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| Jeff Maguire has been writing for community and daily newspapers in Ontario since 1971 and contributes regularly to Ottawa Valley. com online news site. |
Carleton Place Almonte Canadian Gazette
...I had just joined the newsroom staff at the daily St. Thomas Times-Journal in St. Thomas, Ontario. St. Thomas, a city of some 40,000 south of London, is the centre of government for Elgin County, an elongated jurisdiction of some 1,840 square kilometres that hugs the north shore of Lake Erie between Fort Erie and Windsor.
It was 1971 and I was a wet-behind-the-ears reporter who had just moved to the larger daily newspaper from the smaller (twice-weekly) Wallaceburg News in the town of the same name between Sarnia and Chatham.
The city editor was a happy-go-lucky guy named Richard ‘Dick’ Wright. He is long retired and lives in Southampton, Ontario on Lake Huron.
Dick had connections to Chatham where my late mother Molly and my wife Kathleen (Kathy was my girlfriend in 1971) were both born. He took me under his wing and helped “protect me” from the managing editor an English expatriate who was, to say the least, not an easy man to work for.
One thing Dick did for fledgling reporters was make sure we got a square meal as often as possible. The best way to ensure that was to send us to lunch meetings held by the local service clubs. We covered the guest speaker’s address and got a free lunch.
On this particular day the managing editor had a great deal of interest in the St. Thomas Rotary Club’s weekly lunch meeting. That’s because the guest speaker was world-famous economist John Kenneth Galbraith.
The boss would have preferred a more senior staffer covered the Galbraith speech, but no one else was available that day. He had no choice but to send the rookie. Dick told him, “Jeff will do just fine.”
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| John Kenneth Galbraith |
I didn’t need any added incentive. I was already familiar with Galbraith who, to this day nine years after his death, remains one of the most highly regarded economists in world history. He was a best-selling author. Galbraith penned nearly 50 books along with several novels and hundreds of essays. He authored a famous trilogy on economics ‘American Capitalism’ (written the year I was born), ‘The Affluent Society’ (1958) and ‘The New Industrial State’ which was released in 1967.
Galbraith earned degrees from the University of Toronto and the University of California, Berkeley before starting his teaching career at famous Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1934. Later he briefly taught at Princeton University in New Jersey. But his longest tenure as an educator was at Harvard where he was named Professor of Economics in 1949 and was a highly respected faculty member for half a century.
Galbraith was an active Democrat. He served in the administrations of four presidents including Franklin D. Roosevelt (during the critical Second World War years), as well as assisting Roosevelt’s successor Harry Truman and then serving in the Kennedy administration as well as working for Lyndon Johnson who succeeded the assassinated JFK.
Galbraith was the American ambassador to India during Kennedy’s all too brief tenure. The list of national and international awards the economist received is lengthy.
So, why was he speaking in St. Thomas, Ontario in 1971?
The answer is easy. Galbraith was born in nearby Iona Station in 1908. He grew up in Dunwich Township near the village of Dutton (now part of Dutton/Dunwich) in Elgin County. He attended a one-room school and later received his secondary school education in Dutton and St. Thomas.
Galbraith became an American citizen in 1937, the same year he married Catherine Merriam Atwater, a Radcliffe grad. The couple was married for 68 years until his death in April 2006 at age 97.
He never forgot his southwestern Ontario roots. That’s why he came to St. Thomas in 1971 at the invitation of the Rotary Club. His speech was not focused on his outstanding careers as an educator, author and political advisor to four American presidents. Instead he talked about his formative years. What it was like to grow up on the family farm in rural Dunwich Township. That’s all he wanted to talk about during the interview I did with him afterwards as well.
Galbraith was impressive physically – he was six foot, eight – but what I recall was his very kind demeanour while speaking with a young reporter. He had been interviewed countless times by scribes from the world’s largest newspapers. But his friendly smile and attitude immediately put me at ease.
In his 1963 book ‘The Scotch’ Galbraith, whose parents Archibald and Sarah were Canadians of Scottish descent, wrote about growing up in a part of Canada that was more Scottish than Scotland.
I remember him telling me how tight the community was – in every sense. The Scots of course are not only famous for their contributions to the world but also for their frugality. Galbraith laughed when he said his neighbours “were as tight as bark to a tree.”
In fact in ‘The Scotch’ he recounts the legend of one John “Codfish” McKillop of Dunwich Township. It is said that when McKillop died and was being lowered into the grave he lifted the lid of the coffin and handed out his clothes.
What I remember most about that long ago interview with the famous man was his obvious affection for the place where he was born, raised and attended school. He had such vivid and fond memories of those who were part of his early life. Despite his impressive career and status (he won countless awards and honours in his lifetime) he never forgot his upbringing and happy home life. That’s why I will never forget my interview with John Kenneth Galbraith.
In conclusion, I’m happy to say that my hard to please managing editor was silently satisfied with the story I produced for the T-J. Dick Wright was good enough to tell me that later!
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