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Tom Keough posted a condolence
Saturday, January 14, 2023
Im a deeply saddened to hear about Rons Passing. I haven't known Ron for a long time 2017 was my first introduction to him.
I quickly learned he was a special person a feeling that grew every time I was able to cross paths with him.
My sincere sympathies to his family. My life is much better having known him!
Tom Keough
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Lisa Posted Jan 16, 2023 at 1:10 AM
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Anonymous planted a tree in memory of RONALD TOWNS
Friday, January 13, 2023
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Grant Towns posted a condolence
Friday, January 13, 2023
Hi Everyone. I would like to share some of my experiences from growing up with brother Ron, mostly from our early years on the farm. These are all true stories based on my best recollection which, admittedly, may not always be the best. Please forward to anyone who is not on the list and who you think would be interested. My recollections will be in the form of many short (short) stories. All of you have your own memories of Ron and your own stories to tell. These are mine.
Introduction
When Ronny (or was it spelled Ronnie sometimes, my brain has a blank there?) was born on January 3rd, 1949, three older brothers already had established their pecking order in the young Towns family headed by father, George, and mother, Edythe. Wayne was born in 1943, Gerry in ‘45 and Grant in ’47. They were all roughly 2 years apart in age and 2 years apart in school. Ronny, as he would be known by all the family until much older, came along about one year and nine months after I did but, instead of starting grade one in 1955 he was, for some reason I never bothered to ask about, sent to school in 1954 at age 5 and was only one grade behind me throughout his entire time at Enterprise, #701, grades 1-8, and Killarney Collegiate Institute (KCI), grades 9-12. It would be 4 ½ years before Barry, Towns boy number 5, would arrive, followed in succession by Carol, Sharon, Brent and Heather. Lisa would wait until 1967, and the first and only to be born in the big city of Winnipeg. The simple arithmetic shows that Ronny probably spent more time with me than with any of his other siblings over the course of his first 18 years. And the stories follow.
Flowers for Mama (This is a happy version. For a sad version, but beautiful version, listen to the one sung by George Jones.)
One of my earliest memories of Ronny is when Mom would take us on a leisurely afternoon walk to visit Annie Dixon. On a warm, clear spring morning Mom would get her wash done and hung on the clotheslines and maybe have her bread already baked and out of the oven. Wayne and Gerry would have hoofed it the one mile due south across the fields at around 8:40 am to learn something at Enterprise school, from which they wouldn’t be dismissed until 4 o’clock. Annie Dixon was the wife of Fred, who was the brother of bachelors Ernie and Allan. Mom would walk us across the low-lying pasture east of our farmyard and arrive at Annie’s about ¾ of a mile later. Mom and Ronny and I would stop along the way to pick a basket of the myriad of beautiful wildflowers growing in abundance in the open pasture. After a visit with Annie, and after of course presenting to her the wildflowers, we would pick another basket on the way back home to sit on our own kitchen table. Mom taught Ronny and I a lesson about giving, a lesson I’m sure she wasn’t even trying to teach. But we learned. I remember sometimes Ronny and I would go out on our own, pick those lovely flowers, and bring them back home to Mommy.
Pajama Game
Mom and Dad flew to Toronto over the winter of 52-’53 and drove home in a brand new, bright red Chevrolet, the shiniest car for many miles around, and certainly in and around the town of Killarney! A part-time hired man of Dad’s, Bill Krahn, and his wife Mary, were entrusted with the care of Wayne, Gerry, Grant and Ronny. Wayne and Gerry slept in one tiny bed in one of the tiny upstairs bedrooms. Ronny and I slept together in the other tiny bed. Well, it got very cold at night in the dead of winter, in our little house which, I much later learned, had no or almost no insulation between the outer and inner walls. How cold, you may ask? Well, we kept a 3-gallon pail of drinking water on the kitchen counter. Many mornings, upon rising, we would discover a layer of ice in that water pail. I am a little bit ashamed to admit as to what transpired during one of those mornings while Mom and Dad were away. I woke up in that cold tiny bed and …….I peed my pyjamas. My young, tiny, half-frozen brain was in a tizzy. Bill and/or Mary Krahn would surely spank me! Now, they had never appeared threatening to any of us before, but that was then and now was now. Plus, they were large, and I was small, and who was to know for sure. I was 5, and so should know better than to pee my pants. Ronny was only three, or maybe coming four. He could maybe get away with it. We have all heard stories, countless times, of people who were willing to give ‘the shirt off their back’ for others. I asked Ron if he would switch pajamas with me to save me from a spanking. He agreed and we made the switch. No one got spanked when Mary helped us get cleaned up and dressed. Brotherly love!
