Digby

Bill MacGregor did not have an easy life. His mother died when he was only one year old and his father married the housekeeper, Emma. Although he was the son of a well-to-do Dentist, he had to get out and earn a living while his friends were partying and just being teenagers. He became a bellhop for several years at the CPR hotel "The Digby Pines."

Although he was popular with the girls, he never seemed to have much spending money, and it was reported to me that he 'had a chip on his shoulder.' He had a very generous nature but he also had a quick temper and was frequently in fights. In 1937, when he was 22, his father died.

Because of the untimely death of his father, Bill did not follow in the footsteps of his forebears as a Doctor, Preacher, or Dentist. He had to earn a living as best he could. He worked at several jobs, as a clerk in a Drug Store, as a fish-monger, and as a clerk in Wright's Shoe Store. In 1938, he married my mother, Francis Aileen Bessie Seamone and they moved to Bear River.

During the Second World War, he was a clerk in the nearby Naval Training base, HMCS Cornwallis. He settled down in Bear River with his wife Frances Aileen, whom he called "Kit", (short for kitten).

She had two children in what we referred to as "The Brown House." I remember going over the road a ways with my parents and checking out a plot of land where my father planned on building our new home. I still can picture the stakes and string to mark the future location. It was almost directly across the street from the tennis court that was built by some of the numerous Navy service personnel who swelled the population of Bear River during the war years. We had a black Pomeranian named "Skippy" who lived to be a ripe old age of about 16 in human years.

A photo of Dad at 29 with his new car taken at the "Bear River Bridges."

William Vernon MacGregor married Frances Aileen Bessie Seamone, daughter of John Harold Seamone and Ruby Cornwall Benson.

Children by Frances:

i. Harold Stanley MacGregor; born 5 January 1939. (For details, click on "Harold Stanley MacGregor")

ii. Carole Anne MacGregor; born 27 December 1940. (For details, click on "My Children and Sibling")

Children by Edna:

iii. Reigh MacGregor; born 28 April 1948, married (1st) Sheila Campbell in 1969 in Toronto., married (2nd) Barbara Rach in 1981 in Calgary. (Presently living in Calgary).

Children of Reigh/Sheila:

  (a) Kelly; born 08 Dec 1969, married Russell Edwards. Presently living in Indiana.
           Their children:
                       (i) Erin; born 27 Jan 1991.
                       (ii) Cora; born 27 Aug 1994.
                      (iii) Leah; born 25 March 1996.

(b) Colleen; born 06 Dec 1971, married David Myer (since divorced). (Presently living in Jacksonville, Florida. Their children: Reily; born 1998.

In 1944, he separated from my mother and went to Halifax, where he returned to his previous trade as a shoe salesman. In 1947, he married Edna Kennedy and fathered a child, Reigh. In 1952, at the age of 37, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and underwent training as a cook. He served at North Bay and at Foymount, Ontario. He was put in charge of the NCO mess at Foymount.

An avid hunter and angler, he managed the offsite hunting lodge. During the Suez crisis, he went to El Arish as part of the United Nations Emergency Force, and was presented with a medal for outstanding service.

He contracted pneumonia in late 1961 from a virus he picked up in Egypt and was admitted to the DND Hospital in Ottawa. After his partial recuperation, he returned home with the medical advice to "stay indoors." Due to his love for the outdoors, he joined three other airmen and went to Round Lake for trout fishing on May 15th, 1962. The first two proceeded out into the lake- and almost immediately their canoe capsized by a sudden gust of wind. Even though the water was freezing cold, my father and the other airman hurried out onto the lake to try to save them.

Tragedy also struck them - and their canoe capsized. My father could not swim, so the other airman held on to him for an hour and a half, finally letting go - my father was by that time dead-due to his weakened state (because of the pneumonia.) He slipped beneath the water and the body was not located until three days later. He was 46 years of age. Edna, his second wife, died in Calgary in 1999.

The Department of Veterans Affairs provided a marker for him but they misspelled his name as "McGregor" and it did not include his date of birth, so in 1986 I bought a new stone and replaced the old one. Happily, Louise Dunn, his childhood sweet heart, was the secretary of the Smit-Thomas cemetery of Smiths Cove, when I was arranging those details - and she filled me in on many previously unknown aspects of his early years.