EPISODE 399 THE SHORT AND HORRIFIC LIFE OF GEORGE EVERITT GREEN, HOME CHILD , PART THREE

Note…some readers may get upset as this court case unfolds.  Be forewarned. Of all the Home Child cases
I have read, and there have been many, this is the worst.  It seems many journalists agree for the case is
mentioned often.  No other journalists seems to used the court records though.   For good reason.


EPISODE 399: THE SHORT AND HORRIFIC LIFE OF GEORGE EVERITT GREEN, HOME CHILD ,  PART THREE


alan skeoch
August 2021



The condition of George Green when he arrived at Miss Findlay’s farm was critical to the case.
If the testimony of the stage drive was competent then Miss Findlay could not be held responsible
for his death.   He was mentally and physically ill.  James Jeffery, blacksmith apprentice in Kemble, was called to the witness stand.

JAMES JEFFERY.  SWORN.  EXAMINED BY DEFNSE ATTORNEY TUCKER ND CROSS EXAMINED BY ATTORNEY MACKAY
FOR HE PROSECUTION.

QUESTION: MR. MACKAY:  You told us the first time you saw George Green he appeared to be healthy and straight?
ANSWER: JAMES JEFFERY:  Yes sir
He was not all twisted and tangled up, like Mr. Johnson said?
Not that I noticed. 
Then you didn’t see him again until the end of September (one month before George Green’s death)
Would you say he was thinner?
I think he was a little, sir
He did not look as plump and healthy looking.
No
Did he look as if he had been weakened down from some cause?
Yes, sir.
HIs face was not clean and not as good a colour, is that right?
When you saw him first he had a pretty good colour….was a healthy boy?….mannerly?   polite? kind and docile?
…he did not seem impudent…inclined to be bashful.
Yes sir.i
Did you ever see anything in him that would indicate he was a saucy or impudent boy?
I never saw anything.

Did you see the boy’s trunk or valise?
Yes I did..not very long ago.
Did you see it in the stage that day?
No sir, not that day.
Do you know the difference between a Home trunk and a valise?
Lately I do sir
What is a Home boy’s trunk.
A wooden box, sir.
Not leather like a valise at all?
No sir.
What size would the trunk be?
I would judge about 26” across, 30” long and 18” deep.
Then Mr. Johnston is not right when he says it is a valise?
That wooden box is not a valise…I’m sure of that.

NOTE:  Why is this debate between a valise and trunk important.  What point is Mr. MacKay trying to establish?

The jury had a great deal of difficulty since witnesses tended to contradict each other.  Some witnesses were
lying.  But why?  Mr. Johnson testified that George Green was an imbecile…a museum piece.  On the other
hand James Jeffery, a Home boy working in Kemble, testified that George was ‘very healthy looking’ when he arrived
in May but by September he wa ‘rather thinner (and had) no conversation in him’. 

Subsequent testimony by Alexander Amos, a nearby farmer, suggested starvation when George Green came ‘for a 
basket of green leaves’ in August.  Mr. Guido, another neighbour testified George wore boos while others said he
was barefoot.   All agreed he was bareheaded much of the time which accounted for the peculiar marks on
his head.  Sunburn.  On the other hand the prosecutor witnesses believed the mark on the head and body
indicated George had been struck several times.   Who could the jury believe.?

Farmers Guido and Horne were called to move the body from his bed to two boards.  Mr. Guido’s testimony was 
in sharp contrast to the medical doctor who was called at the same time. (both Guido and Guidi names are used for 
the farmer)

MR. JOSEPH GUIDI, SWORN, QUESTIONED BY MR TUCKER.
(Joseph Guidi or Guido had the farm to the west side of the Findlay farm)

QUESTION:  Had the boys’ physical appearance changed  from the time he was first seen in June until the
time he was seen again in the middle of October?
ANSWER: No, with the exception that he looked cold,  I could not see any difference as far as physical condition.
Did you ever see him alive again?
No, this was the last time.
Did you ever see him dead?
Yes
What day was that?
Sunday morning…he was in his bed.  I was over helping remove him from the bed he died in.
Who assisted you?
Mr. Horne
What condition was that bed?
Well…middling fair
What do you mean by that?
Possibly I have seen cleaner and I have seen dirtier clothes, I would just call them  in between.
What was the atmosphere in that room?
It didn’t smell very pleasant, I suppose on account of the corpse…but it was a good deal the smell as in
a farm house where the were boiling turnips for the pigs.  I didn’t smell anything until we moved the corpse.
What was the condition of the floor of the upstairs?
I didn’t see anything out of the way on the floor.
It is said by one witness there was old harness and rags it was generally dirty.
There was no harness that I noticed.
What was his physical appearance Sunday Nov. 10 as compared with when you first saw him in June?
The body looked quite natural to me with the exception of the scars on his nose and face.