The Runaways
My brothers and I were a stubborn lot, growing up. And very independent, we thought. I ran away from home a couple of times. Both times I hid out about 50 yards from the house amongst the trees which were quite plentiful and dense on both sides of the drive up to the house. One very cold winter day Ronny took it one step farther. I, or perhaps Gerry, or maybe Wayne or any combination of us had been bullying Ronny. Or at least that seemed to be the way he felt about the situation. To be perfectly honest, the four of us were not always exactly nice to each other and sometimes verbal bullying or even mild fisticuffs would occur. Well, on this particular day, Ronny, dressed only in his shirt and pants, and in barefeet, decided that this was the time he was really going to run away from home, and show the rest of us how it was done. Out the door he bolted, in his barefeet! Mom and the rest of us debated for a moment what to do, then Mom decided that someone better go after Ronny. Gerry put on his parka and overshoes, grabbed his mitts and started out after Ronny. Ronny had made it almost to the end of our half mile road before Gerry caught up to him. Gerry carried Ronny most if not all of that half mile back home on his back. Ronny and I may have run away from home one or more times after that, but not that far, and not in such frigid conditions. Again, brotherly love to the rescue!
Nipper the Pig
Growing up on the farm we all knew that most of the livestock and poultry would eventually have to be shipped off to market. Farming was a livelihood. One spring one of our sows had a big litter of piglets and one was the runt and was not able to hold her own in the feeding line. Ronny made it his project to rescue that piglet and see it survive. He bottle-fed that piglet and named her ‘Nipper’. Nipper was Ronny’s pet and quickly had the run of the house. Mom wouldn’t let our dog(s) in the house at that time but Nipper was welcome. However, time marched on. Spring became summer. Summer turned to autumn. By late fall Nipper had grown quite large and had not been allowed in the house for some time. One late fall day Dad had us help load up a truck full of pigs and headed for the city, and reluctantly, Nipper was part of that load. We all loved Nipper and felt bad for Ronny but such was the reality of life on the farm.
The Water Brigade
Spring, summer and fall was usually a pleasant time on the farm. Looking after the milk cows, beef cattle, horses, pigs, chickens, turkeys, geese and anything else was usually relatively simple as they mostly looked after themselves. Winter, on the other hand, particularly a cold winter, could be and was downright brutal. Both our livestock barn and our pig barn were unheated of course. The only heat was provided by the animals themselves. If we used the water trough, any water left after the animals had their drink would freeze and the trough would build up more and more ice. Also, if we let the animals out to drink at the trough the barn would quickly lose whatever heat the animals had left it. So, we carried water from the pump to the barns in 5-gallon pails. Of course we had to pump the water by hand, then carry it approximately 50 yards to one barn and close to 100 yards to the other. I never counted how many round trips we made. It would have been too demoralizing to have kept track of how many more trips you had to make. When the four of us were all going at the same time it would be one brother opening the straw and hay bales and dishing out the chop and any slop to the pigs while the other 3 of us hauled the water, up to 30 gallons per trip. At any given time, Ronny was always the youngest of us and always the smallest of us but he definitely carried his load, and sometimes more. Ronny developed slightly bowed legs growing up and I believe that carrying all that water at such a young age, while he was still a young boy, probably had a lot if not everything to do with it. Sometime around age 20 Ron decided to have surgery on both legs and felt better having done so.
