Tribute to My Dad
My Dad died last week, peacefully and prepared. I wrote this piece and submitted a shortened version to the Globe and Mail for consideration as a Lives Lived column.
LIVES LIVED
Emmanuel (Manny) Paul Leandre Buan – June 1,1921- November 4, 2004
Survived by his sons Alan (Marilyn) granddaughter Alanna, and Ben (Nancy) grandsons Caley, Aidan and brother Remy.
Farmer, soldier, husband, father, entrepreneur – a small thread in the tapestry of Canadian life and culture.
Saul Bellow wrote that "death is the dark backing a mirror needs if we are to see anything". So much becomes clearer when one looks back on the life of a loved one.
Emmanuel Buan was the youngest of six children born on a farm near St. Brieux, Saskatchewan. His parents emigrated from Brittany as part of the turn of century wave which populated the prairies. His father had previously spent 10 years at sea in the French merchant marine and navy and was at anchor in Shanghai harbour during the Boxer rebellion. His first week in Grade 9, Manny had a disagreement with his teacher. His dad needed help on the farm and told him he could quit school so long as he stayed and worked the farm. The choice was easy for a 15 year old. He quit school in 1936.
For the next 6 years he laboured at the subsistence living which was the sentence served by every small prairie farmer. His diary entries recount the daily routines of cutting wood, picking stones, building and mending fences and milking cows. Yet through it all he experienced a fulfilling sense of community. Small farming communities engendered a spirit of independence enhanced by a sense of responsibility for the well being of one’s neighbour.
His diary is filled with entries of visits to neighbours for meals, even if it meant a 2 hour walk in summer or sleigh ride in winter. He thought nothing of hitching his horses to a little caboose on sled rails, lighting the wood stove inside, and packing his wife and sons off for a 90 minute ride – all to go curling!
Manny tried to enlist in the Army in 1940, but his family doctor classified him C3 because of an earlier bout of septicemia. He argued with the doctor and eventually convinced him to reclassify him as A1. In one eventful week in July 1942 he proposed to his sweetheart, got his parents’ permission to marry, and received his call up for service. He was granted a brief extension to get his dad through harvest season.
On September 30th he married Therese Rudulier, followed immediately by 30 straight days working on a threshing crew before reporting for basic training at the end of November. He shipped out overseas at the end of April 1944, a week after his first son was born. He served as a corporal and saw action in the Italian campaign and in the liberation of Holland. His life of hard work had prepared him for the cold and muddy ditches of Italy serving with the 2nd Field Regiment, 1st Canadian Army.
After the war he built his house with his own hands and moved in with his wife and two sons late in the fall of 1947. After thirteen years of hard work and a decade of CCF government, farming began to take its toll. Manny once went to a T.C. Douglas rally and had the temerity to call out a question for the preacher/politician. He was met with a typical Douglas riposte – “There stands a Liberal, naked and unashamed.” Laughter, the politician’s friend, saved Douglas from explaining how it was he knew better than Manny how to spend his hard earned and meagre farmer’s income.
In 1960 he sold the farm and bought a hotel in Wakaw, Saskatchewan. Always the entrepreneur, but not always successful, Manny later acquired a retail store franchise in Watrous which failed, moved to Saskatoon and was one of the Principal Group’s first Saskatchewan sales representatives. He spent 7 years in Winnipeg where he built up and eventually sold a building maintenance business.
Unashamed of and undaunted by his Grade 8 education this self-educated man won several sales awards during his two stints with Principal, the last of which ended with the firm’s collapse in 1987. The emotional burden of having to counsel clients who had lost their life savings and his sense of having been betrayed by the management of the Principal Group took their toll on his health.
Those who knew Manny only in the last 10 years of his life did not see the humour, and vigour and vitality of his earlier years. He had a lovely singing voice and was always whistling and humming tunes while he worked. He had beautiful handwriting and an artistic streak which produced a few paintings to hand down to his three grandchildren.
He suffered the grief of outliving three wives. His beloved Therese died in 1975 of cancer, his second wife Margaret in 1979 of cancer, and his third wife Joan in 1999 after 17 years of marriage, the last several of which saw her struggle with Alzheimer’s.
Fifty years of smoking wreaked havoc on his lungs, artillery guns and un-muffled farm machinery ravaged his hearing, and his eyesight was failing; yet he never complained. He never asked anyone to help him end his life, and he did not waver from his Christian faith. He knew that his Redeemer lives, and that through Him, he too would have eternal life. He died peacefully with his youngest son at his side.
D.J. Enright wrote that “we might not really object to death if it were not preceded by dying.” Manny knew all too well that dying is part of life and there was nothing to be gained from railing against it. In these days of the cult of the rich, famous or the outrageous, Manny’s life offers little of interest to the headline seekers. However, he does represent a generation and a segment of Canadian society whose spirit, sacrifice and basic decency should not be forgotten.
