SSSS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-07-19 published
WEEKS,
Ernest
Poole
By Arnold SIMESTER,
Page
A16
Proud Maritimer, Rhodes scholar, civil servant, world traveller.
Born January, 1912. Died January 23, in Ottawa of pneumonia,
aged 94.
Ernest WEEKS was the
son of Rev. E.S.
WEEKS, a Methodist minister.
Ernest had two sisters, Pearl and Jean. As a boy growing up in
Murray Harbour, Nova Scotia, he could remember things such as
hearing the Halifax Explosion rattle all the windows in his house
and experiencing the Spanish Flu of 1918.
After attending Mount Allison University he won a Rhodes scholarship
in 1933 to study economics. He travelled Europe where he saw
Mussolini giving a speech, and saw Hitler, dressed in his brown
shirt, driving through rapturous crowds in Hamburg. He also visited
collective farms in the Ukraine as he rode through Russia. The
memoir Ernie published in 2004 (Memoirs, 90 years, 1912-2002:
Canada and Elsewhere) is an amazing first-hand account of his witnessing
"a sort of twilight of the fabulous Empire, and a time of revolutionary
changes in Europe." He also met personalities such as Churchill
and George Bernard Shaw through different Oxford connections.
In Hamburg, he met a German woman named Gerda
WUENSCH (through
study and travel he became fluent in five languages) and when
the Second World War occurred he found himself in Britain with
a young family living through the Blitz. He worked for the Ministry
of Information preparing propaganda, including foreign radio
broadcasts at the British Broadcasting Corporation. One night
during a very severe raid, with his wife and son by his side,
he heard the whistle of V-1 "buzz bombs" coming from directly
overhead. From experience he knew the Germans flew the V-1s in
lines of threes so they heard the explosion of the first bomb,
then the second bomb hit closer. The third bomb just missed his
flat and levelled a house 100 yards away.
He returned to Canada in the 1950s and worked as an economist
for the federal government; he worked for a wide variety of departments.
He shared an office with a young Pierre Trudeau at one point
and he counted C.D. Howe and Jack Pickersgill as his mentors.
He served as executive director of the Atlantic Development Board,
assistant deputy minister of the Department of Regional Economic
Expansion, and the chairman of Canadian Saltfish Corp.
Although he moved and worked in privileged circles he never took
himself seriously. He established the Semi-Senile Snow Shoeing
Society (or the
SSSS as the members called it) in Ottawa. This
group of Friends met for more than 50 years on Saturdays to explore
the woods in western Quebec or in the Ottawa valley. After so
many miles a bonfire would be built and stories would be told
as they ate lunch and sipped their snowshoeing drink (half whisky
and half maple syrup). The group came from all walks of life,
largely through Ernie's wide involvement with organizations such
as the Young Men's Christian Association, his church, the press
club, the Rideau club, and the Canadian Geographical Society.
Charlie Hurst, his best friend, described Ernie as a man who
"knew the name of every tree and flower, who could talk about
international politics for hours, always with all the details,
who could tell a good story -- and who would listen, too. He
was a fantastic man with a fantastic mind." They only stopped
snowshoeing in 2002, when every other member of the original
group had died.
A testament to his spirit is that, as Ernie's body grew frailer
in the last few years and as he was reduced to a cane and then
finally to a wheelchair, the most he would concede to his health
when an inquiry was made might be a casual "Last week was tough,
but, you know, I'm making progress." After which -- inevitably
he'd meet your concerned look with a smile and say, "But tell
me how you're doing."
Arnold SIMESTER is Ernie's step-grand_son.
S... Names SS... Names SSS... Names Welcome Home
SSSS - All Categories in OGSPI