Breadcrumb Trail Links
OpinionColumn
Published Oct 17, 2024 • Last updated 33 minutes ago • 8 minute read
In my last story, “The day it came crashing down,’ I wrote about Roger Van Bellinghen’s memories of working at the Dominion Glass Company (“the Glass”) and about a day forever etched in his memory: March 5, 2000. That day the batch tower at “the Glass” was crashed to the ground.
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In that story, I wrote, “But like so many people across North America, we are connected. By ‘the Glass.’”
Towards the end of the Sept. 16 interview for that story, Roger mentioned something that I had never known — that the Van Bellinghen family lived beside the Marini family on Earl Street.
In Depression-era and wartime Wallaceburg, the Marini and Martinello families were very close.
In December 2019, I wrote a story called ‘The lucky kid from Earl Street’ for the Courier Press. That “lucky kid” was Guido Marini, the Wallaceburg-born son of Anthony and Pia Marini.
Much like Roger’s parents from Belgium, Anthony and Pia were economic immigrants from Italy. And similar to Roger’s father, Charles, Guido’s father was a veteran of the Italian army in the First World War and found a reasonable living working at “the Glass” as a tankman.
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It turns out that Roger and Guido were best of friends. And one day on Earl Street, in the summer of 1945 while playing “cops and robbers” with Lloyd Bechard, Larry Boulton, Tom Boulton, Marvin Goodwin and Vaughn Goodwin, 16-year-old Guido saved 10-year-old Roger’s life.
Roger was lucky the “lucky kid” was there that day.
After Roger told me about Guido saving his life, he told me about another day that is forever etched in his mind: Monday, Oct. 13, 1952.
At the time, 17-year-old Roger was working in the “automatics” department of “the Glass.” As Roger describes it, “I was working eight days a week. Walking down the tracks from my house on Earl Street to ‘the Glass.’ Money was tight. We only used the car to go downtown to get groceries and things like that.”
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Klaas Lok, the three-year-old Netherlands-born son of Frank and Nancy Lok, had arrived in Canada just eight months before, on March 1, 1952.
Similar to Roger’s parents, Klaas’ parents were economic immigrants to Canada. Frank Lok brought his skills as a plaster, stucco and concrete tradesman to Canada’s booming postwar economy.
At the time, the Lok family lived in a house on the east side of Murray Street.
Until Oct. 13, 1952, Roger had never met Klaas and did not know the Lok family.
Roger recalls that day: “It was in the afternoon. It was a sunny day; not too hot, not too cold. I was walking by the Government Dock. I heard the cries of a kid. I couldn’t figure out where the cries were coming from. So I crawled underneath the dock and walked through the water and around all the beams under the dock. I could see him there. Face down in the water. I grabbed him by the feet and got him out of there. He was about three or four years old. Just a little guy.
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“I brought him over to Bob’s Tire Repair. It was the shortest and fastest route from the Government Dock. I knew the guys there. “Buzz” Labadie was there that day. I used to go there to fix my bicycle tires. The police came and they took him away.”
Not long after that, Roger recalls that “the police showed up at my place. I was a bit nervous. I hoped that the kid was all right — that he hadn’t died. They congratulated me on my presence of mind in rescuing the kid.”
Not long after that, Klaas’ parents came over to Roger’s house on Earl Street and presented him with a gift that he treasures to this day: a cigarette case. On the inside of that cigarette case are inscribed, in four lines, the words “IN APPRECIATION, SAVING MY LIFE. KLAAS LOK, OCT.13/52.”
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Although the day that Roger saved Klaas was never from Roger’s mind, it would be 57 years before Roger heard from, or saw, Klaas again.
And then, out of the blue, on June 27, 2009, there was a knock on the door at Roger’s house on Highland Drive in Wallaceburg.
“This guy shows up at my door and says ‘It’s Chuck Lok. You saved my life,’” Roger said. “I told him that I had saved Klaas Lok, not Chuck Lok. He was a retired RCMP in British Columbia and had found an old newspaper article about the day I saved him.”
Chuck Lok was, in fact, Klaas Lok. The rescuer and the rescued were reunited. It is another day Roger will never forget.
I decided to try to contact Chuck Lok to see what he recalled of Oct. 13, 1952. Other than knowing that Chuck was a retired RCMP officer living in B.C., I had no contact info.
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It didn’t take long to find Chuck’s phone number.
At 11 a.m. Oct. 7, I left a voicemail at Chuck’s number. It was a very long shot. I did not expect to get a return call. Less than two hours later, I was talking with Chuck Lok.