The condition of the room was described by Dr. Cameron in quite the opposite manner.  The room was so indescribably 
filthy that the doctor had never in his whole practice, even in the slums of Glasgow, seen such a room where a
human being was expected to live.  George Green was found curled up in the fetal position, in the centre of a
nest in a straw tick.  Around the nest was a hardened ring of excrement.  The smell was overpowering . The
Findlay bedroom was the dirtiest, most unwholesome living quarters Dr. Cameron had ever seen…and caused him
recurring nightmares ever since.   To Dr. Cameron the marks on the boys’ body suggested terrible abuse;

DOCTOR SCOTT,   EXAMINED BY  MR. MACKAY
(Another medical opinion solicited)

QUESTION:  MR. MACKAY:   Suppose the boy was used in this way:   struck with a broom handle, with a manure fork handle,
kicked around, punched with fist when he was down, hit with slipper and that he had been repeatedly thrashed in that
way throughout the months of July, August, September, October … and also compelled to sleep in a filthy room…
Would all that accelerate death?
ANSWER, DR. SCOTT:  Yes



TESTIMONY OF DR WILLIAM G. DOW 

QUESTION BY MR. MACKAY You are a practising physician of how many years?
ANSWER BY DR. DOW: Nearly ten years
You went down to the Findlay farm on 11th November with coroner Cameron?
I did
You held a post mortem examination I believe?
Yes
Did you see the bed in that room?
I did
Give me the condition of the Bed in which he died or was said to have died.
We found the room very dirty, a  good deal of old rubbish.  On the bed was a blanket, part of which looked like it 
had been in the stable.
Was there any clean clothing at all?
Not what would call clean.
Give me the condition of the bed in detail.
It was an old fashioned posted bed with board in front and a straw tick opened down the middle showing straw which was short, very
filthy and semi-solid, very filthy…no spring.
What kind of filth?
Well. the only way I could describe it wa as being a place where possibly a pig might have lain for a week or longer.
What kind of filth? Human?
Yes, Might have been there for weeks.
Did any part of that bed show any signs of having been made up in recent times?
None whatever
What about the atmosphere.
Stifling.

Note:  Readers  might be asking themselves if this case of abuse could get any worse.  It can and does.
  
NEXT EPISODE

EPISODE 398 THE SHORT AND HORRIFIC LIFE OF GEORGE EVERITT GREEN, HOME CHILD PART TWO

EPISODE 398    THE SHORT AND HORRIFIC LIFE OF GEORGE EVERITT GREEN, HOME CHILD ,  PART TWO


alan skeoch
July 2021

NOTE:  The fifteen year lifespan of George Everett Green is not a story of idyllic rural life
on an Ontario farm.  The last six months of his life are the direct opposite.  I used the word horrific in the heading…that
says it all.   Rather than type a new manuscript I will stick largely to the script written in 1992 with
corrections added.   In 1992 I did not know what happened to Rose Findlay, the tormentor of George…murderess
is a better term.   Documents recently discovered state she spent at least one year in the Mercer Reformatory 
for Women located in the Parkdale district of Toronto.   The Mercer Reformatory has been demolished only the home of the matron remains.
Rose was convicted of child abuse rather than murder.  Convicted.  She did not escape justice even though
many people considered her innocent.  Some Canadians believed Home Children should never have been
shipped to Canada owing to the fact most of these children came the slums of English cities.

The negative attitude to Home  Children circulated among many Canadians.   The attitude is best
seen in  the political cartoon below.  The children were regarded as the sweepings of the slums.  Worthless and
diseased.   Children that England was glad to send to the colonies.  Children that many people in Canada
felt were not legitimate immigrants.   As a result many Home Children were overworked and abused. Mind you Others
were greeted warmly and became valued as future farmers.   Love and hate were expressed among Canadians when Home Children
were mentioned in casual conversation.  That will be apparent as my story unfolds.  But first take a close look
at this wretched cartoon….titled “OUR GUTTER CHILDREN” being rescued by a Christian missionary called Dr Barnardo.  George Everett
Green was abandoned by his laundress mother when he was 6 years old. 




 


WHY TELL THIS STORY OF NEGLECT, ABUSE AND MURDER?


Why is this story so close to me?  My grandmother, Louisa Bufton, was nearly such a child.  Her mother had been impregnated by
one person named Doctor Price…a medical doctor. He assumed no responsibility for grandma.  And her mother was too poor to
do much .  How could single women with little children even survive?  No help for them. 

A distant aunt, Miss Webb, heard that Louisa was being mistreated and possibly becoming a street child in Manchester.
Aunt Webb rescued her and brought her along with another child to a farm in Herefordshire where she grew up.  But always with a
bit of the stigma that abandoned children carried through their lives.   Grandma was a very bright woman whose cheerfulness dominated
her life.  A good marriage happened when she met Edward Freeman who became the head gardener on the 1500 acre Eywood Estate
near Kington, Herefordshire.   Migrated to Canada in 1908.  Shared adventures and tragedies.   She sang and played the organ as an
 integral part of her Erin Township, Wellington County, Ontario community after she and 
her husband Edward Freeman migrated to Canada.   Somehow they made a living and raised two children on a tiny 25 acre
farm with stones strewn liberally on the bit of dry land and four large swamps where nothing could be grown.  We still  have
that farm.  Today it is our country estate.


