I first met Lee, along with Alice and their family in September 1973. John and I had just moved to Toronto from the States for the school year, and arrived very late because of a train strike. We had no cash, and back then there were no ATM machines. Lee and Alice welcomed us to their home. Not having been to the bank before the weekend, they also had no cash.
Alice gifted us with homemade granola and we had a delightful dinner with them in their newly purchased rambling, three story house, with a long backyard and large tree in the centre. Lee said he imagined that maybe this was what Middle Earth in the Tolkien looked like. Not that I had yet read Tolkien. He said the house was full of nooks and crannies in which he thought the children might like.
The dinner included a green salad for which Lee took special pains to make a fresh vinaigrette dressing with Tarragon. At this meal, or maybe one of many others we were blessed to share during our two years in Toronto, Lee and Alice were clearing dishes for a dessert and busy in the kitchen. Aaron, aged about 3 years climbed into his papa’s Captain chair, put his head on his hand, hand on the table, and in a most adult way of continuing a conversation said, “And uh?”
The meal typically ended with the tea, very often Lapsang Souchong, timed to 4 minutes, brewed in an iron pot. I had never had Lapsang before and I became enamoured with it.
On some of these occasions, later in the evening, after all the children were finally in bed, Lee would make popcorn, with a sly smile on his face, and said, “We get to eat this and not share it with the children!”
Our visits were often on Saturdays. By the end of the day, Lee would sigh, saying, “When I awaken Saturday stretches out before me with so much promise and so much possibility, only to slowly be eclipsed as the day unfolds with one activity after another, driving children to Scottish dancing, doing this needed chore or that, until yet again there has been no chance to escape to the basement to do some carpentry.”
After we had left Toronto, John had an occasion to attend a meeting there. He arrived on the late train on a very cold winter’s night. His zipper had gotten stuck and he couldn’t get his coat closed. When he arrived at the Whitneys everyone had gone to bed but he found a thermos with a hot rum toddy next to his bed, and Alice rescued his zipper the next day.
Lee and Alice shared the same dreams and passions of art, literature, music, living simply, faith, and love of children. Lee supported Alice in her dreams of having a large family, with adopted children. Alice supported Lee in his wild career ideas that did not carry hopes of great financial profit.
Around 1976, Lee decided he was fed up with the academic life, the competition, the constraints, the pressures that left little time for any other pursuit except scholarly research and marking student papers. On a whim Lee and Alice purchased a property in New Brunswick, an old farm house without an indoor toilet, heated by wood, propped on the side of hill with acres of land slanting downward. They moved the family, now expanded by two more children to New Brunswick and left behind Toronto and stuffy academia, to make a new life in a rural setting, living off the land. Eventually, Alice found work teaching art in the public school, and Lee qualified as an Anglican priest with a several point parish. He supplemented their income by teaching some contract university courses. Not too long after moving to the farm, Lee re-invented himself as Jacob Erdman and wrote weekly columns for the local newspaper in a chatty voice filled with literary illusions as well as quaint, witty observations about rural life and living off the land.
I was always a bit surprised when we visited in the summers that no one got up to do chores at 5 a.m. Lee and Alice were not that kind of farmers. The animals all must have learned to wait for the milking and feeding. Lee had a rare ability to inhabit any moment without a sense of time beginning or ending. Today, this is held up as “mindfulness.” It didn’t seem so mindful to me the times we were visiting and we almost missed catching the train.
On one visit, Lee taught us how to dowse for water. We took some forked sticks and walked around the property, and sure enough, they did move over the well.
Lee cherished his male friendships, including former students, colleagues, such as my late spouse, John Chamberlin, and others in Toronto. Later, he would add clerics within the Anglican and Roman Catholic church, as well as the interesting variety of artists and locals around Sussex, New Brunswick. When I saw him with other men, it seemed to me he went into the very special zone of male camaraderie I witnessed among men on sports teams, but this was intellectual, without competition or male prowess, and rather excluding of women. He seemed to be happiest in these moments of shared communion.
I remember a visit for Jacob’s birthday in August. I can’t remember which one, but it was early on after their move. The celebration included inviting the McDermott’s with their many children and the Thomas’s who were visiting the McDermott’s, with more children, adding up to an uncountable number of children from around the world under the age of 12 or so. The Whitney’s house then still had a parlour. I remember the three men from these families escaping to the parlour, closing the doors, and examining a pump organ Lee had acquired. I remember him saying to me, “When this many children get together, I think of it as a kind of self-governing community.” John and I were meantime running around putting away all the tools, including the scythe, worrying about the outcomes of being a self-governing community.
Lee loved to record details, especially about the weather, always in Fahrenheit. He taught me to observe the beauty of November, a month I had always loathed due to its darkness, lack of reflective light from sun or the backs of leaves on trees. He taught me to see the beauty in the grasses and the smaller details of a world dying or at rest.
In his last years, I was most struck by Lee’s complete trust in his family, in their care of him, and especially in Alice’s steadfast love and support, even when he could be frustrating. As much as he always wanted to be part of a large family, when I was with him, I saw how his introverted character often made it difficult for him to participate in the conversation or the activities. It must have been a very big act of faith to have six children after growing up as an only child. I was also struck by how thankful he was for all that the family did for him, especially in pulling together his book before he lost his memories.