Stones, Hay Bales, and Dirt
Growing up on the farm, we found time to relax, play games and goof around. But the majority of the time, when we were not in school, or running/walking to or from school, involved work. Mom did more work than any of us, with washing the clothes, baking bread (and everything!), cooking the meals, planting and tending our large gardens, canning and many more tasks. And always, always looking after her many children and her new baby every 2 years or so it seems, which the statistics show to be true! Dad was often on the road, selling his ‘Wear-Ever’ Cook Ware, Niagara Cyclo Massage, Pre-Arranged Funerals, whatever it took to keep his family clothed and fed. The boys did the routine chores with the animals, six o’clock in the morning and six o’clock at night, 365, spring, summer, winter and fall. We plowed, cultivated, disced and harrowed the fields and helped Dad sow in the spring. In early summer when the summer holidays hit, we stacked many hundreds (thousands) of 70 lb hay bales from the fields onto the racks and then, once home, stacked those same bales in mighty stacks close to the barn. Then it was summerfallow and picking stones in the fields left fallow for that year. For the uninitiated, our ‘stoneboat’ was akin to a very sturdy raft made out of very sturdy wood, approximately 5’ x 8’, and pulled behind our tractor. Sometimes we would spend an entire day in a fourty acre bare black dirt field rolling hundreds of stones onto the stoneboat and piling them in rows along a ‘fenceline’ between adjacent fields. These ‘stones’ could vary between small, as in say 20 lbs to boulders weighing literally 2 to 3 to 4 hundred or more pounds. Once the stones were ‘picked’ (trust me, they were NEVER all picked), it was back to school, or missing school, swathing, combining and then baling, collecting and stacking the straw bales a la the hay bales earlier. Yes, work was hard on the farm. But man, were we fit!
Ride ‘em Cowboy!
We had a team of horses on the farm that Dad not only hitched to the wagon for odd chores but they were also great for riding. They were 2 mares with the very bland, really silly names (now that I think back in time) of ‘Lighty’ and ‘Darky’. Who named them, I don’t know and will guess that I will never know. My goodness, when Dad was 17 and walking behind the plow, two of his horses were named ‘Pete’ and ‘Joe’. Now, those were real horse names! Not, ‘Lighty’ and ‘Darky’. Anyways, all four of us older boys rode bareback. No saddles on our farm! All we had to do was throw a bridle over their heads and jump on. I remember riding up into the pasture with Ronny on many occasions and riding with him in the unfenced pasture down the east half mile herding the cattle. Those were the days!
Killarney Fair
As the boys got older and were able to do more of the farm work, Dad managed to pick up the pace too for a few years. We grew ‘registered’ wheat, built a herd of registered purebred Hereford cattle, and entered livestock in the annual Killarney Fair. Ronny, now maybe ‘Ron’ around this time, took great pride in showing our cattle at the fair and for a couple of years he showed our pony ‘Prince’. These were GREAT years growing up on the farm. The older 4 boys could really hammer it, Barry was also now old enough to do a lot of work, and Carol, Sharon and Brent were now ‘big’ little kids and Mom could breathe a little easier.
The Boxing Match
Dad and all his sons were great boxing fans. I vividly remember Dad, Wayne, Gerry, Ronny and myself glued to the radio as Rocky Marciano fought Ezzard Charles for the ‘Heavyweight Championship of the World’! (Trivia: Rocky was the only heavyweight champion in history to go UNDEFEATED throughout his entire boxing career! Young ‘uns: Go to ‘You Tube’ and check out his fights with Jersey Joe Walcott and Ezzard Charles.) Ron and I were both boxing fans. I don’t really know what year it was but I suspect I was maybe 16 and Ron was about 14. Anyways we were both about the same size, the same weight. I think it was still winter and we had some time to kill, I guess it was a weekend. I came up with the idea that it would be a good opportunity to practice our boxing skills, as per Rocky Marciano from a few years prior or the current big names Floyd Patterson or Ingemar Johannson. We stripped down to the waist, put on our winter mitts and agreed to “no punching the head or neck”. Being ever the technical nerd when it came to sports, I came up with the standard rules of boxing: 3-minute rounds with a minute between each. I don’t recall who the spectators were, if any, other than Mom and she was quite ambivalent to the entire proceeding. She had seen worse from her sons. So round one started off with a lot of jabbing and pitter-pat shots. Round two, and as one of us landed a crunch to the ribs, the other one was compelled to respond in kind. Soon, it was a non-stop barrage of body blows to the chest, hips, solar plexus and ribs. Though I was one year and nine months older than Ron, we were about the same size. I was small-boned and Ron was ‘big-boned’. His punches were ‘heavy’. The third round was more of the same from the second, only the intensity and ferocity of the pummeling from both parties increased. After surviving the 3 minutes for the third time I suggested to Ron that maybe that was enough practice for the day and he agreed. My entire torso was black and blue and my ribs were so bruised that I could not take a deep breath for a week.