The Eywood Manor House before it was demolished in 1954 and the Estate sold in pieces.
Edward Freeman’s brick walled gardens still survive to this day.  We have been there often.



The Freeman farm as it appeared in 1914…with Louisa Bufton Freeman standing and her daughter Elsie Freeman (my mother)
cuddling their dog Punch.  The farm house remans much as it appears here. The barn is gone.

Why tell you this?  Because it is best you know my bias before reading the story of George Everitt Green.

alan Skeoch
july 2021

THE MURDER OF GEORGE EVERITT GREEN

November, 1992:   WE drove North from Owen Sound through the abandoned village of Presqu’ile where George Everett Green’s body
had been carried in November 1895.  Mike Brillinger and I planned to made a video of the death of poor little George.  We Drove through the village of  Kemble where the old general store stood cold and empty on the dreary November
afternoon.  Cloudy day.  Then we ascended the limestone and shale escarpment that towers over the deep water port
of Owen Sound.   Hairpin turns with the  forest reclaiming land lost to pioneer axes a century ago.  A mile or so on we 
found the graveyard.  The wire gate was open.

And there it was…the first gravestone.  A large piece of square limestone with an obelisk top pointing to heaven.
Beneath that stone lay the remains of George Findlay, brother to Helen Rose Findlay.  He had been killed in 1894 when his team of 
horses bolted throwing him to his death on the dirt road leading to the forgotten village of Big Bay.  Somewhere on this
road George Findlay died.   He was 43 years old.

Helen Rose was 41 years old when she inherited their farm…Lot 42, Concession 25, North Keppel Township, Grey County, Ontario.
Settlement of the will was contested as many relatives felt Helen Rose Findlay should not get the farm.  But she did.   She spent the
winter of 1894 alone in the frame farmhouse.  A tough winter for Helen. 

I don’t think she was ready for the tasks of pioneer farming.  I do not admire Helen Findlay but do have some compassion
for her situation.  North Keppel is a poor place to try and operate a farm.  In November. 1992 the land was abandoned.  Thin topsoil,
poor drainage, brutal winters.  A depressing place.  Nearby is a lake named the Slough of Despond, a term borrowed
from Bunyan’s Pilgrm’s Progress.   Slough of Despond … not much more need be said.  

Helen could not operate the farm without help so she applied to Alfred Owen, superintendent of the Barnardo distributing
home for young destitute children located in  Toronto.  Her application was accepted since her brother George had taken a
Home child without any subsequent problem. 

 Fifteen year old George Green was sent by train to Owen Sound where he was picked up by William Johnson, the stagecoach driver.
A few months later Mr. Johnson would be a key witness in the murder trial.   William Johnson testified that the boy was an imbecile
who could not even get off the stagecoach without falling.   Others described the boy as a kind of docile version of Frankenstein.

WHO WAS GEORGE EVERRIT GREEN?

He looked a lot younger than 15.  (Some sources said he was 17 really but agree he looked younger than that).  His early  life had not been
pleasant. His father died 1888 when George was very young.  Apparently his mother was a drunken abusive person.   George became a slum kid…a street orphan.

Negative comments about the mothers of slum children are quite common.  And also very insensitive.  Seems popular these days
to judge the lives of people in the past using the lens of the present as I have said before.  Single mothers in 19th century England 
lived a vicious hand to mouth existence.  No social services.  Often carrying the stigma of loose and immoral behaviour.    Alone and rejected.
How so many of these women managed to keep their children and survive is to me miraculous.  The fact that many surrendered their
children to social missionaries like Dr Barnardo should be no surprise.  Take a moment to think what you would do in similar situations.

George was rescued by Dr. Barnardo when George’s sister and mother signed him over to the Barnardo Home.  Dr. Barnardo was
 an English evangelist whose compassion for destitute and abandoned children led to the
creation of one of the greatest refuges for the poor in England.  George loved the Barnardo Home…first time he felt safe.  He was fed,
housed and given training in basic trades.  He was also taught to read and write in order that he could read the bible and
become  a good Christian.  Then on March 25, 1895 he joined 167 other male Barnardo children being sent to Canada on  the
steamship Parisian.  Not a pleasant experience . The boys were jammed into the steerage part of the ship.  George was sea sick
for the entire trip and had to live in foul conditions throughout.

BACKGROUND RECORD



“Until he was six, Green lived with his older sister, Margaret, his younger brother, Walter, and his parents in lodging-houses in the Tottenham suburb of London. In 1886 the parents deserted their children, who were admitted to the Old Parish School and then to the Enfield Farm School run by the Edmonton Poor Law Union, a local government institution. Their father died in January 1888. In May 1894 their mother induced Margaret, aged 17, to leave her job at the farm school for a place in service, and in retaliation the union discharged the boys into their mother?s care. Within a month Mrs Green was unable to pay the rent on her room, and she and the boys began to sleep rough. In July 1894 George and Walter were admitted to the East End Juvenile Mission of Dr Thomas John Barnardo at their mother?s request. George was described in the admission documents as well conducted, but with a cast in his left eye and a peculiar appearance. Eight months later, on 21 March 1895, the brothers embarked for Canada in a party of 167 boys.

