Individual Notes

Note for: Mary Cecilia Bullock, 2 NOV 1845 - 24 JAN 1933 Index

Burial:
     Place:   Strathroy Municipal Cemetery, con 5, lot 21, Adelaide Twp

Individual Note:
     TRIP TO OTTERVILLE
by Olive (Dickie) English, 1971

This all happened long before we had found out that Uncle Henry had feet of clay (hell, he was clay to the chin ) and we still thought of him as a great, kind, benevolent rich man who used to swoop down on our little town bringing with him an aura of the great world beyond. He would arrive on the midmorning train from the east, and leave for Chicago on the late evening's International Limited - that magical train linking Montreal and Chicago, which used to roar through our town around 10 p.m., hesitating only long enough to take on water and perhaps a packet of mail if the local agent moved fast enough. And passengers had to be quick about it, since one sensed the mighty train's embarrassment at having to stop at all, and reluctance to prolong the stop one second longer than necessary.

Uncle Henry had been born in Otterville, a hamlet in Oxford County, not far from Woodstock. His father, a younger son, had come out from England with little money and less knowledge how to go about making it in the New World. He had a grist mill, using, I suppose, the services of Otter Creek for his power. He acquired a family of five, four sons and one daughter (our Aunt Cecilia) and mounting debts. The story is that Uncle Henry left home at 14 and went to Chicago where, after various odd and menial jobs working 12 and 14 hours a day, in true Horatio Alger fashion, after being sober, godly and righteous and working very hard, he established what was to become the Illinois Malleable Iron Company and the source of his great wealth. And we were told that the very first thing he did was to pay off all the debts his father had incurred.

Uncle Henry was very religious. And in his travels up and down the world he would always get off the train on a Sunday to go to Church. Once in the middle of the desert, when it meant he had to stay the night since there was no other train to Los Angeles that day He was associated with the fashionable St. James Church in Chicago, to which he gave rich gifts, such as a carillon, pieces of property in Mexico and money, and he was always in his front pew of a Sunday when he was in Chicago.

His riches continued to accumulate. He bought property - land. Land, some 300,000 acres in Mexico. Land in Oklahoma which eventually gave forth with a rich stream of yellow gold -oil. Land in northern Michigan. And at one time he seriously considered buying one of the Bullock estates in England.

His religiosity reached its peak when his increasing wealth made it possible for him to, and he did, build a church in Otterville in memory of his parents who were buried there. I suppose I was in my mid-teens when we made the expedition to Otterville for the dedication of the church. Some weeks before the event the rector of the old Otterville Church called on us in Strathroy. He was young; a nephew of the then Lambeth-based Bishop of London (and of the same name) Winnington-Ingram. He drove a Ford Runabout and took me off for a bit of a spin and, to my horror, proceeded to make love to me I drew back and said, "But I thought you were engaged " It was his turn to draw back - a bit - ponder a moment, and then, clearing his throat he admitted that he was "more or less" engaged Apparently, at the moment he felt dis-engaged, and I always thought that he thought I was in line for some of the Bullock riches and, had such been the case, he would have quite easily switched his affections from his long-time school friend whom I understand he eventually married.

Came the great day for the trip to Otterville. Uncle Henry and Aunt Harriet (yes, he had married, and she was quite mad, but that's another story) arrived from Chicago in a huge high-riding seven passenger Marmon car, chauffeured by a young college student. They stayed overnight at the Queens Hotel in Strathroy. (Aunt Harriet would never stay at our house.) I remember bicycling down to the creamery on Front Street to get cream, for at that time Aunt Harriet was subsisting solely on cream and a bit of bread which she dipped into it. So while we were at dinner she sat in the living room, a tray on her lap, and while she ate her bread and cream she engaged in a quiet conversation with Pat, the dog, who sat at her feat, tail wagging and on the alert, for the tidbits she shared with him. He seemed to be the only member of the family with whom she cared to converse.

We started off early the following day - Uncle Henry, Aunt Harriet, the driver, and the Strathroy contingent consisting of Aunt Cecilia, Aunt Minnie, Mother, Frederick and myself and, of course, Pat. I remember little about the trip, except that before we had gone very far Aunt Minnie, in a burst of concern for his welfare, opened her purse, extracted a small parcel, unwrapped it and handed Pat a piece of bread

Uncle Henry's brother, Uncle Fred and his wife, Aunt Lizzie, lived in Otterville. Uncle Fred had a small furniture factory which turned out items like footstools, book rests and other small items for which he could manage to dig up an order. I was always under the impression he didn't make much and that what he extracted from the furniture business had to be supplemented by small subsidies from Uncle Henry.

We went straight to their house which was stuffy and airless, sealed tight not only against the fresh summer air but also against anything smacking of a new or fresh idea. Aunt Lizzie lived a life quite remote from reality. A wisp of a woman with a high whining voice and limited intelligence. She left absolutely everything to Fred. Fred bought the food. Fred got the mail. Fred paid the bills. Fred did much of the housework. Fred - well, he did practically everything. And once, asked how she had voted at a recent election she replied in her light querulous voice, "Fred does the votin'." Poor Fred Aunt Cecilia said of her, "Dear Lizzie...she is just like a little flower " Ah, come off it, Auntie - when we knew Aunt Lizzie, she was a pretty badly withered flower. But apparently she had been very pretty, and all her life she had coasted along on her youthful beauty. And the only subject for which she showed a glimmer of interest and could talk of with any enthusiasm was "what the ladies are wearing" - fashions

With the help of the women of the parish a meal was being put together for us at Uncle Fred's. And Frederick and I, impatient with hunger, were in the dining room waiting. Aunt Lizzie armed with a flyswatter was vigorously pursuing the few flies hovering about the table. Enter Aunt Lizzie. When she saw what Aunt Lizzie was doing she rushed over, put a restraining hand on her swatter-wielding arm and said, "Please, Lizzie, don't chase the flies - they are so beautiful. Look at them. And you know, Lizzie, the Canadian flies are so much more graceful than the American flies." At this point, Aunt Lizzie, swatter aloft, Frederick and I quickly left the room choking with laughter.

