wore a hat and her handbag was firmly clutched within her hands or hung over her forearm secured tightly to her body.

Sometime in the 1970s or 1980's Grandma McLaughlin decided to go to Ontario to visit Wally and his family. She always travelled by plane. In those days airport security was almost non-existent.

Apparently his mother (Mary McLaughlin) use to own a 32 calibre Browning Automatic gun. What the heck was she doing with a gun in her home. Maybe it belonged to her second husband who had died in 1945. She must have been going through her stuff in the cellar when she found it and probably had long since forgotten about it.

Browning 32 Calibre Browning Automatic Pistol - Similar to this Image

Grandma was quite deaf. In his younger days, Uncle Wally would go down into their cellar, find it and for the heck of it go outside and shoot it at the wood pile. Grandma was non the wiser! So uncle Wally knew she had a gun. He went on to explain that on this particular trip to their home in Ontario, she decided it was “too dangerous” to have around her home. Grandma had decided that she should take it and give it to Uncle Wally because he would know what to do with it. So she put it in her handbag along with all of it's ammunition. She flew with it in her purse as carry on and without incidence. Uncle Wally and Aunt Phyllis were flabbergasted that she took it on the plane. I can visualize grandma surprising them with the gun from her purse. It really paints a bizarre picture. I mean my church lady grandmother pulling a gun from within her purse!

With a hearty laugh and a smile so wide, Uncle Wally said that when he took it from her, he found out that it was loaded and ready to shoot. All I can say is OMG – the angels of Grandma McLaughlin were protecting her in all her innocence. 

Wendy