George was sent on 3 April to a bachelor farmer in Norfolk County, Ont., who returned him to the Barnardo receiving home in Toronto within the trial period of a month because the boy?s defective vision meant that he could not drive a team. On 7 May, Green was dispatched to a second place, near Owen Sound, to live with a single woman, Helen R. Findlay. Since her brother?s death the previous summer, Findlay had run the family farm alone. Before that time, two Barnardo boys had been placed on separate occasions with the Findlays. Neighbours who saw Green soon after he arrived described him as clean, healthy, quiet, and backward. Findlay, who after her brother?s death had been observed doing field and barn work the community regarded as inappropriate for women, they viewed with suspicion

These comments tell precious little about George.  What was he really like?  Was he an imbecile?  Or was he just a shy kid with physical
problems.  On this matter hinged the whole murder case.  One of the first persons to testify was William Johnson who swore ‘to tell the the whole
truth and nothing but the truth”  He was put on  the stand by defence lawyer Tucker who was defending Helen Rose Findlay.  The purpose of  Johnson’s
testimony wa to persuade the jury that George Green was weak in body and mind…a sick boy suffering from congenital syphillis inherited
from an immoral mother or, should  that argument fail, Mr. Tucker inferred that George suffered from ‘Scrofula’ …i.e. tuberculosis.

THE MURDER TRIAL: OWEN SOUND, ONTARIO, 1895: HELEN ROSE FINDLAY CHARGED WITH MURDER

THE STAGECOACH DRIVER’S TESTIMONY REGARDNG GEORGE GREEN

“QUESTION:  You are a stage coach driver from Owen Sound to Big Bay?
ANSWER:  Yes
 
Do you know George E. Green?
Yes, I saw him.
When did you first meet him?
I think it was the early part of May (1895)
As you first saw the boy describe his personal appearance.
He was very much deformed.
In what way>
Several ways, I think.  One leg was very crooked or something wrong with his feet…he didn’t
seem to be able to walk properly.
You say his feet seemed to be tender one leg seemed to be  crooked.   Then his hips, something wrong there?
Seemed to nbe twisted some way, …he was crooked, twisted in the back.
How were his shoulders?
One shoulder seemed to be as if something knocked it, it was crooked.
His eyes?
His eyes seemed to be looking in two different ways.  They were crooked in his head.
What is known as cross eyes?
Yes.
His mouth?
His mouth seemed to be twisted to one side altogether and his chin set out.
Do you know what hand he used  (*note – Mr. Tucker knew George was left handed)
No
How was his intellect?
Very poor.   When I would speak to him he would not make answer.  I strove to get
some questions out of him and he would not answer me.  Generally I wish to know what 
they (ie. Home children) are like and I put questions to him but him I could not get
any satisfactory answer.
Did he have any baggage with him?
Yes, a valise.
Who handled the valise?
Well, I did at the last.
Did he handle it at all?  He went to lift and he reached out in a different direction from where the
valise was sitting and fell over…he was awkward in all his movements.
Who went out with you on the stage that day?
I think Daniel Davidson was the only one.
How did he get out of the rig?
Well, he eiher tumbled out or fell out.  I stopped the horses, and the first thing I saw him on his face and 
he was on his hands and face on the road.  He either missed the step or something.

Mr. Davidson tells us that he jumped out of the side of the rig on the road.
He did not, he tumbled and fell out.

CROSS EXAMINATION BY LAWYER MR. MACKAY (LAWYER FOR THE PROSECUTION) 
(He is trying to discredit the witness)

QUESTION: You could not trust him alone.  He was such an imbecile yoU were
afraid to leave him alone?
ANSWER:  I was.
He was so extremely silly you  didn’t like leave him alone?
That is SO, he was.
He was not fit to be let loose?
I didn’t think he was fit to send to a farm.
He was in the kind of condition, such an imbecile, he might get lost and die in the fields?
I considered by his appearance he was an imbecile, and like an intoxicated one.
Oh, he was an intoxicated imbecile?
He was not but he looked like that.
Then you would not think this boy able to work at all?
I would not take him to work.  
He was all twisted up?>
Yes he was.
Twisted in the shoulder?
Yes
Twisted in the legs?
Yes
Twisted in his back?
Yes
Twisted in the eyes?
Yes
What else?
The jaw was twisted too
And he was doubly imbecilic?
Yes, regular imbecile

(Then) Daniel Davidson is lying straight out when he says that the boy got out of the
rig..what kind of rig, ordinary box, was it?
Yes.
Then Davidson must be lying when he said George put his hands on the sides and sprung out?
I have nothing to do with Daniel Davidson.
Was there anything right about George Green?
His appetite,
Was his head twisted to the side of the high shoulder?
Yes, from the side of the high shoulder
It is a wonder they did not put him in a museum?
I winder they didn’t put him somewhere else.
Was there anything else crooked about him?
Yes, his mouth.
Squint mouth, cross-eyed,what else?
His chin around the jaw was just shot out.
What else?  Anything else crooked? You have only told us about his leg, And neck and shoulder
and mouth and eyes…was there anything else?
There seemed to be something wrong with his spine.
His back was twisted?
Seemed to be.
Can it you give us something else.  What else was twisted?  (I think) You were to a little twisted that
day yourself, were you?
I don’t be as much twisted as you be.
You think your eye-sight was good?
I do.

