Nova Scotia Love Stories

by Lesley Choyce

  May 2, 1951

  Darling Joyce,

  I received your welcome letter this morning and I was more than glad to hear from you. I am feeling well and I trust and hope that both you and little Dougie are well also and getting along well. I am now at the porter’s quarters in Moncton and I have just finished supper.

  I pray that some time in the not too distant future if everything goes good we may be fortunate enough to have a place to call our own.

  Joyce I was very lonely last night in Rivière Du Loup before train time, but I just shrugged it off because I have a good while to go before I get to see you again. Little Dougie was so sweet the day I left. After I kissed you he was smacking his lips for me to kiss him. He is such a darling little boy, isn’t he?

  I will lay down and rest awhile before I prepare for work so I must bring this letter to a close hoping to hear from you soon. So until I see you keep remembering that I love you with all my heart.

  Your loving husband,

  Calvin

  On January 21, 1953, the Rucks welcomed their second child, Rochelle, into the world.

  Calvin didn’t want to raise his children in a small apartment. He wanted a house. But finding someone to rent to a Black couple was easier said than done. The search for a proper home took several years.

  In 1955, Calvin found a man who was selling a building lot in the Westphal area of Dartmouth. Although he knew his family would be the only Black family in the neighbourhood, Calvin and Joyce liked the location, as it was close to schools and businesses.

  It was not long before the buzz of a Black family wanting to move into this all-white neighbourhood began to travel through the Westphal community. The residents, stating they did not want a Black family to reside in their neighbourhood, signed a petition.

  Although the purpose of the Ruck family moving to Dartmouth and buying a home was to have a better life for their children, Joyce admits she felt more comfortable bringing her children up in Halifax in a predominantly Black neighbourhood, than in an area where Blacks were seen as an inadequate and an inferior race. The family was constantly reminded that they were not welcome. Letters were cut out of magazines and newspapers and pasted together to create anonymous hate mail. Phone calls were coming in declaring the dislike the community had for this family they barely knew. Such intense opposition was wasted on the family, however, as Joyce and Calvin were determined to make it work at 27 Walker Street.

  On January 26, 1959, Calvin and Joyce expanded their family with the birth of their third child, Martin.

  After moving to Westphal, Joyce’s nerves became overactive and, with Calvin still working as a sleeping car porter on the railroad part-time, she was left alone with the children in a neighbourhood where she was unwanted and disliked. One week she became very ill and managed to contact Calvin on the road. Upon his return home, the couple went to the doctor and it was decided that it was not safe for Joyce to be alone. Calvin also felt that it was not fair to leave his wife for days at a time to care for the children by herself, so he decided to take a few months off to stay home with his family.

  During the 1960s, Calvin was juggling several jobs. He would wake up early in the morning and head down to the Bank of Montreal in Shearwater to perform janitorial duties. He would then take care of maintenance and cleaning at CFB Shearwater, located on the eastern shore of Halifax harbour. He worked specifically in the library and made it a goal to read every book in the building.

  With Calvin having such late evenings, it was hard for Joyce to sleep until she knew her husband was safely home. She would sit up and wait for him with Doug, who would run into their bedroom and look out the window to see if car lights were coming down the street. “I always knew where he was,” says Joyce. “He always called me if he was going somewhere or was going to be late.”

  Calvin also became immersed in issues of human rights and social justice. He spent a great deal of time in the communities of North and East Preston, Lake Loon and Cherry Brook. Calvin was an advocate and driving force behind paved roads, proper plumbing in homes and clear titles to land – basic human rights that were denied to many because of the colour of their skin.

  As someone who was involved in so much and vocal about so many issues, Calvin’s name became very familiar to the people of Nova Scotia. For every person who was grateful for the changes, there was someone else who was looking for the first opportunity to shut down this man who seemed to have no fear. Calvin became not only a voice, but a face to the human rights movement in Nova Scotia, a reality that worried Joyce as he was now being labelled a “troublemaker” and accused of having ties with the Black radical group, the Black Panthers.

  Joyce admits that although she may have been opposed to some of the things Calvin was doing out of fear for his safety, she rarely spoke up about it.

  “Calvin said to me, ‘Well, I guess I’ll be a troublemaker if I have to fight for what’s right,’ ” recalls Joyce. “He said, ‘I don’t want my children going through what I went through.’ Even if I was opposed, I don’t know if I ever told him. I might have said, ‘Calvin, I don’t think you should do that,’ but he would go ahead and do it anyways because he felt it had to be done.”

  In 1978, Calvin was working as a community development officer and worked alongside many who had earned a degree in the field of social work. Although doing many of the duties a social worker would do, he was not earning the same pay, so Calvin enrolled in the Maritime School of Social Work at Dalhousie University. He spent many late nights studying and, as Joyce recalls, he loved every minute of it. “We’d be gone to bed and Calvin would be up studying, but he enjoyed it. He was the oldest person there, but he enjoyed the young people.”

  As Calvin was a full-time student, he was no longer able to dedicate as much time to his work, which meant he was no longer receiving a full salary. During her life with Calvin, Joyce had developed a number of money-saving strategies. Economizing wherever she could was one way of supporting Calvin in his endeavours. Calvin’s long hours and Joyce’s money management proved to be effective, as lack of money was never a conversation in the Ruck household.

