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The Penny Family

Mark Penny, Keith’s father, was a descendent of an English family. He was offered a job in Buffalo, New York, and moved to Toronto. He commuted daily from Toronto to Buffalo for several years. In 1919, Mr. Penny received a letter from Bain Johnson & Company in Battle Harbour, Labrador, requesting him to come to Labrador to run its fishing operations. Dr. Grenfell saw Mark Penny as an enterprising young man and thought it would be smart to get him on his team. He approached Mark and offered to send him, all expenses paid, to Bishop Feild College in St. John’s for teachers’ training. After a few years of college, Mark returned to Labrador. As a young man he was a teacher, catechist, and lay reader in the Church of England. This he did for the rest of his working days. As a result, he became a prominent citizen of Labrador and was respected in every community he visited. Unfortunately for the Penny family, he received little pay for his efforts. He only earned seven hundred dollars a year, which was surely not enough to support a large family.

Mark married a widow with two small children and moved with them to Cartwright to teach school. He also travelled long distances on the Labrador coast by dog team during the winter months and by small boat during the summer months. With very little pay he travelled to all the communities along the coast, baptizing babies, performing marriages, praying for the sick and dying, and burying the dead. Payment could be a pair of moccasins, a pipe, hand-knit socks and mittens, a tool of some kind — anything other than money. With barely enough to feed his ever-growing family he did the best he could under extremely primitive conditions. He often left his wife and small children to fend for themselves in order to take care of the spiritually starved people and to teach as an itinerant teacher. This took its toll on the whole family. Hardships and hunger were the results. Mr. and Mrs. Penny raised eight children.

Keith Loomis Penny was born August 15, 1940, in Port Hope Simpson, Labrador. He was the youngest of nine to Mark and Elsie. Mr. Penny was fifty-six years old and Elsie was forty-seven when this healthy, blond-haired bundle of joy graced the Penny home. I would assume at those late years they did not plan to have a newborn. He was an inquisitive, mischievous child, and, to poor little Keith’s consternation, as an adolescent he was handed around to several of his siblings, who by now were married with families of their own. He was left to do pretty much as he pleased. Keith told me one story of when he was only nine. His parents sent him on the Kyle with his brother George from Battle Harbour to Twillingate. He roamed all around the ship alone. The ship was dirty and by the time he reached Battle Harbour he was black from head to toe from coal dust. No one seemed to care where he went. He grew up without a sense of place, a sense of home, or a sense of belonging. It took its toll on the high-spirited, sensitive, soft-hearted person who grew into a fearful, insecure man with an oversized ego.

Keith didn’t have the courage to tell his father about my pregnancy, so I had to tell him myself, which was traumatizing for me. He then approached Keith.

“What are you going to do about the young girl down the street?”

“I dunno. What about her?” Keith asked his father.

“She’s going to have a baby, so you’ll have to marry that girl. That’s all there is to it!”

During the winter of 1961, my pregnancy was starting to show, and Keith and I were now disconnected from the few friends he’d been associated with for the past several years. I was pleased that he was so attentive, and that we spent a lot of time together, but I felt very uncertain about the future. A little later Keith and I became involved in community affairs. We sold church calendars door to door, and as a result of all of that we gained some semblance of respect from his family and Reverend Payne. We continued to participate in church activities with Keith’s parents until a week after we got married. Then he stopped all activity with the church and I followed. It seemed as though Keith was just going to church to please his father.

In early May, I wrote to my mother telling her I was going to have a baby, and that my boyfriend Keith Penny was going to marry me. We hadn’t yet set a date.

I waited anxiously for my dress to arrive. Finally it came in the mail and Mrs. Crawford brought it home. I ripped the package open and pulled it out. It was beautiful! The bottom had four tiers of wide lace and it had a lace-tiered bodice. With fear, I carefully let it drop over my shoulders and embrace my body. As I tried desperately to close the buttons, I couldn’t! It was too small. In despair I pulled it off and checked the seams to see if they could be let out. I knew of a distant relative named Gladys who was an excellent seamstress. I decided I would ask her what she could do to make it fit. Shyly, with much misgiving, I knocked on her door and tried to explain my problem to her. We examined the dress and she figured out what she could do. In a few days she called me to try in on. With fear and trepidation I tried it on once again. It fit! I decided right then that the wedding would have to be soon.

So, I mailed another letter off to my mother to tell her we were getting married June 30, and asked if Sal could please come to be one of my bridesmaids. My sister Sarah, whom we always called Sal, arrived on the Kyle along with a letter from my mom. I’d never seen her handwriting before. With her grade three education, I cherished her scribbles, giving me blessings and wishing me happiness. Shortly afterward Sal arrived on the Kyle. I was so happy to see my sister! She was a year younger than me. We laughed and cried as we embraced. Having Sal with me was very gratifying. I felt less alone, and it was one of very few of my wedding plans I took part in. I recall very little of the days leading up to my wedding day. My soon-to-be sisters-in-law, Margaret and Dorcass, took charge from there. They bought material to make tiny head pieces from a gauze material. I don’t remember how I got my veil. I don’t recall anything about invitations, bridesmaids’ dresses, or a reception. I don’t remember any decisions in what the men would wear, or even who they were! I knew nothing of a charge for the wedding ceremony, or if money would be needed for the reception afterward. I don’t recall paying anything for anything.

One thing I do remember is that there wasn’t a flower shop in Happy Valley at that time, so I took the initiative and ordered a dozen fresh red roses from Montreal. They were the first fresh roses I’d ever seen. They were exquisite! I stared at them and wept. Would they last for one day until the wedding, or would they wilt, kind of like my spirit of uncertainty? What had I gotten myself into? Is this what I wanted? I then felt my baby kick inside me, which jolted me back to reality. Yes, Josie, you need security for your baby; you need to make things right by it.

Keith had stopped carousing with his buddies and had been supporting me throughout my pregnancy. The question kept nagging at me: Did he really love me, or was he marrying me because his father ordered him to? Only time would tell.