NOTE:  The physical condition of George Green when he arrived at Miss Findlay’s farm is
critical to the case.  If the testimony of the stage driver Johnson was competent, then George
Everett Green was crippled and mentally deficient. therefore Miss
Findlay could not be held responsible. According to Johnson, George Green was a broken child before he arrived.
Mr. Mackay then called James Jeffery, a blacksmith apprentice in the village of Kemble.
If Jeffery contradicts Johnson then who is to be believed.  Which witness is more credible?

NEXT EPISODE



George Everett Green, 1895 when he turned 15 years of age.
…one of the most notable Home Children ever sent to Canada.
…and one of the most tragic stories of child abuse.



Stark; cramped cell is all too typical of the living quarters provided for inmates at Mercer Reformatory in Toronto. They are no larger than the stalls for horses at the CNE. Many are without windows and the girls try to brighten them up by putting small pictures on the walls.

MERCER REFORMATORY FOR INCORRIGIBLE WOMEN…TORONTO
(Helen Rose Findlay eventually spent time in the Mercer Reformatory)

EPISODE 398 COMING BUT WILL BE LATE

EPISODE 398 STORY COMING BUT MARJORIE WILL NOT HAVE TIME TO PROOF READ UNTIL TONIGHT
Alan skeoch july 2021
This episode has more print and a few startling picture…particularly an 1895 cartoon. I hope most of you are readers. A very tough story in these tough times when we seem to enjoy judging the events of the past by the lens of the present. The story will be sent tonight…part of a series I wrote a few years ago but never had the nerve to publish…never even tried after the story was written.
I have fallen into the habit of writing a story every day…some long, some shore…all illustrated. Episode 398 involve a lot of work and some fact checking. And there are other things in our lives. So glad that most of you seem to like the stories.
alan

EPISODE 397 GEORGE EVERRIT GREEN, BORN FEB. 8, 1880, DIED Nov. 8, 1895 — STARVATION, ABUSE AND NEGLECT

correction 1880 to 1895 (thanks jeannette)
> On Jul 27, 2021, at 9:44 PM, ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com> wrote: > > EPISODE 397 GEORGE EVERRIT GREEN, BORN FEB. 8, 1890, DIED Nov. 8, 1895 — STARVATION, ABUSE AND NEGLECT > > alan skeoch > July 2021 > > My wife Marjorie does not want me to tell this story again. In the 1990’s I researched and wrote about poor, fragile, handicapped, unwanted George > Everitt Green. The story haunts me to this day. In 1895 the story of his tragic death was known by all Canadians. Today his story crops > up now and again. In 1992 I wrote and delivered a short version of the story over CBC Radio Noon. The story does not rest well in Canada. Best forgotten. > Not long afterward my CBC producer told me over the phone, “We do not need you anymore.” I suspect the two events are > connected. > > I spent a lot of time and a fair bit of money putting the story together. I even travelled to Liverpool, England to confirm the records. Mike Brillinger > and I made a videotape on the desperate farm in North Keppel Township, Grey County, Ontario, where George was starved, beaten and > mistreated horribly by Rose Findlay for the seven months > of his life in Canada. Why did she treat him so miserably? She said to neighbour that she rather liked beating him. > > When the coroner was called to examine George’s body, he was horrified. George was curled up in a kind of fouled straw nest. His body was bruised and > cut, He was emaciated. His straw nest was also his toilet. What I remember from my manuscript was the strange red dots on his body. > > Rose Findlay was subsequently charged with murder. Her court case was big news across Canada. Most startling was the fact > that the jury could not agree that George was murdered. Rose got off. > > My manuscript goes into great detail as the court record reveals. Was George diseased when he arrived in Canada as a Barnardo child? > Dying? Or was he just a shy, little, abandoned boy…blind in one eye and crooked in the other eye. A London street waif at 6 years of age. > A slum child among the 30% of the population of England living in poverty. > > Have I got the guts to tell the story once more?<6437980855_dfa02cbde2.jpg> > > FRONT PAGE OF MY 1992 MANUSCRIPT > > 1992 September > > “No sign of life. In the garish light of a late September afternoon Mike Brillinger and I walked the unadorned > fields of the old Findlay farm, North Keppel Township, Grey County, Ontario. No buildings remain…no foundations… > just a small dump with rusted pots and broken dishes. It was here I believe George Everett Green was > murdered on November 8, 1895. His death remains a mystery. Helen Rose Findlay was charged wth his > murder but never convicted because the Owen Sound jury was split. Subsequently she was charged with > the lesser offence of child abuse and child neglect but she disappeared. What happened that November > when George died? There is lots of hearsay evidence in the court records.” > > “Just waking these desperate abandoned fields now overgrown with wild apples,burdock, goldenrod and > red clover has been an experience I cannot forget.” > > CONTINUED…MAYBE

