This is student:
Richard "Dick" Hewitt
Identified 29 Jul 2011 by Dick
Hewitt (himself)
From Richard: I was born June 1937 in Simcoe, son of
Edgar Hewitt, a mechanical engineer who immigrated
from Wolverhamption,
England about 1921, and who
for years was the Farm Editor of The Simcoe Reformer,
and Norma Stackhouse from Charlotteville Township.
We lived on St. John's Side Road, and were members
of St. John's Woodhouse congregation.
Life in rural Norfolk was very different then. Party line telephones, outdoor
privy, windmills.
There was always something to do: tending livestock,
chopping wood, gardening, home canning, or taking
apples to Lyn Waddel’s mill for cider.
Highlights: mid-winter toboggan parties, potluck dinners, bobsled hay rides on John Pow’s huge sled, Farm Forum meetings,
the classes of “English for New Canadians” that
my father and teacher Alex Lemery pioneered in the area.
Monthly Sunday dinners at my grandfather Lorne Stackhouse's home, with hordes of cousins wolfing up home-cured ham and huge carp.
That old farmhouse perpetually smelled of homemade bread and smoked meat.
Everyone knew their neighbors and helped in times of distress. Farm produce was traded for fresh milk, eggs, meat, or whatever there was a surplus of. Grocery shopping was a once a month trek into town.
I remember:
the V.E. celebration in Simcoe. What a huge party!
V.J. celebration with a huge bonfire in Port Dover.
Catching rides on the TH&B railway on its route along the
Lynn River from Simcoe to Port Dover
-- and back after
the huff and puff of the turntable in Port Dover. The fireman made me shovel coal on the “Old Granny” locomotive.
I was not a good student and seemed to always be in trouble
of some sort or another. I returned to school (McMaster University) in 1968 after 10 years at The American Can.
I subsequently worked for Mohawk College, then the Federal Government until retirement.
How did I wind up in Brazil? I blame my Father. He loved to read me stories
at an early age from National Geographic, which planted seeds for a lifetime of curiosity as to what was over the horizon. I remember his explaining the Battle of the South Atlantic as we were listening to BBC shortwave radio. Seventy years later I made it to Montevideo, Uruguay, and the Graf Spee memorial.
In January 1997, retired, divorced, and fed up with the cold, I noticed a cheap flight to San Jose Costa
Rica. Wow! The enchanted land of eternal springtime and Pura Vida!
A year later while on the Internet a message popped up on my screen from Widowed Librarian in Brazil. After a few months she came to Canada for a visit. A new life opened up when I was invited to visit Brazil.
I fell in love with the Gaucho hospitality and lifestyle, which in many ways were so reminiscent of the sense of community during my formative years. Its an easy lifestyle, with free public transportation for seniors and handicapped, corner bakery and restaurant, a public health post two doors away with free health care. Any stroll around the barrio brings greetings and smiles. As the official language is Portuguese, shopping or solving a problem is always a learning experience. However with time and a little patience and a smile, all things are possible, even for a unilingual Norfolk County boy.
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Richard at home in Brazil
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