In 1968, at the age of 19, after graduating from Wallaceburg District secondary school, Chuck joined the RCMP in London, Ont. That was the start of a 31-year career that took him to postings throughout northern and western Canada.
And even though he was only three years old — and it was 72 years ago (almost to the day) that Roger pulled Chuck from the cold murk of the mighty Sydenham River — Chuck has crystal clear memories of Oct. 13, 1952.
As he describes it: “I remember being in the water. I must have went unconscious because I can remember opening my eyes and seeing Dr. Barg. He was our family doctor. I was on a cot in the firehall and there were people all around me.”
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And despite his near death in the Sydenham, Chuck tells me, “I’ve never been afraid of the water, never terrified. In fact, my brother and I were among the guys who regularly swam at that very same Government Dock. On those hot summer days, a sizeable group of guys would be diving, jumping and swimming off the ramps and piers of the dock — including the high one — only yards from where I was found. This would have been in the early ‘60s. Looking back, I wonder about the cleanliness of the river we were swimming in.”
From 1988 to 1992, Sgt. Chuck Lok was commander of RCMP Detachment Port McNeill at the north end of Vancouver Island. I tell him that I was posted to Canadian Forces Station Holberg from 1988 to 1990. CFS Holberg was (it was closed in 1990) a radar station at the north end of Vancouver Island approximately 90 kilometres west (50 of those kilometres on a rough and winding logging road) of Port McNeill.
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Chuck and I speak of waypoints, from the north end of Vancouver island, that we both know — the Scarlet Ibis (a pub at the head of Holberg Inlet); the “shoe tree” (a tree at the midpoint of the logging road into Holberg, to which people, when finally leaving Holberg, nail a pair of boots); and Winter Harbour (a very small hamlet and former commercial fishing camp west of Holberg).
Chuck and I agree that given the time and location of our respective postings, there is a good chance that we, unknowingly, crossed paths some time between 1988 and 1990.
And then, Chuck recalls a regimental mess dinner that he attended at CFS Holberg some time in 1989 or 1990.
I cannot specifically recall attending a regimental mess dinner with the RCMP in 1989 or 1990, but I attended mess dinners at Holberg.
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At the time, I was a captain and mess dinners were considered a “parade” for officers, which made attendance mandatory, so there is a pretty good chance that I (born in Wallaceburg), unknowingly first met — in the middle of nowhere at the north end of Vancouver Island — Chuck Lok who, just 38 years before, was saved in Wallaceburg by Roger Van Bellinghen.
Towards the end of our telephone conversation, Chuck speaks of Roger: “I think of him often. I am eternally grateful that he saved my life. My entire family and all that I’ve done would not be possible without what he did that day.”
A beehive of commerce and dock workers, the Government Dock, formerly located on the south bank of the Sydenham River, across from the Wallaceburg Library, was an integral part of Wallaceburg’s reputation as “Canada’s inland deep water port.”
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It was demolished in 1962 and is commemorated by a small waterfront park called Superior Park.
Bob’s Tire Repair, formerly located on the north side of Wallace Street at the intersection of Bridge and Wallace streets, is an empty lot.
Steel rails turning to rust and wooden ties crumbling to dust, the railroad track that Roger and his father and Anthony Marini and hundreds of other “Glass” workers trod from their homes to the front entrance of “the Glass” at the end of James Street exists to this day.
In Roger’s time, steam engines of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, rolled down those tracks. When the last train rolled down those tracks in October 2013, it was pulled by a diesel locomotive of CSX Transportation, headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla.
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To this day, Roger’s and Guido’s childhood homes stand side by side and mostly unchanged on the south side of Earl Street in Wallaceburg. Chuck’s childhood home, on the east side of Murray Street and just 400 metres south of Roger’s and Guido’s childhood homes, also stands — mostly unchanged — to this day.
From post-First World War Belgium and Italy and post-Second World War Netherlands, three lines that had no prior connection to each other stretch across the Atlantic Ocean and half a continent to intersect at a very small dot on the map: Wallaceburg. And then, two more lines that also have no prior connection to each other stretch across half a continent from Wallaceburg to, very likely, intersect in the middle of nowhere at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Spanning half a planet and 100 years.
Connecting us all to each other’s stories. Connecting us all to Wallaceburg’s proud history.
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Publish date : 2024-10-17 12:24:00
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The post From Europe to Wallaceburg to B.C. – It’s a small world first appeared on Love Europe.
Author : love-europe
Publish date : 2024-10-17 19:32:32
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