EPISODE 397 GEORGE EVERRIT GREEN, BORN FEB. 8, 1890, DIED Nov. 8, 1895 — STARVATION, ABUSE AND NEGLECT

EPISODE 397   GEORGE EVERRIT GREEN, BORN FEB. 8, 1890, DIED Nov. 8, 1895 — STARVATION, ABUSE AND NEGLECT


alan skeoch
July 2021

My wife Marjorie does not want me to tell this story again.  In the 1990’s I researched and wrote about poor, fragile, handicapped, unwanted George
Everitt Green.  The story haunts me to this day.  In 1895 the story of his tragic death was known by all Canadians.  Today his story crops
up  now and again.  In 1992 I wrote and delivered a short version of the story over CBC Radio Noon. The story does not rest well in Canada.  Best forgotten.
Not long afterward my CBC producer told me over the phone, “We do not need you anymore.”  I suspect the two events are
connected.

I spent a lot of time and a fair bit of money putting the story together. I even travelled to Liverpool, England to confirm the records.   Mike Brillinger
and I made a videotape on the desperate farm in North Keppel Township, Grey County, Ontario, where George was starved, beaten and 
mistreated horribly by Rose Findlay for the seven months
of his life in Canada.   Why did she treat him so miserably? She said to neighbour that she rather liked beating him.

When the coroner was called to examine George’s body, he was horrified.  George was curled up in a kind of fouled straw nest.  His body was bruised and
cut,  He was emaciated.  His straw nest was also his toilet.  What I remember from my manuscript was the strange red dots on his body.

Rose Findlay was subsequently charged with murder.   Her court case was big news across Canada.  Most startling was the fact
that the jury could not agree that George was murdered.  Rose got off.  

My manuscript goes into great detail as the court record reveals.  Was George diseased when he arrived in Canada as a Barnardo child?
Dying?  Or was he just a shy, little, abandoned boy…blind in one eye and crooked in the other eye.  A London street waif at 6 years of age.
A slum child among the 30% of the population of England living in poverty.

Have I got the guts to tell the story once more?

FRONT PAGE OF MY 1992 MANUSCRIPT

1992  September

“No sign of life. In the garish light of a late September afternoon Mike Brillinger and I walked the unadorned
fields of the old Findlay farm, North Keppel Township, Grey County, Ontario.  No buildings remain…no foundations…
just a small dump with rusted pots and broken dishes.  It was here I believe George Everett Green was 
murdered on November 8, 1895.  His death remains a mystery.  Helen Rose Findlay was charged wth his
murder but never convicted because the Owen Sound jury was split.   Subsequently she was charged with
the lesser offence of child abuse and child neglect but she disappeared.  What happened that November
when George died?  There is lots of hearsay evidence in the court records.”

“Just waking these desperate abandoned fields now overgrown with wild apples,burdock, goldenrod and
red clover has been an experience I cannot forget.”

CONTINUED…MAYBE

EPISODE 396 DAMAGED 15 FOOT ROWBOAT….LOVED BY HEMINGWAY, COLERIDGE, STEINBECK…SKEOCHS

EPISODE 396     DAMAGED 15 FOOT ROWBOAT…LOVED BY HEMINGWAY, COLERIDGE, STEINBECK…SKEOCH.


alan skeoch
July 2021



This ROWBOAT  has seen better days.  Someone even set it on fire
  Badly damaged.  My problem is
I would like to make the best of the hull…oil stain perhaps.  I need advice.

step 1)  today I belt sanded the burned places.  Lots of black charred wood 
removed.   Quite a mess but the fire only damaged the first quarter inch of the hull.

step 2)  wash the hull perhaps using a commercial cleaner.

step 3)  HELP?   OIL STAIN? SEMI TRANSPARENT STAIN?  SOLID COLOUR?
The boat will never touch water again.  I would just like to restore it enough to
be a good prop for movie people.   Boats like this are not easy to find.

step 4:  Putting the boat outside for the winter months…actually spring, summer, fall and winter months
…so it will need a generous amount of whatever seems best.

Why?  Why not keep it inside a barn?  That’s a good idea but I have stretched 
Andrew and Nick’s patience to the breaking point.  “You know dad, the boat will
have to sit outside in the weather.”    He said it nicely but there was a ‘no debate’ tone
to his voice.   

Keep in mind I have already filled the big barn with my sets and prop…and some spilled over
to the stable…then the paint shop and now the machinery barn.  Everyone has their limits.

I need your advice … a good (and cheap if possible) all weather wood stain that will cover
up bad spots on the hull.   So bad that after spending the day belt sanding and scraping
the charcoal  from the surface of the hulll that I looked like a chimney sweeper from
Victorian England.   Too big to go down a chimney with a brush.  In victorian times
the job was reserved for skinny kids with the rubbery bones from ricketts due to the fact
those little Dickensian street kids rarely sat in the sunshine.    I am not skinny nor am I
interested in cleaning chimneys.

