A Teacher's
Tribute to
"Charlie" McIntosh
While the grief of the wife
and parents was, doubtless, naturally, greater than that experienced
by the writer, still, as one who had privately instructed him for
nearly two years, and who has since that period of his life, watched
with considerable interest his steady advancement in his business
career, I was dazed, for the moment, on learning of the death of my
first commercial graduate of 10 years ago -- Charles Allan McIntosh.
"Charlie," then 15
years of age, resided with his parents as my neighbour, on the farm
near Round Plains. After having creditably spent a year and a half
at the Waterford High School, he came to me for a Commercial and
Stenographic course.
As I look back to that, the
resumption on a very modest scale of my school work after a long
illness, my association with Charlie was, as I remember it, a very
pleasant one.
His keen intellect, his fine
ambition, and his all-around manliness appealed strongly to me, as
he sat day after day at his bookkeeping, or taking dictation on the
typewriter.
It was a pleasure to teach
him; and it was a greater pleasure, at the end of his course, to
assist him to a position as stock clerk with the Dominion Telephone
Co. of this place, a position which he held satisfactorily until
that company went int the hands of the receiver, over a year later.
Business conditions were
somewhat stagnant at that time, but Charlie, not wishing to be idle,
went to Welland, and for some time worked as a painter with his
uncle -- until his real opportunity came to him in the way of a
splendid position as bookkeeper on the staff of the Pierce-Arrow
Motor Co. of Buffalo.
With this company Charlie
made steady advancement during his term of nearly four years. Had he
lived to return to his work after spending Christmas with his wife,
at his old home two miles out of the village, he would have been
given another promotion.
He married Miss Marion Welsh
of Buffalo on Christmas Day, 1915, and since that time had resided
happily with his wife's parents.
A few weeks ago he became a
victim of Spanish Influenza, but had, as he thought, recovered
sufficiently, to permit his spending Christmas with his parents. On
his arrival here, however, he took a relapse, and five days later
passed away with typhoid pneumonia.
At his bedside were his wife,
his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. McIntosh; his sister
Beatrice (Mrs. Carl Osborne); his brother Harry; his twin sisters
Ida and Ada; and Mrs. Welsh.
The funeral was held at the
home of his parents on New Years Day, interment being made in the
Waterford cemetery. It was very fitting that six of Charlie's former
chums and classmates should act as bearers -- Doyle Pow, Howard
Young,
Frank Thompson, Hugh Matthews, William Perry and Earl Wilson. The
Rev. J. B. Moore of Waterford and Pastor Taylor of Round Plains
officiated at the obsequies.
We cannot understand just why
a bright young life like Charlie's should be cut off so soon, but a
kind and omniscient Providence has found for him a larger sphere of
service in His Heavenly Home.
Oscar U. Robinson
