On the Prowl
A Childhood Companion
by Bernadette Calonego
William Quinton Bartlett from St. Lunaire-Griquet told me the heart-wrenching story of his childhood. When he was six weeks old, he was taken to the Grenfell Orphanage in St. Anthony, together with his four older siblings.
His father had frozen to death in a snowstorm when he was on his way from Canada Bay to St. Anthony with a dog team. This was the year 1944. Bill Bart-lett`s mother who was pregnant at the time, gave birth to a baby soon after (delivered by his grandmother who acted as a midwife). Bill, the baby, never saw a picture of his father: “I have no idea what he looked like”, he says.
His mother, then a single parent with five children, was devastated and poor. “She had no ways of getting any kind of living”, Bill explains. But of course, she had to find something. She got a job as a seamstress at The White Manufactur-ing Company in St. John`s. Her four older children were taken out of the orphanage and distributed in her family.
Not so Bill: he stayed in the orphanage for four years. The 70-year-old Bartlett says today, he was put on display as a blond, blue-eyed white boy “because the orphanage had to get donations”.
At the age of four, his aunt and uncle from Noddy Bay took him into their home and eventually adopted him.
Although Bill remembers the couple as loving and caring, it was an enormous change for him. Before, he had the com-pany of many children at the orphanage and never felt lonely. Now he lived as the only child in a house with adult relatives. His aunt and adoptive mother had TB and was away in a sanatorium for several months. That is why the confused child called his grandmother mum. “I just felt that I did not belong to anybody”, he recalls.
His birth mother came back from St. John`s to St. Lunaire-Griquet eventually, gathered her four older kids up, but not Bill. She married a new husband and had thirteen children in total. “But I never lived with them”, Bill says.
In these difficult times, he found a friend he could trust; a black cat called Marg. “This cat was my anchor in all the chaos, she was the only one that I trusted”, Bill says. “She was something consistent in my life, she was always there and gave me security.”
Bill`s life was uprooted again and again. His adoptive parents moved from Noddy Bay to Quirpon when he was ten years old. And when he went to high school in St. Anthony, he lived with several families during the winters. “I did not want school to finish because I was afraid I had nowhere to go”, Bill says. Not all of his caregivers treated him well. But cats were a huge comfort all his life. “I`ve always had cats”, he says. Recently he adopted a ginger tabby from the group Help the Strays St. Anthony and Area.
It is something that you can hear often: what an important role a pet can play in children`s lives. They are the friend they can confide in, the loyal companion, a soft fur where they can bury their face and hide their tears.
I am reading the new autobiography “Un-sinkable” by Silken Laumann right now, the famous Canadian rower who won several Olympic medals in single scull. She even won bronze only weeks after one of her legs was shattered in an accident. Silken Laumann grew up in a dysfunctional family. Silken suffered from physical and verbal abuse by her unstable mother. Her mum`s violent outbursts and erratic behavior created havoc in the emotional health of Silken and her two siblings.
Laumann`s comfort was her dog Bimbo, a white Maltese terrier, who followed the child everywhere, even to school. Finally the teacher gave in, and the dog was allowed to sleep at Silken`s feet during school hours. That dog might have saved Silken`s life, not physically, but emotionally. And she might never have made it to the Olympics without his presence. Bimbo was “the most loyal and sensitive animal I would ever know”, Silken Laumann writes about her childhood companion.
Bill Bartlett could write a book about his life, too. “Unsinkable” would be a fitting title. His life was like a boat that withstood all the storms during the years to come. And his pets were and are the passengers on his incredible journey, who keep him company and give him unconditional affection. And really – don`t we all need this at some point in our life in order to survive: uncondi-tional love?
www.northernpeninsulapets.org