LIVES LIVED
Emmanuel (Manny) Paul Leandre Buan – June 1,1921- November 4, 2004
Survived by his sons Alan (Marilyn) granddaughter Alanna, and Ben (Nancy) grandsons Caley, Aidan and brother Remy.
Farmer, soldier, husband, father, entrepreneur – a small thread in the tapestry of Canadian life and culture.
Saul Bellow wrote that "death is the dark backing a mirror needs if we are to see anything". So much becomes clearer when one looks back on the life of a loved one.
Emmanuel Buan was the youngest of six children born on a farm near St. Brieux, Saskatchewan. His parents emigrated from Brittany as part of the turn of century wave which populated the prairies. His father had previously spent 10 years at sea in the French merchant marine and navy and was at anchor in Shanghai harbour during the Boxer rebellion. His first week in Grade 9, Manny had a disagreement with his teacher. His dad needed help on the farm and told him he could quit school so long as he stayed and worked the farm. The choice was easy for a 15 year old. He quit school in 1936.
For the next 6 years he laboured at the subsistence living which was the sentence served by every small prairie farmer. His diary entries recount the daily routines of cutting wood, picking stones, building and mending fences and milking cows. Yet through it all he experienced a fulfilling sense of community. Small farming communities engendered a spirit of independence enhanced by a sense of responsibility for the well being of one’s neighbour.
His diary is filled with entries of visits to neighbours for meals, even if it meant a 2 hour walk in summer or sleigh ride in winter. He thought nothing of hitching his horses to a little caboose on sled rails, lighting the wood stove inside, and packing his wife and sons off for a 90 minute ride – all to go curling!
Manny tried to enlist in the Army in 1940, but his family doctor classified him C3 because of an earlier bout of septicemia. He argued with the doctor and eventually convinced him to reclassify him as A1. In one eventful week in July 1942 he proposed to his sweetheart, got his parents’ permission to marry, and received his call up for service. He was granted a brief extension to get his dad through harvest season.
On September 30th he married Therese Rudulier, followed immediately by 30 straight days working on a threshing crew before reporting for basic training at the end of November. He shipped out overseas at the end of April 1944, a week after his first son was born. He served as a corporal and saw action in the Italian campaign and in the liberation of Holland. His life of hard work had prepared him for the cold and muddy ditches of Italy serving with the 2nd Field Regiment, 1st Canadian Army.
After the war he built his house with his own hands and moved in with his wife and two sons late in the fall of 1947. After thirteen years of hard work and a decade of CCF government, farming began to take its toll. Manny once went to a T.C. Douglas rally and had the temerity to call out a question for the preacher/politician. He was met with a typical Douglas riposte – “There stands a Liberal, naked and unashamed.” Laughter, the politician’s friend, saved Douglas from explaining how it was he knew better than Manny how to spend his hard earned and meagre farmer’s income.
In 1960 he sold the farm and bought a hotel in Wakaw, Saskatchewan. Always the entrepreneur, but not always successful, Manny later acquired a retail store franchise in Watrous which failed, moved to Saskatoon and was one of the Principal Group’s first Saskatchewan sales representatives. He spent 7 years in Winnipeg where he built up and eventually sold a building maintenance business.
Unashamed of and undaunted by his Grade 8 education this self-educated man won several sales awards during his two stints with Principal, the last of which ended with the firm’s collapse in 1987. The emotional burden of having to counsel clients who had lost their life savings and his sense of having been betrayed by the management of the Principal Group took their toll on his health.
Those who knew Manny only in the last 10 years of his life did not see the humour, and vigour and vitality of his earlier years. He had a lovely singing voice and was always whistling and humming tunes while he worked. He had beautiful handwriting and an artistic streak which produced a few paintings to hand down to his three grandchildren.
He suffered the grief of outliving three wives. His beloved Therese died in 1975 of cancer, his second wife Margaret in 1979 of cancer, and his third wife Joan in 1999 after 17 years of marriage, the last several of which saw her struggle with Alzheimer’s.
Fifty years of smoking wreaked havoc on his lungs, artillery guns and un-muffled farm machinery ravaged his hearing, and his eyesight was failing; yet he never complained. He never asked anyone to help him end his life, and he did not waver from his Christian faith. He knew that his Redeemer lives, and that through Him, he too would have eternal life. He died peacefully with his youngest son at his side.
D.J. Enright wrote that “we might not really object to death if it were not preceded by dying.” Manny knew all too well that dying is part of life and there was nothing to be gained from railing against it. In these days of the cult of the rich, famous or the outrageous, Manny’s life offers little of interest to the headline seekers. However, he does represent a generation and a segment of Canadian society whose spirit, sacrifice and basic decency should not be forgotten.
posted by Ben Buan | 9:35 p.m.
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