Henry

(as told by Clifford Lucas to Alma McLean)

In 1939 a native family by the name of Henry moved into Charlie Kelly’s house on the 6th Line SER (Churchill Line) in Warwick Twp. The house was owned by Clayton King and Ern Hume, who had purchased the farm in prospects of oil in the district.

The Henry family had moved into the house in the fall. Just before Christmas Mr. Henry came to Cliff Lucas to borrow five dollars to buy Christmas presents for his son Mason and his sick daughter. Cliff gave him ten dollars. Mr. Henry promised to cut wood to pay him back.

The Henry daughter was sick with tuberculosis and needed milk. Cliff told the father to send his six year old boy over to get some milk every morning. This led to a nice relationship with Cliff and Mason, who would show up every morning during the cold winter, sack over his shoulder. He would show up at Cliff’s barn on the south side of the 6th Line and wait until Cliff was ready to go to the house across the road.

Mason was too shy to go to the house alone while Cliff’s wife, Eileen, was there, so he waited in the barn and warmed up by rubbing his hands on the quiet horse Big Boy. On one occasion he called white men “shog nash” and when pressed for white woman he said “shog nash squaw”. When he got to the house he clammed up.

After Christmas, Mr. Henry went hunting and trapping up north, leaving his wife and family with nothing. Andy Gearns, the neighbour from across the road, provided groceries for them and Mason continued to get milk from Cliff. One day Mason helped fill some seed bags for Cliff who gave him a dollar for the job. Mason bought a scribbler and pencil so that his mother could teach him to write.

One day he saw that Cliff had a pile of wood to stack into the basement. Cliff didn’t have time to do it that day because he was going to a sawing bee. He told Mason that if he wanted to pile the two and a half cords he just had to knock on the door and Eileen would let him in. Mason worked all day, only stopping for a glass of milk and cookies. He was done by the time Cliff arrived home. He was paid three dollars that day!

Later that winter Mason developed infected eyes from the falling plaster in the old rental house. Eileen and Cliff took him to Dr. Berdan of Strathroy who doctored at the Muncey Reserve.

In the spring Mr. Henry returned and repaid the ten dollar loan by cutting up two trees. By April of 1940 the little girl had died. Her mother wanted three natives and three white men for pallbearers for the funeral at Muncey. Andy Gearns, Howard Lett and Cliff Lucas were pallbearers. The next morning the family had vanished from the Kelly house.

Thirty years later, Mason came to visit Cliff. His parents had passed on and he had gone to the United States for work. He could not find work until he changed his name to Henry Mason instead of Mason Henry. His only education was that given him by his mother. Mason had one good eye, but only saw a shadow in the other. He had married a native girl, and become a plumber. He owned 100 acres on the Saugeen Reservation. His daughters were nurses. On his way to Pt. Pelee as a delegate from the Southhampton Reserve, he saw Watford and remembered the St. James Church and how to get to the Lucas house.

Chapter 24 of 25 - Henry Family

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