Arnold Mathers - a life well lived - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston

Each of us, if we live a long life as I have, get to meet many fascinating people. If you were a journalist, as I was, you’re likely to meet even more - like Arnold Mathers whose obituary was in last week’s Citizen.

 

I first met Arnold when I was a journalism student at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now Toronto Metropolitan University) and had a summer job in 1967 with A. Y. McLean at the Huron Expositor in Seaforth. Near the end of my time there, Andy sent me to Brucefield to interview Arnold Mathers, the young (I’m guessing he was about 30) principal of the brand new Huron Centennial School.

 

That was it for a long while, although I was editor of the Clinton News-Record in 1971 when Huron County was hit with one of its worst snowstorms. The storm hit in the middle of the day and I had to provide a room for my boss from Goderich to spend the night. Things were worse for Arnold, as hundreds of students (it was the biggest school in the county) were unable to get home and had to stay at the school, with Arnold and their teachers as hosts. Bartliff’s bakery still had delivery trucks on the road and one was stuck in Brucefield, with bread that the kids could eat. The then-new snowmobiles helped bring more food to the school where the kids were stuck for days.

 

After we moved to Blyth I didn’t hear about Arnold for a while, but after he was principal for 18 years and was Superintendent for the Huron County School Board for 10, he retired. He and his wife Ila, who was also a teacher, travelled to 56 countries and spent 30 winters in Florida.

 

Ila was also on the board of the Blyth Festival and it was through her that Jill and I received an invitation to a Christmas party at the Mathers’ part-time home, a restored log cabin  just south of Wingham. Arnold grew and sold Christmas trees from that farm and I bought our Christmas tree there every December for years.

 

Along the way, Arnold started writing as a way to tell stories of his parents’ life. He wrote three stories and his mother suggested he show them to me at The Rural Voice, The Citizen’s sister magazine about farm life. I liked the stories and not only published them but wondered if he had any more. He kept writing.

 

Arnold’s death was not a surprise to me because in early February I received a letter from him, saying that he was writing to people who had helped him so he could say thank you. His doctor discovered he had terminal lung cancer and he had only two months to live. He was writing to those who had helped him along the way.

 

When I received the news of his death, I had just finished proofreading the latest issue of The Rural Voice (farm readers will get it before April 1) in which he has a column about growing up on a farm southeast of Wingham with his father, Mel (who I also met in my early years).

 

Since he was born 10 years before me and lived through the last years of the Depression, it’s hard to imagine the life he describes so well in his column and books. After graduating from a one-room schoolhouse he went to Wingham High School (before it became F. E. Madill). Upon graduating he went to Stratford Teachers’ College. After graduating he taught in a one-room school near Tiverton.

 

He and Ila had been married 67 years. Early on, they moved to Toronto for five years so both could teach. Eventually Arnold went to University of Western Ontario to get his degree and they moved to Exeter after he became Principal of Usborne Central School before moving to Huron Centennial.

 

Jill had just started reading his book Tales from the Township when Arnold’s letter arrived. She had bought it at Christmas when she bought two other books from The Citizen as Christmas presents. Because she had other books on the go, she left it on the shelf until early February. I’m currently reading it now.

 

According to Arnold, he had 40 stories published in The Rural Voice over the years. They were collected into books printed at the Goderich Print Shop including Water Under the Bridge, Home Made and Hand Me Downs and Tales from the Township. He’s also written three novels, From Ireland to the Queen’s Bush, The Investigators and The Bachelor. All told, he’s sold 3,000 books over the years.

 

He also said he had seen every play at the Blyth Festival - which is better than I have.

 

“I have had a wonderful life,” he said in his letter. “I have had every job I ever wanted.”

 

Few of us could say the same. Although it’s sad to see him die, and Ila will be particularly affected, few people can say they have left as big a mark on life. And that’s not even noting the thousands of people who graduated from Huron Centennial during his career. It was a life well lived and everyone affected will be thankful he lived it.