The Mile Run
At the high school divisional track meets between Boissevain, Cartwright and Killarney, Wayne would line up for the 100 yard dash, toss aside his cigarette and remove his shoes. Being a gentleman, I guess, he would leave his socks on. Some of his competitors would be changed into their shorts and their track spikes. At 50 yards, Wayne would be 3 yards behind. At the tape, he would be 3 yards ahead. Gerry would either win the mile and half-mile or be in the ribbons. I was also near the front in most races. In 1965 the meet was held in Killarney. Ron wasn’t usually a big participant in the track meets or organized sports in general. That year, some of his classmates were teasing him, challenging him to enter a race and try to win like his brothers had done. Lo and behold, Ron toed the line to begin the Mile race. He ran steady with the pack for the first half of the race. Gradually, one by one, the other boys dropped back. Ron kept the same pace throughout from start to finish and won the race going away. There were whoops and hollers and pats on the back as many (all?) of his classmates and friends could not believe it. But I could believe it. Eleven years of hiking that mile to and from school, running up into the pasture to get the cows, rolling the stones and throwing the hay bales, carrying those 5-gallon pails full of water. The town boys, even if they trained for track, didn’t know what they were getting into when they toed the line versus a Towns’ boy!
City Life
Dad and Mom sold the farm in 1966 and they moved their family to Winnipeg to start a new chapter in their life and for their family. Farming was rapidly changing and becoming very ‘specialized’ with big money and big equipment taking over. Our little ‘mixed farm’ of 3 quarter sections, much of it eternally stone-ridden, could no longer compete. Dad and Mom “left their blood and sweat all over that land” and successfully raised a very large family there. They had given it their all. Dad, Ron and I got jobs in the city. Coincidentally, and I really don’t remember how it came about, but both Ron and I got jobs at the Macleods warehouse, 1530 Gamble Place, just beside MacGillray and very near where I now live. We worked there for about half the year in 1967 and got laid off in the fall, about the same time as I recall. That, in retrospect, was a good thing! Life happens. Ron met a wonderful young woman a few years later, got married and helped raise a beautiful family. Fate and circumstance took me down a different path. Since 1970 or so Ron and I have not seen each other nearly as much as I wish, in hindsight, that we had. He did build a garage for me at a property in St. Vital in 2006 which I will venture to state is as sturdy as any garage in the city of Winnipeg!
Ron has always been an honest, hardworking, kind, generous, stoic man and one who I have always been, and am, proud to call my brother. Rest in peace Ron. We all love you.
Hi Everyone. I would like to share some of my experiences from growing up with brother Ron, mostly from our early years on the farm. These are all true stories based on my best recollection which, admittedly, may not always be the best. Please forward to anyone who is not on the list and who you think would be interested. My recollections will be in the form of many short (short) stories. All of you have your own memories of Ron and your own stories to tell. These are mine.
Introduction
When Ronny (or was it spelled Ronnie sometimes, my brain has a blank there?) was born on January 3rd, 1949, three older brothers already had established their pecking order in the young Towns family headed by father, George, and mother, Edythe. Wayne was born in 1943, Gerry in ‘45 and Grant in ’47. They were all roughly 2 years apart in age and 2 years apart in school. Ronny, as he would be known by all the family until much older, came along about one year and nine months after I did but, instead of starting grade one in 1955 he was, for some reason I never bothered to ask about, sent to school in 1954 at age 5 and was only one grade behind me throughout his entire time at Enterprise, #701, grades 1-8, and Killarney Collegiate Institute (KCI), grades 9-12. It would be 4 ½ years before Barry, Towns boy number 5, would arrive, followed in succession by Carol, Sharon, Brent and Heather. Lisa would wait until 1967, and the first and only to be born in the big city of Winnipeg. The simple arithmetic shows that Ronny probably spent more time with me than with any of his other siblings over the course of his first 18 years. And the stories follow.
Flowers for Mama (This is a happy version. For a sad version, but beautiful version, listen to the one sung by George Jones.)