All I want to do is create a FAKE boat.   Suggest a colour and a stain that will make
my boat look good…in all kinds of weather.


CONVERSATION THAT IS ONLY IN MY MND

“Andrew, this boat is worth storing in your house let alone your machine shed.”
“I know Dad…but we need space for Bob Cats, trucks, tree planters, cement mixers…lots of things.”
“Agree…but still a little space for imagination…my imagination…I see this old rowboat
floating in places of global importance.   Great writers have written about this kind of rowboat..
Hemingway, Coleridge, Steinbeck…”

“OK, Dad, we will see what we can do…after you get the charcoal cut way and penetrating oil applied.”

“Andrew, take a look at the possible movie scenes below…all would feature this rowboat.

“Enough, Dad…more than enough.  We will rescue the boat for the sake of future generations
and the film industry.”


Hemingway’s story…The Old Man and the Sea…if filmed again would find my
old rowboat ideal


Dunkirk in World War Two…my rowboat fits perfectly…either abandoned or
carrying 5 or 6 men to offshore rescue ships.   All that is necessary is imagination




Coleridge must have seen a boat like mine before he wrote his famous poem.  “Alone, Alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide, wide seas….”




Or adrift with the flotsam and jetsam of Steinbeck’s novel, Cannery Row.


Or..Here is the real thing…an abandoned rowboat among the shoreline grasses of Prince Edward Island.

Fwd: EPISODE 394 CHOKECHERRIES.. LOVED TO EAT THEM EVEN IF LEAVES, BARK, TWIGS, PITS WERE POISON TO CATTLE AND HORSES…CYANIDE



EPISODE 394    LOVED TO EAT THEM EVEN IF LEAVES, BARK, TWIGS, PITS WERE POISONOUS
                          (I did not know they were poison until yesterday July 21, 2021…some 70 years later)

alan skeoch
July 21, 2021

I was photographing the combine as it disappeared on a distant slope.  Something odd! In the foreground! Trggering memories.

“GRAB A HANDFULL OF THE BERRIES AS I SWNG THE TRACTOR AND WAGON”, said Angus.


   Every threshing season when we were
small was a time of hard labour for all generations.  As kids we had various jobs one of which was rearranging ‘stukes’
of bound bundles of grain on the hay wagon.  This was a bit tricky in that we were armed with pitchforks and had
to move fast.   We did this labour on the Townsend farm, the Freeman farm and the McEchern farm. All Wellington County
farms.  Angus McEchern
always steered to the fencerow occasionally so we could feast while working.

QUESTION:   WHAT were we eating?   Memories of the past were overtaking.


DATE, JULY 21, 2021
I had parked the truck on roadside just to watch the behemoth of a combine busy pounding the heads out of barley
or winter wheat.   Amazing process as old as our civilized lives on the moving crust of this planet.  Civilized.   it 
was these tiny grains that changed humans from hunters and wanderers to residents of large cities.  First in ancient
Sumer and the city of Ur.   Now the site of a bloody never ending war in the middle east.  Because of these tiny grains
we learned to write and record our tribulations.  Einkorn…a wild grass that has become one of the reasons we have
populated the earth.

Thinking like this I watched the great John Deere combine hammer its way down dip in the field of grain.  Like it
was sinking.   At that moment I noticed something in the foreground that was vaguely familiar.  In the fencerow…reddish
berries on a spindly branch.

“Chokecherries!”


CHOKECHERRIES…AND CYANIDE

Back in the 1950’s we would gobble up great handfuls of chokecherries every time Angus turned the tractor and grain wagon
close to the fencerow.  Red berries and dark red really ripe berries.  My first taste was disconcerting.  The berries made
my mouth pucker…sort of a dry taste that drew saliva.   But sweet at the same time.  Each berry had a hard pit at its
centre.  My mouth soon filled with the pits as the berry juice trickled down my throat of my stomach.  I spit out piles
of these pits.  Maybe tried to break them open…but failed.  Thankfully.

So today I thought I would write an article in praise of chokecherries.  Glad I did.  Sobering and frightening.
The damn chokecherries are poisonous.   Not the flesh of the berries but everything else. Had we Been able
to crack open the pits we would have a mouthful of cyanide.  Cyanide!   Deadly poison.  Some pits must have
slipped down my throat but even the strong acids of my stomach could not break open the pits so they were excreted.
Killed some children according to one source.  Most of us were lucky in our ignorance.

Cattle, sheep and horses were not so lucky.   Especially if the pasture fields were overgrazed.  Then livestock might
turn to the fencerows and began consuming leaves, twigs…even bark..of the chokecherry trees.  All are poisonous.
leaves, bark, twigs, pits.  Cyanide.   Enough to kill livestock?  Apparently so.   Farmers were urged to remove the chokecherry
trees and shrubs and it seems some farmers did do that for I no longer see great bunches of chokecherries
hanging life grapes.  Inviting the picking.  Especially when the berries turned a dark red that was nearly black.