I pray that Lee is now at rest, that his prodigious memory is again at hand, along with his wit and his ability to express his love and faith. I give thanks for having the privilege of 49-yrs of friendship and trust.
~ Anna Hemmendinger
Alice gifted us with homemade granola and we had a delightful dinner with them in their newly purchased rambling, three story house, with a long backyard and large tree in the centre. Lee said he imagined that maybe this was what Middle Earth in the Tolkien looked like. Not that I had yet read Tolkien. He said the house was full of nooks and crannies in which he thought the children might like.
The dinner included a green salad for which Lee took special pains to make a fresh vinaigrette dressing with Tarragon. At this meal, or maybe one of many others we were blessed to share during our two years in Toronto, Lee and Alice were clearing dishes for a dessert and busy in the kitchen. Aaron, aged about 3 years climbed into his papa’s Captain chair, put his head on his hand, hand on the table, and in a most adult way of continuing a conversation said, “And uh?”
The meal typically ended with the tea, very often Lapsang Souchong, timed to 4 minutes, brewed in an iron pot. I had never had Lapsang before and I became enamoured with it.
On some of these occasions, later in the evening, after all the children were finally in bed, Lee would make popcorn, with a sly smile on his face, and said, “We get to eat this and not share it with the children!”
Our visits were often on Saturdays. By the end of the day, Lee would sigh, saying, “When I awaken Saturday stretches out before me with so much promise and so much possibility, only to slowly be eclipsed as the day unfolds with one activity after another, driving children to Scottish dancing, doing this needed chore or that, until yet again there has been no chance to escape to the basement to do some carpentry.”
After we had left Toronto, John had an occasion to attend a meeting there. He arrived on the late train on a very cold winter’s night. His zipper had gotten stuck and he couldn’t get his coat closed. When he arrived at the Whitneys everyone had gone to bed but he found a thermos with a hot rum toddy next to his bed, and Alice rescued his zipper the next day.
Lee and Alice shared the same dreams and passions of art, literature, music, living simply, faith, and love of children. Lee supported Alice in her dreams of having a large family, with adopted children. Alice supported Lee in his wild career ideas that did not carry hopes of great financial profit.
Around 1976, Lee decided he was fed up with the academic life, the competition, the constraints, the pressures that left little time for any other pursuit except scholarly research and marking student papers. On a whim Lee and Alice purchased a property in New Brunswick, an old farm house without an indoor toilet, heated by wood, propped on the side of hill with acres of land slanting downward. They moved the family, now expanded by two more children to New Brunswick and left behind Toronto and stuffy academia, to make a new life in a rural setting, living off the land. Eventually, Alice found work teaching art in the public school, and Lee qualified as an Anglican priest with a several point parish. He supplemented their income by teaching some contract university courses. Not too long after moving to the farm, Lee re-invented himself as Jacob Erdman and wrote weekly columns for the local newspaper in a chatty voice filled with literary illusions as well as quaint, witty observations about rural life and living off the land.
I was always a bit surprised when we visited in the summers that no one got up to do chores at 5 a.m. Lee and Alice were not that kind of farmers. The animals all must have learned to wait for the milking and feeding. Lee had a rare ability to inhabit any moment without a sense of time beginning or ending. Today, this is held up as “mindfulness.” It didn’t seem so mindful to me the times we were visiting and we almost missed catching the train.
On one visit, Lee taught us how to dowse for water. We took some forked sticks and walked around the property, and sure enough, they did move over the well.
Lee cherished his male friendships, including former students, colleagues, such as my late spouse, John Chamberlin, and others in Toronto. Later, he would add clerics within the Anglican and Roman Catholic church, as well as the interesting variety of artists and locals around Sussex, New Brunswick. When I saw him with other men, it seemed to me he went into the very special zone of male camaraderie I witnessed among men on sports teams, but this was intellectual, without competition or male prowess, and rather excluding of women. He seemed to be happiest in these moments of shared communion.
I remember a visit for Jacob’s birthday in August. I can’t remember which one, but it was early on after their move. The celebration included inviting the McDermott’s with their many children and the Thomas’s who were visiting the McDermott’s, with more children, adding up to an uncountable number of children from around the world under the age of 12 or so. The Whitney’s house then still had a parlour. I remember the three men from these families escaping to the parlour, closing the doors, and examining a pump organ Lee had acquired. I remember him saying to me, “When this many children get together, I think of it as a kind of self-governing community.” John and I were meantime running around putting away all the tools, including the scythe, worrying about the outcomes of being a self-governing community.
Lee loved to record details, especially about the weather, always in Fahrenheit. He taught me to observe the beauty of November, a month I had always loathed due to its darkness, lack of reflective light from sun or the backs of leaves on trees. He taught me to see the beauty in the grasses and the smaller details of a world dying or at rest.
In his last years, I was most struck by Lee’s complete trust in his family, in their care of him, and especially in Alice’s steadfast love and support, even when he could be frustrating. As much as he always wanted to be part of a large family, when I was with him, I saw how his introverted character often made it difficult for him to participate in the conversation or the activities. It must have been a very big act of faith to have six children after growing up as an only child. I was also struck by how thankful he was for all that the family did for him, especially in pulling together his book before he lost his memories.
I pray that Lee is now at rest, that his prodigious memory is again at hand, along with his wit and his ability to express his love and faith. I give thanks for having the privilege of 49-yrs of friendship and trust.
~ Anna Hemmendinger
