Remember When
All my life I have heard about this place called CIL. My Great Grandfather worked for CIL. It was up in Nobel but I have never seen this place. For some reason I feel like I never fully understood what CIL was until this year. Canadian Industries Limited was a place that manufactured explosives and there is part of me that still is unable to fully compute that this happened so close to where I grew up.
Something that I learned this year is that a man named Alfred Nobel created dynamite and this is the type of explosive that was manufactured in Nobel Ontario. Can you guess where I am going with this? Nobel Ontario is named after Alfred Nobel.
When Alfred Nobel’s brother passed away the obituary was wrongly attributed to Alfred in which they stated that he had become rich finding more ways to kill people faster than ever before. Nobel found this appalling and decided to leave his fortune to found the Nobel prize. It would award those who have greatly benefitted humankind.
I’m not sure why I find this connection to be so mind blowing but when I first read about it I thought it was crazy. I also never knew the origins of the Nobel prize and I find it fascinating that it was founded by someone who wanted to write a wrong.
My Granny grew up living in the housing that was provided to the CIL workers. When she was a child World War 2 happened and because CIL manufactured explosives this area was a no fly zone. My Granny remembers the first time that she saw a plane flying over herd. It scared her and she thought something bad was going to happen.
This summer I discovered a refurbished CIL crate at an antique store and when I told my Granny about it she told me about how they would have so many of them that they would take them apart and use them as kindling in the winter. I thought it was funny since they were charging $125 for the refurbished version. Can you imagine just how much money my Granny’s family burned over the years. Of course keeping warm was way more important at the time. In the end my Granny and I went back to that antique store and she bought me the crate for my birthday. It now sits on top on of my dresser and is one of my most prized possession. I love the history and the family connection that is associated with it.
I always feel like November is the time of year that I think about stories such as this the most. There is alway a part of me that forgets that my Grandparents were alive durning World War 2. We are so are so far removed from World War 2 that now it feels more like history then something that could have possibly happened during the lifetime of someone that we know. We need to keep remembering. We can’t forget, we can’t let anything like that happen again.
Another strange connection that I discovered after the fact was about my Grandpa. He joined the Navy right at the tail end of World War 2. He never saw battle but he was trained. After both he and my Grandma had passed away we were going through things in their house and I found a card that had my Grandpa’s Navy base on it. I knew right were it was, I had been walking past it for years. I knew that Grandpa had been sent to Toronto but I never where and I couldn’t believe that he had been trained so close to where I now lived. I also couldn’t believe that he had never mentioned it to me.
The Navy base had been part of my regular walking route for many years and the first time that I walked it after this discovery I felt different. I felt closer to my Grandpa in a way. I felt like I understood something. I stood in the park that is next to the base and looked out on the water that he would have looked out on and I felt a connection to him.
During his time at the Navy base Grandpa wrote letters to Grandma and when the war was over he came home and he married her. I feel so grateful that he lived and that he married Grandma and that was the start of this wonderful family that I am a part of.
Connections and history, family and otherwise, are not always important to people but to me that is everything. I love knowing where I came from and how we got here. I love to think about the past and how the events have influenced the present. I enjoy learning lessons from my ancestors and feeling connected to them through stories. It makes me feel not so alone.
I hope that everyone takes some time this month to look up or talk about stories from the past. Take some time to remember those who have come before us. You will be better for having done so.