After our mid-day dinner we were all in the living room. Aunt Harriet was circulating about the room, stopping first in front of one and then another, with the same queries in each case. To me, "Who are you?"

"I am Dickie."

"Yes, yes, of course..."

Seeing she was confused, I continued.

"I am Olive's daughter."

"Yes, yes; how nice. You must come and visit us in Chicago. Mr. Bullock (she always referred to Uncle Henry as Mr. Bullock) Mr. Bullock would love to have you... Mr. Bullock is very generous, you know."

She would move on to the next person with the same questions. But before long she would be back again in front of me and we would repeat the same performance. "And who are you?" .......

And, despite the fact that she was, in her own right, a very rich woman, her uniform, if such you could call it, consisted invariably of a shabby black serge skirt, black blouse over which she wore a black cardigan sweater. And, since she could not tolerate hairpins in her hair, her grey hair floated wildly about her head rather like an erratic halo.

During the dedication service itself at the church, I experienced a certain feeling of disillusionment and cynicism as I listed to the Reverend Mr. Winnington-Ingram's high-minded and, I thought, slightly patronizing sermon as he talked down to us from the pulpit. And my mind went back to the occasion not so many weeks previously when he had shown such a, shall we say, elastic attitude towards his "engagement." Ah, I was young and naive

I do not remember much about the return trip. But by that time the eccentric and the bizarre had doubtless become quite commonplace. Although I'm sure the young man who drove the old-fashioned high-riding Marmon must have had many stories to relate on his return to Chicago.

To get back to the church. It was a beautiful building. But much too large for the parish. Otterville was a small village and its population contained, besides Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists and yes, even Roman Catholics. And, delicious irony, it was to be these latter who were to be the final beneficiaries of Uncle Henry's bounty. The rectory, too, was a handsome building, but like the church, much too large and expensive to maintain. And Uncle Henry, despite the pleas of the parish, and the diocese, absolutely refused to endow his gift. He contended that since he had made the gift, it was up to the parishioners and, if necessary with help from the diocese, to make the sacrifices necessary to maintain church and rectory.

The parish declined, to the point where the rector was only part-time, so that there wasn't service every Sunday, although he continued to live in the Otterville rectory. The situation kept worsening. After all, it was the 30's and times were hard. Still Uncle Henry was adamant. The parish struggled on, fortified, I am sure by the hope that Uncle Henry would surely make some provision for them in his will. But he didn't. He remained firm to the last. And when his will was read after his death in the mid-thirties, it was discovered he had made no provision whatsoever for the Otterville church.

While the Anglican parish of Otterville declined, such was the irony of life, that the Roman Catholic parish had increased, and the denouement of this tale is that the poor Anglicans, pushed to the wall, eventually sold the church and rectory to the prospering Roman Catholics Fortunately by that time, Aunt Cecilia too had died, for I'm sure it would have killed her. What became of the memorial window to their father and mother I do not know. Perhaps it adorns the now Roman Catholic Church in Otterville

end

Individual Notes

Note for: Mary Dampier, ABT AUG 1730 - Index

Baptism:
     Date:   24 AUG 1730
     Place:   Bruton

Individual Notes

Note for: Ludwell Dampier, ABT JAN 1731/32 - OCT 1734 Index

Burial:
     Date:   24 OCT 1734
     Place:   Bruton

Individual Notes

Note for: Ludwell Dampier, ABT AUG 1735 - ABT DEC 1787 Index

Occupation:
     Place:   Solicitor

Burial:
     Date:   1 JAN 1788
     Place:   Bruton

Individual Notes

Note for: Elizabeth Dampier, ABT MAY 1737 - ABT SEP 1766 Index

Burial:
     Date:   19 SEP 1766
     Place:   Bruton

Individual Notes

Note for: John Dampier, ABT JUL 1738 - ABT SEP 1738 Index

Burial:
     Date:   20 SEP 1738
     Place:   Bruton

Individual Notes

Note for: John Dampier, ABT AUG 1739 - ABT NOV 1741 Index

Burial:
     Date:   4 DEC 1741
     Place:   Bruton

Individual Notes

Note for: Frideswide Dampier, ABT JAN 1740/41 - ABT SEP 1779 Index

Baptism:
     Date:   14 JAN 1740/41
     Place:   Bruton

Burial:
     Date:   10 SEP 1779
     Place:   Bruton

Individual Note:
     had 3 daughters

Individual Notes

Note for: Judith Dampier, ABT APR 1742 - ABT JAN 1743/44 Index

Baptism:
     Date:   14 APR 1742
     Place:   Bruton

Burial:
     Date:   25 JAN 1743/44
     Place:   Bruton

Individual Notes

Note for: Frances Dampier, ABT JUL 1745 - AFT SEP 1768 Index

Baptism:
     Date:   12 JUL 1745
     Place:   at Bruton

Individual Notes

Note for: Susannah Dampier, ABT JAN 1748/49 - DEC 1749 Index

Baptism:
     Date:   6 JAN 1748/49
     Place:   Bruton

Burial:
     Date:   26 DEC 1749
     Place:   Bruton