One of my earliest memories of Ronny is when Mom would take us on a leisurely afternoon walk to visit Annie Dixon. On a warm, clear spring morning Mom would get her wash done and hung on the clotheslines and maybe have her bread already baked and out of the oven. Wayne and Gerry would have hoofed it the one mile due south across the fields at around 8:40 am to learn something at Enterprise school, from which they wouldn’t be dismissed until 4 o’clock. Annie Dixon was the wife of Fred, who was the brother of bachelors Ernie and Allan. Mom would walk us across the low-lying pasture east of our farmyard and arrive at Annie’s about ¾ of a mile later. Mom and Ronny and I would stop along the way to pick a basket of the myriad of beautiful wildflowers growing in abundance in the open pasture. After a visit with Annie, and after of course presenting to her the wildflowers, we would pick another basket on the way back home to sit on our own kitchen table. Mom taught Ronny and I a lesson about giving, a lesson I’m sure she wasn’t even trying to teach. But we learned. I remember sometimes Ronny and I would go out on our own, pick those lovely flowers, and bring them back home to Mommy.
Pajama Game
Mom and Dad flew to Toronto over the winter of 52-’53 and drove home in a brand new, bright red Chevrolet, the shiniest car for many miles around, and certainly in and around the town of Killarney! A part-time hired man of Dad’s, Bill Krahn, and his wife Mary, were entrusted with the care of Wayne, Gerry, Grant and Ronny. Wayne and Gerry slept in one tiny bed in one of the tiny upstairs bedrooms. Ronny and I slept together in the other tiny bed. Well, it got very cold at night in the dead of winter, in our little house which, I much later learned, had no or almost no insulation between the outer and inner walls. How cold, you may ask? Well, we kept a 3-gallon pail of drinking water on the kitchen counter. Many mornings, upon rising, we would discover a layer of ice in that water pail. I am a little bit ashamed to admit as to what transpired during one of those mornings while Mom and Dad were away. I woke up in that cold tiny bed and …….I peed my pyjamas. My young, tiny, half-frozen brain was in a tizzy. Bill and/or Mary Krahn would surely spank me! Now, they had never appeared threatening to any of us before, but that was then and now was now. Plus, they were large, and I was small, and who was to know for sure. I was 5, and so should know better than to pee my pants. Ronny was only three, or maybe coming four. He could maybe get away with it. We have all heard stories, countless times, of people who were willing to give ‘the shirt off their back’ for others. I asked Ron if he would switch pajamas with me to save me from a spanking. He agreed and we made the switch. No one got spanked when Mary helped us get cleaned up and dressed. Brotherly love!
The Runaways
My brothers and I were a stubborn lot, growing up. And very independent, we thought. I ran away from home a couple of times. Both times I hid out about 50 yards from the house amongst the trees which were quite plentiful and dense on both sides of the drive up to the house. One very cold winter day Ronny took it one step farther. I, or perhaps Gerry, or maybe Wayne or any combination of us had been bullying Ronny. Or at least that seemed to be the way he felt about the situation. To be perfectly honest, the four of us were not always exactly nice to each other and sometimes verbal bullying or even mild fisticuffs would occur. Well, on this particular day, Ronny, dressed only in his shirt and pants, and in barefeet, decided that this was the time he was really going to run away from home, and show the rest of us how it was done. Out the door he bolted, in his barefeet! Mom and the rest of us debated for a moment what to do, then Mom decided that someone better go after Ronny. Gerry put on his parka and overshoes, grabbed his mitts and started out after Ronny. Ronny had made it almost to the end of our half mile road before Gerry caught up to him. Gerry carried Ronny most if not all of that half mile back home on his back. Ronny and I may have run away from home one or more times after that, but not that far, and not in such frigid conditions. Again, brotherly love to the rescue!
Nipper the Pig
Growing up on the farm we all knew that most of the livestock and poultry would eventually have to be shipped off to market. Farming was a livelihood. One spring one of our sows had a big litter of piglets and one was the runt and was not able to hold her own in the feeding line. Ronny made it his project to rescue that piglet and see it survive. He bottle-fed that piglet and named her ‘Nipper’. Nipper was Ronny’s pet and quickly had the run of the house. Mom wouldn’t let our dog(s) in the house at that time but Nipper was welcome. However, time marched on. Spring became summer. Summer turned to autumn. By late fall Nipper had grown quite large and had not been allowed in the house for some time. One late fall day Dad had us help load up a truck full of pigs and headed for the city, and reluctantly, Nipper was part of that load. We all loved Nipper and felt bad for Ronny but such was the reality of life on the farm.
