The Early Years 1948-1955

Chapter 2

The Early Years: 1948-1955

It all started in the General Hospital in Ottawa on April 5th, 1948 where I was born, the daughter of Ian Bowles Fripp and Gertrude Elizabeth Thompson. I arrived a few scant months, thirteen to be exact, after their first born, Karen Elizabeth. Karen sensed my arrival was not a good thing for her and I don’t think she ever really got over my sharing the spotlight that she had learned to love and think of as her own. 

My parents already had a baby, so you might say the blush was off the rose with my arrival.  I realized this, years later as an adult, when I saw the birth announcement on a yellowed piece of newsprint about three quarters of an inch by one and a half inches: “Born to Elizabeth Thompson and Ian Fripp, a girl. General Hospital”.  As in ‘The postman delivered the mail’.  The lack of ardor was stunning. But the announcement was framed in a little black frame.  This effort convinced me that they really did care after all.

I know they truly were delighted with my arrival.  How do I know this?  My mother told me.  She also mentioned that my father’s father, Herbie, thought it would be okay to have another baby so soon after the first, if it were a boy.  My great grandfather on my mother’s side, Dr. Robert Law,  thought my mother should consider not having this baby because the babies were just too close for her comfort.  Back then there wasn’t a way of determining the sex of the unborn baby. And that’s how my life started, sort of like an accident of fate.  

I was an affectionate baby and I had a placid disposition. So I wasn’t too much trouble for my Mom.

After my parents were married, my father left the airforce to become a full time student at Carleton University. The babies came and he found being a student didn’t work well with having a family so he left Carleton to sell ‘Filter Queen’ vacuum cleaners.  

However, this career came to a grinding halt the day he strew corn starch atop the rug to demonstrate the virtues of his product to my mother’s bridge club.  In spite of her pleas to stop, he continued.  Well, it turned out that she was right. There was no way the corn starch would come out of the rug despite his vigorous efforts with his superior product.

My father applied and was accepted back into the Service. 

My father’s military career was to have an enduring impact on my development. Moving every two years, I learned to be very adaptable in dealing with new situations. The resilience I developed was one of the advantages, the primary drawback being lack of roots. 

My father’s military career started in Ottawa but soon got us on the road when he got his first posting to Centrailia. My earliest childhood memory is when I was 5 years old and in kindergarten. My parents are scolding me for biting the teacher.  I vehemently denied it because I knew what they’d to do me if I admitted it.  But it was true.  I did. 

This was akin to the story my parents told me about the visit to the post office when I was two.  A nice gentleman squatted down before me to say how cute I was, adorned in my smocked dress. It was at this moment that I chose to kick him in the shins. My mother was acutely embarrassed.

Keep in mind that I was really a very loving child.  I don’t know for certain why I did these bad things, but I have a good idea that I was reacting to something and acting out.  

I have few memories of living in Centrailia. One I do remember is when some kid threw concentrated bubble soap in my eyes. It really hurt. It was one time I remember feeling  my mother’s concern.  

Another time was when I was learning to ride my bike.  I fell off on to the gravel on the side of the road and landed on my face.  My skin was scratched all along one side of my body. I was unconscious and I remember waking up on the couch in our living room to my mother crying, ‘My baby, my baby’.  So I knew she loved me. But, unfortunately for me, she didn’t seem to feel the same way when it came to defending me from my father. 

Two years later we moved to Portage La Prairie in Manitoba.  The images that stick in my mind are the mountainous snow drifts along the drive way and the house being buried in snow. I remember the cold in the winter, the wind. I remember the heat of the summers being so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk and you couldn’t walk on them in your bare feet.

My mother didn’t work then, but she was industrious.  She had the job of making ends meet.  That’s why she made a snowsuit for me out of an old quilted raincoat.  Looking back on that now, I think that was pretty clever.

She was a genius at the food budget.  Our fare consisted of a Béchamel sauce on eggs, on tuna, on salmon, on peas, on carrots and on onions, all served on toast; fried baloney, spaghetti and ketchup, (that became an all time favourite), liver and onions; hamburger in pasta, in tomatoes, in Spanish rice, Shepherd’s pie, chilli and spaghetti;  eggs in sandwiches, fried egg and onions, omelettes, cream sauce and eggs, pickled eggs, and the famous egg-in-the-hole: egg in a hole in the bread and fried.  It was a favourite too.  

We had a wonderful roast beef dinner on Sundays.  That’s when my Dad would rush at the end of the meal to soak the blood of the roast in bread.  I don’t remember any one else wanting this, so I don’t know why he was so covetous. I found it absorbing the way he delighted in this ritual.

After two years in Portage, we were to get a posting that would be the highlight of my childhood.  We went to France.