Imagine you’re 23 years into a marriage and you’ve never laid eyes on your husband’s siblings or their children. Or that you’re 25 years into a new country and have never been back home. Or you’ve never really been on a vacation, because, well, the cows need milking twice a day. This was my mother’s circumstance when we took our first family trip to the UK in 1974, 50 years ago. 

My mother immigrated to Canada in 1949 at the age of 21, joining her parents and brothers who had arrived earlier that same year. On their crossing (remember - boats, not planes) they’d befriended a young wannabe farmhand from London, traveling solo. They felt a connection, being farmers themselves who were relocating to find less expensive land and less grim post-war conditions. After Mom arrived, it was just a matter of time before they introduced her to this Londoner, and then not long after that when she married him. Despite having vowed to herself she wouldn’t marry a farmer, knowing farm-life is not easy, she nonetheless was drawn to Dad because of their shared experience as young immigrants in a country that, while still having strong ties to the mothership, was nonetheless full of foreign customs. 

Before long, she found herself mother to four and handling the domestic side of a 100 acre farm operation outside Ingersoll, Ontario. England and those who lived there - her extended family and all of my father’s relatives - were thousands of miles and dollars away. They made do with letters and phone calls at Christmas and birthdays. Twelve years into their marriage, Mom met her parents-in-law for the first time when she, Dad, and my siblings hosted them for a summer on the farm. Pre-hosting preparations included installing indoor plumbing. There was no way Mom was making these posh Londoners, a doctor and his wife, traipse out to an out house! She never discusses how she prepared emotionally for adding parents-in-law - strangers to her - to the household for an entire summer.

Dad took his first and very brief trip in 1973 to visit a dying sister, but for Mom, 1974 was the big return and her chance to meet Dad’s extended family in the flesh.

Seriously, can you imagine the stress? 

I was nearly eight and so utterly and selfishly oblivious to the emotions of my then-46 year old mother, but a recent read of the journal she wrote about that trip suggests she just rolled with it. There are no passages in which she expressed the angst that anyone of my generation (or later) would have about what was surely an extraordinarily anxiety-filled time. Nothing to suggest staying with a series of different relatives on her side and Dad’s was a strain for her or their marriage. No complaints about uncomfortable sleeping arrangements or cold houses (even in summer, UK houses in the 70s were damp). Instead, the journal is a detailed account of our three week itinerary including reports of whom we visited, what we ate, where we traveled, and how she managed the domestic labour necessary even on vacation. Some days she was left at a laundry mat while we had fun. She also reports on my moments of glee, like the night in a hotel when I had my first shower, ever! 

This story sums up my parents’ generation. They were born just before the depression; cowered under tables during WWII bomb raids; saw people go to fight and not return; experienced the deprivation of rationing; eked out a living as young adults; bore and raised a large number of children without options to prevent it; forewent opportunities for education; and helped rebuild the post-war western world. And they did this all without complaint. 

This group, 1928 to 1945, is known as the Silent Generation. Mom (and Dad too, if he were still alive) was at the front end of this group. Wikipedia describes their childhood and hits on some of the experiences my parents had - in Mom’s case, getting a scholarship to grammar school extended her education to the end of high school despite being in a family where this would not otherwise have been possible. Many UK kids of this generation, including my father, were evacuated during the war to strangers’ homes for safety. Who knows what this did to kids, and no-one had the time, inclination, or resources to explore the impact. Therapy, counselling, analysis, introspection, self-help, self-care, date-nights, girls-nights, man-caves, and yes, even the navel gazing of memoir-writing are all inventions of later generations.

I travelled to the UK twice more with my parents in the 70s and 80s. Mom and Dad went a few more times as a couple after that. And then there was one last trip Mom took with me the first Christmas after Dad died. But there was never a trip like that first one. After three weeks of driving up and down England with side trips into Scotland and Wales, just to say we had; meeting the formative people in her husband’s life; seeing relatives she hadn’t seen for most of her adult life, we arrived home. Mom ends her journal with the words: “Arrived home at 9:30 pm - everything was in good shape after 3 weeks, which made a good ending to a perfect holiday.” Just the kind of tempered, neutral summation that exemplifies her generation. 

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