The Water Brigade
Spring, summer and fall was usually a pleasant time on the farm. Looking after the milk cows, beef cattle, horses, pigs, chickens, turkeys, geese and anything else was usually relatively simple as they mostly looked after themselves. Winter, on the other hand, particularly a cold winter, could be and was downright brutal. Both our livestock barn and our pig barn were unheated of course. The only heat was provided by the animals themselves. If we used the water trough, any water left after the animals had their drink would freeze and the trough would build up more and more ice. Also, if we let the animals out to drink at the trough the barn would quickly lose whatever heat the animals had left it. So, we carried water from the pump to the barns in 5-gallon pails. Of course we had to pump the water by hand, then carry it approximately 50 yards to one barn and close to 100 yards to the other. I never counted how many round trips we made. It would have been too demoralizing to have kept track of how many more trips you had to make. When the four of us were all going at the same time it would be one brother opening the straw and hay bales and dishing out the chop and any slop to the pigs while the other 3 of us hauled the water, up to 30 gallons per trip. At any given time, Ronny was always the youngest of us and always the smallest of us but he definitely carried his load, and sometimes more. Ronny developed slightly bowed legs growing up and I believe that carrying all that water at such a young age, while he was still a young boy, probably had a lot if not everything to do with it. Sometime around age 20 Ron decided to have surgery on both legs and felt better having done so.
Stones, Hay Bales, and Dirt
Growing up on the farm, we found time to relax, play games and goof around. But the majority of the time, when we were not in school, or running/walking to or from school, involved work. Mom did more work than any of us, with washing the clothes, baking bread (and everything!), cooking the meals, planting and tending our large gardens, canning and many more tasks. And always, always looking after her many children and her new baby every 2 years or so it seems, which the statistics show to be true! Dad was often on the road, selling his ‘Wear-Ever’ Cook Ware, Niagara Cyclo Massage, Pre-Arranged Funerals, whatever it took to keep his family clothed and fed. The boys did the routine chores with the animals, six o’clock in the morning and six o’clock at night, 365, spring, summer, winter and fall. We plowed, cultivated, disced and harrowed the fields and helped Dad sow in the spring. In early summer when the summer holidays hit, we stacked many hundreds (thousands) of 70 lb hay bales from the fields onto the racks and then, once home, stacked those same bales in mighty stacks close to the barn. Then it was summerfallow and picking stones in the fields left fallow for that year. For the uninitiated, our ‘stoneboat’ was akin to a very sturdy raft made out of very sturdy wood, approximately 5’ x 8’, and pulled behind our tractor. Sometimes we would spend an entire day in a fourty acre bare black dirt field rolling hundreds of stones onto the stoneboat and piling them in rows along a ‘fenceline’ between adjacent fields. These ‘stones’ could vary between small, as in say 20 lbs to boulders weighing literally 2 to 3 to 4 hundred or more pounds. Once the stones were ‘picked’ (trust me, they were NEVER all picked), it was back to school, or missing school, swathing, combining and then baling, collecting and stacking the straw bales a la the hay bales earlier. Yes, work was hard on the farm. But man, were we fit!
Ride ‘em Cowboy!
We had a team of horses on the farm that Dad not only hitched to the wagon for odd chores but they were also great for riding. They were 2 mares with the very bland, really silly names (now that I think back in time) of ‘Lighty’ and ‘Darky’. Who named them, I don’t know and will guess that I will never know. My goodness, when Dad was 17 and walking behind the plow, two of his horses were named ‘Pete’ and ‘Joe’. Now, those were real horse names! Not, ‘Lighty’ and ‘Darky’. Anyways, all four of us older boys rode bareback. No saddles on our farm! All we had to do was throw a bridle over their heads and jump on. I remember riding up into the pasture with Ronny on many occasions and riding with him in the unfenced pasture down the east half mile herding the cattle. Those were the days!
