CONCEALING THE NEWS
by Laura Wilson Goss
For several years, my dad freighted in the Alice 6: Grace (a schooner built in our own back yard and as my dad often said proudly - ‘Every stick in her was cut on Merasheen Island") between some Placentia Bay ports and St. John's. On one trip, as he arrived in St. John's, he was stricken with lumbago and had to be taken to the General Hospital. (As children, we had no clue at that time what lumbago was, but figured it must be pretty bad if daddy was in hospital).
My sister, Alice and I (we were 12 and 11 years old at the time) were walking home from school for lunch when we met with the postmistress, Mrs. Laura Ennis-Mulrooney. She gave us a telegram to take home to Mom. This concerned us as telegrams often brought bad news and we didn't want to upset Mom as she had just had a new baby - our brother Paul - and she wasn't feeling great. We had a little discussion about what we would do, so we opened the telegram, read it and decided we would take care of it. We said nothing whatsoever to Mom about it. Daddy had asked that $20 be wired to him at the General Hospital. We knew where Mom kept the key and the money box. We took $20 out and wired it to him on our way back to school.
That night, while at home and listening to Gerald S. Doyle News Bulletin, the hospital reports came on. Out of the blue we heard “Paul Wilson of Merasheen is progressing favourably". Alice and I almost fell off our chairs as did our Mom. She said ‘Sacred Heart of Jesus! What has happened to your father?” She was really worried. We confessed to what we had done and while she was pleased we had taken care of the matter so as not to worry her (never thinking it would be on the news bulletin) - in the same breath she told us not to ever do such a thing again. She also explained to us what lumbago was.