We would gather six quart baskets of chokecherries and take them home for mom to make chokecherry jelly which
was great on morning toast.  Loved the stuff.  Marjorie and I made it in the early years of our marriage. We had
no idea that a cyanide-like poison lurked in those pits that were thrown out in their cheesecloth wrapping.

We were not alone.  If you have time punch up chokecherries on the internet.  Lots of people sang the praises
of those wild berries.  Not so much anymore. 





I bet you get distracted by the combine and do not see the little chokecherry bush in the foreground.



POST SCRIPT

Question: I would like your opinion on the edibility of chokecherries (Prunus virginiana). Is it true their berries are poisonous?

I’m a bit confused, as several websites mention that chokecherries are an excellent food for birds and some even say they can be used to make jams and syrups. But what really bowled me over was a page on the Canadian Poisonous Plants Information System. It states “Children have been poisoned and have died after ingesting large quantities of berries, which contain the seeds. All types of livestock can be poisoned by ingesting the plant material.”

I was appalled, as when I was young, we used to eat handfuls of chokecherries straight from the tree and we suffered no ill consequences. How is it possible that the berries can be both poisonous and non-poisonous?

Pierre Nadeau

Answer: I too used to eat the chokecherries as a boy, in spite of their astringent and none-too-sweet taste.

The secret is that it’s the pit (seed) that is toxic, not the fruit’s rather meager flesh. All cherries and other species of Prunus have poisonous pits. They contain amygdalin, a product the body converts into cyanide, a deadly poison, after consumption. However, people usually don’t eat cherry pits, not even those as small as the ones found in chokecherries. Instead, we spit them out, and thus suffer no risk of poisoning.

Cattle and other livestock eat chokecherries whole and can become poisoned if they swallow too many. Note that the text you found on the web specifies in the text that the children who died had swallowed the seeds.


EPISODE 394 LOVED TO EAT THEM EVEN IF LEAVES, BARK, TWIGS, PITS WERE POISON TO CATTLE AND HORSES

EPISODE 384 LOVED TO EAT THEM EVEN IF EAVES, BARK, TWIGS, PITS WERE POISONOUS (I did not know they were poison until yesterday…70 years later)
alan skeoch July 21, 2021
Today my story will be late…i.e. evening.
Why? Big load returning from a movie set. But let me send this teaser. Every threshing season when we were small was a time of hard labour for all generations. As kids we had various jobs one of which was rearranging ‘stukes’ of bound bundles of grain on the hay wagon. This was a bit tricky in that we were armed with pitchforks and had to move fast. We did this labour on the Townsend farm, the Freeman farm and the McEchern farm. All Wellington County farms. Angus McEchern always steered to the fencerow occasionally so we could feast while working.
QUESTION: WHAT were we eating? Full story coming.

EPISODE 393 BACK TO SQUARE BAILS…DID YOU NOTICE? JULY 20, 2021


EPISODE 393    BACK TO SQUARE BAILS…DID YOU NOTICE ?

alan skeoch
july 20 2021


SUDDENLY MACHINES RATTLED THE SILENCE OF A COUNTRY ROAD

The nice thing about an empty road is the chance to look around as I’m driving.  Today there was more action
in the grain field than on the road…so I slowed down, stopped, slipped into reverse and backed up

Something a little surprising was happening…took me a few minutes to figure it out.
SO I backed up and recorded the movement.  A whole lot of machinery…new.   And
operated by one man.

But that was not the point…there was something else at work in my brain.

And it seemed I was not alone.   There was a white half ton truck nearby.  The driver must have been as fascinated
as I was.  Too fascinated for he ended up in deep trouble as you will see at the end of this story.






Coming straight down the windrow of loose straw after the combine had got the good stuff…winter wheat or barley.






Massey Ferguson tractor…once made in Toronto but no longer so.


AHAH!  This is a new version of an old machine.   Back to square bails with a difference.   No need for a stacker…one man’s job
is gone with this self stacker…when the load is full it is plopped down in the field for a tractor with a front end pick up.

Years ago we were the loaders.  The bailer would shoot the bound bails at us and we had to stack them 
quickly on the wagon.   As I  remember there were three of us doing the job.  We had to move fast.  Occasionally someone
would grab the bail by one string…snap the twine and a shower of loose straw would wreck our system.  “Push the bastard off…I mean
the broken bail…not you guys.”

The big round bailers are still working most fields.  Problem with them is storage…wrapped in heavy plastic tarps….hundreds of 
these sheets of plastic.  Terrible waste.  “Why not store the round bails in the barns..most of which are empty?”

Simple answer…round bails roll….push out the barns support beams. And the round bails are hard to get in and out
of Ontario bank barns.   Have you ever tried to lift a round bail?  Can’t be done.  Square bails are human friendly …can be lifted. Round bails are
inhuman…cannot be lifted.    


So the whole job of bailing straw can now be done by one man…or woman.








Just a bit farther down the fifth line I met a guy who also must
have been rubber necking his way north on this bright summer day.
Seems he missed the road perhaps while watching the combine at work.
But I do not know how he could miss the road…just guessing he was rubber 
necking.