Killarney Fair
As the boys got older and were able to do more of the farm work, Dad managed to pick up the pace too for a few years. We grew ‘registered’ wheat, built a herd of registered purebred Hereford cattle, and entered livestock in the annual Killarney Fair. Ronny, now maybe ‘Ron’ around this time, took great pride in showing our cattle at the fair and for a couple of years he showed our pony ‘Prince’. These were GREAT years growing up on the farm. The older 4 boys could really hammer it, Barry was also now old enough to do a lot of work, and Carol, Sharon and Brent were now ‘big’ little kids and Mom could breathe a little easier.
The Boxing Match
Dad and all his sons were great boxing fans. I vividly remember Dad, Wayne, Gerry, Ronny and myself glued to the radio as Rocky Marciano fought Ezzard Charles for the ‘Heavyweight Championship of the World’! (Trivia: Rocky was the only heavyweight champion in history to go UNDEFEATED throughout his entire boxing career! Young ‘uns: Go to ‘You Tube’ and check out his fights with Jersey Joe Walcott and Ezzard Charles.) Ron and I were both boxing fans. I don’t really know what year it was but I suspect I was maybe 16 and Ron was about 14. Anyways we were both about the same size, the same weight. I think it was still winter and we had some time to kill, I guess it was a weekend. I came up with the idea that it would be a good opportunity to practice our boxing skills, as per Rocky Marciano from a few years prior or the current big names Floyd Patterson or Ingemar Johannson. We stripped down to the waist, put on our winter mitts and agreed to “no punching the head or neck”. Being ever the technical nerd when it came to sports, I came up with the standard rules of boxing: 3-minute rounds with a minute between each. I don’t recall who the spectators were, if any, other than Mom and she was quite ambivalent to the entire proceeding. She had seen worse from her sons. So round one started off with a lot of jabbing and pitter-pat shots. Round two, and as one of us landed a crunch to the ribs, the other one was compelled to respond in kind. Soon, it was a non-stop barrage of body blows to the chest, hips, solar plexus and ribs. Though I was one year and nine months older than Ron, we were about the same size. I was small-boned and Ron was ‘big-boned’. His punches were ‘heavy’. The third round was more of the same from the second, only the intensity and ferocity of the pummeling from both parties increased. After surviving the 3 minutes for the third time I suggested to Ron that maybe that was enough practice for the day and he agreed. My entire torso was black and blue and my ribs were so bruised that I could not take a deep breath for a week.
The Mile Run
At the high school divisional track meets between Boissevain, Cartwright and Killarney, Wayne would line up for the 100 yard dash, toss aside his cigarette and remove his shoes. Being a gentleman, I guess, he would leave his socks on. Some of his competitors would be changed into their shorts and their track spikes. At 50 yards, Wayne would be 3 yards behind. At the tape, he would be 3 yards ahead. Gerry would either win the mile and half-mile or be in the ribbons. I was also near the front in most races. In 1965 the meet was held in Killarney. Ron wasn’t usually a big participant in the track meets or organized sports in general. That year, some of his classmates were teasing him, challenging him to enter a race and try to win like his brothers had done. Lo and behold, Ron toed the line to begin the Mile race. He ran steady with the pack for the first half of the race. Gradually, one by one, the other boys dropped back. Ron kept the same pace throughout from start to finish and won the race going away. There were whoops and hollers and pats on the back as many (all?) of his classmates and friends could not believe it. But I could believe it. Eleven years of hiking that mile to and from school, running up into the pasture to get the cows, rolling the stones and throwing the hay bales, carrying those 5-gallon pails full of water. The town boys, even if they trained for track, didn’t know what they were getting into when they toed the line versus a Towns’ boy!
City Life
Dad and Mom sold the farm in 1966 and they moved their family to Winnipeg to start a new chapter in their life and for their family. Farming was rapidly changing and becoming very ‘specialized’ with big money and big equipment taking over. Our little ‘mixed farm’ of 3 quarter sections, much of it eternally stone-ridden, could no longer compete. Dad and Mom “left their blood and sweat all over that land” and successfully raised a very large family there. They had given it their all. Dad, Ron and I got jobs in the city. Coincidentally, and I really don’t remember how it came about, but both Ron and I got jobs at the Macleods warehouse, 1530 Gamble Place, just beside MacGillray and very near where I now live. We worked there for about half the year in 1967 and got laid off in the fall, about the same time as I recall. That, in retrospect, was a good thing! Life happens. Ron met a wonderful young woman a few years later, got married and helped raise a beautiful family. Fate and circumstance took me down a different path. Since 1970 or so Ron and I have not seen each other nearly as much as I wish, in hindsight, that we had. He did build a garage for me at a property in St. Vital in 2006 which I will venture to state is as sturdy as any garage in the city of Winnipeg!
Ron has always been an honest, hardworking, kind, generous, stoic man and one who I have always been, and am, proud to call my brother. Rest in peace Ron. We all love you.
C
Christine Strutt posted a symbolic gesture
Saturday, January 7, 2023
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Uncle Ronnie built a full bath for our family in our country home. He certainly was the handyman/builder in the Towns family!
I always appreciated the way he wouldn't give you an answer unless it was the correct one. If he was asked a difficult question, he would take the time to think before he answered. It was as if you could see his brain working in real time.
My dad has said a few times over the years how intelligent he thought Uncle Ronnie was. He said he never even had to study in school to achieve the high marks he got.
My mother appreciated his work ethic. She said, "He could be the last one to go to bed, but he'll always be the first one to arrive at work in the morning." She respected him for that.
Rest in peace, Uncle Ronnie
L
Linda Thompson posted a condolence
Saturday, January 7, 2023
I am so sorry to hear of Ron’s passing & also Drew. I never met Ron but I did meet Drew. My sincerest condolences to all the Towns family.
L
Lisa Towns and family posted a symbolic gesture
Friday, January 6, 2023
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To my dear brother Ronny, you will be forever remembered and missed by us all. You always were there to lend a helping hand with driving across the city in rush hour to help change my flat tire in freezing weather to helping Mike and I build a bedroom in our basement for our children. Your kind heart and gentle side will be forever missed and our family gatherings will never be the same without you. I will love you my dear brother forever.
Fly high Ronny. Love sister Lisa and family
L
Lisa Towns purchased flowers
Friday, January 6, 2023
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Fly high dear brother Ronny
Please wait
L
Lisa Towns planted a tree in memory of RONALD TOWNS
Friday, January 6, 2023
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Fly high dear brother Ronny Join in honoring their life - plant a memorial tree
Please wait
S
Sharon Towns purchased flowers
Friday, January 6, 2023
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You will be forever missed brother Ronny. Love sister Sharon
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S
Sharon Towns planted a tree in memory of RONALD TOWNS
Friday, January 6, 2023
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You will be forever missed brother Ronny. Love sister Sharon Join in honoring their life - plant a memorial tree
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C
Carol and John McNeill posted a symbolic gesture
Friday, January 6, 2023
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Cheers to you, brother Ron. I have been remembering happy times of growing up on the farm. Your love of animals and your nurturing nature. I remember the two little pigs Walter and Nipper that you bottle fed and would have certainly died without your care. Such a kind heart. Your marriage to Eleanor and the birth of your children such beautiful memories. I remember your love of baking little treats on the farm, your popovers filled with jam, a highlight for me being a small child. I loved when we had family get togethers in parks and other locations. I just regret there weren't more such gatherings. Love you forever my brother. " In your hands, O Lord, we humbly entrust our brother Ronald. In this life you embraced him with your tender love; deliver him now from all evil and bid him eternal rest with your son Jesus and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen Love sister Carol, John and Family.
Q
Q Posted Jan 6, 2023 at 3:59 PM
That's a great memory auntie Carol,, hopefully we can fit lots of these stories in at the service for everyone to hear
T
Tom & Christine Strutt purchased flowers
Friday, January 6, 2023
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With Love
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C
Carol and John McNeill planted a tree in memory of RONALD TOWNS
Friday, January 6, 2023
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Our thoughts and prayers are with you. Join in honoring their life - plant a memorial tree
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A Memorial Tree was planted for RONALD TOWNS
Friday, January 6, 2023
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We are deeply sorry for your loss ~ the staff at 1442 Main Street Join in honoring their life - plant a memorial tree
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The family of RONALD BEVERLY TOWNS uploaded a photo
Friday, January 6, 2023
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