  In 1979, at fifty-four years of age, Calvin graduated from the Maritime School of Social Work.

  Joyce was by Calvin’s side as he received many accolades in his life, including an honourary degree from Dalhousie University in 1994 and the Order of Canada in 1995. The couple celebrated these great accomplishments with family and friends, but for many of these milestones, there was always one very important person missing.

  In 1976, while living in Toronto, Rochelle, the couple’s only daughter, wrote a letter to Calvin and Joyce, informing them she had been diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a disease that leads to inflammation in the body’s organs. She was in her twenties at the time. She would eventually move to Australia in 1992. Joyce was not comfortable with her daughter going so far away. Upon word of Rochelle’s illness, she already felt helpless not having her daughter nearby, so her moving halfway across the world filled Joyce with worry and concern.

  On February 6, 1996, at forty-three years of age, Rochelle passed away with her Australian friends and family by her side. A beautiful life was taken too soon. The pain of losing their only daughter was incomparable and devastating. Joyce encouraged her husband to release the emotion he was harbouring inside, and she was there to comfort him when he finally took her advice.

  Calvin, Joyce, Doug and Martin flew to Australia, on a thirty-three-hour flight, to say their final goodbyes to their daughter and sister. To add to the stress and emotion of that trip, Calvin had recently been declared legally blind and he was slowly losing his complete independence.

  “It was a difficult time for Dad,” says Doug. “He was just adjusting to not being able to see. His emotion was that his daughter had died, which was very, very difficult. At the same time, she died in a foreign country away from him. Dad wasn’t one who showed a huge outpouring of emotion, but I know it was tough.”

&nb
sp; This was the first time the Rucks had been to Australia and the first time they would meet the people who got to see Rochelle every day and saw her as one of their own. “It took a lot out of me,” says Joyce. “When I got to Australia, I had to comfort them. Everybody was crying and then I came home and I broke down and I cried for days and Calvin would come downstairs and try to calm me down. That was the hardest time in my life.”

  The couple’s strength in the most difficult of times can be greatly credited to their deep faith. Every Sunday, Joyce and Calvin would attend Stevens Road United Baptist Church in Dartmouth. That was the time where no work, phone calls or adversaries got in the way. Those Sunday mornings were a time to be refreshed and rejuvenated and to spend quality time with one another.

  With reduced vision, Calvin was beginning to do more things around the house, such as gardening. He was constantly planting and grooming, to bring new life to his backyard. He loved the beauty of flowers and the satisfaction of seeing his hard work bloom and flourish. He built his own flower boxes, dug gardening plots around his yard and shared his work with whomever came for a visit.

  This was a new routine for Joyce as well. She could now look out of her kitchen window and see Calvin hard at work in the backyard. She could sit and eat the lunch she had prepared for the two of them and talk with her husband about the plans she had for her day. It was pleasant, relaxed and both grew quite content with the arrangement.

  Calvin spending more time at home also meant people were constantly calling the Ruck household to speak to him. Whether it was for an interview for a local media network, for aid involving a social issue or to speak to Calvin concerning a committee he was associated with, he was always ready to deal with whatever the telephone ring might bring. In 1998, however, Calvin got a phone call that both he and Joyce were not ready for.

  A staff member in Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s office in Ottawa was calling to see if Calvin Ruck’s name could go on a short list of potential candidates from Nova Scotia to be appointed to the Senate.

  “I had no idea at all what the short list was. It [politics] was all brand new to me. As my wife often says, I am not a political person.” Unsure of how to respond, Calvin told the man he had to think about it and discuss it further with his wife. The discussion didn’t last long, though, as Joyce recalls not taking the offer very seriously when he first approached her about the idea of becoming a senator. “I was sleeping at the time when that first phone call came. He came into the room and told me about the offer. Right away I just told him not to be so ridiculous and that he was not political.” With that being said, Calvin and Joyce didn’t think much more about it. They had been living at the same address for more than thirty years. Nova Scotia was their home, and despite the honour, they were unsure if they wanted to make the change.

  Calvin’s biggest reason for hesitation was his eyesight. He was unsure if he would be able to perform daily tasks with his vision continuing to decrease. It was not until a third phone call to the Ruck residence that Calvin decided he and Joyce would make the move to the nation’s capital. “A telephone call from the Prime Minister himself,” Calvin wrote in an address to the Senate. “It is quite an honour to have the Prime Minister call. I put him on hold for a brief period while I was still thinking about it.”

  This decision came to be after a small but confident push from their son, Doug, who also lived in Dartmouth with his wife and two children. “I didn’t understand why there was any hesitation to accept the position at all. It was an amazing opportunity. It was something that he should do, not only because it was important to be done, but also because it was something he deserved. My parents made a lot of sacrifices for us [children]. They worked hard to ensure we were fed and clothed. They both deserved this.”

  News travelled quickly of the third Black person (after Anne Clare Cools in 1984 and Donald Oliver in 1990) appointed to the Senate of Canada. Headlines read, “N.S. Black activist appointed to Senate” and “New Senator beat the odds.” Newspapers across the country began reporting his early struggle to find housing for his family and highlighting his accomplishments as an activist and a social worker.

  In the summer of 1998, seventy-three-year-old Calvin, with Joyce by his side, flew to Ottawa. “I wasn’t nervous going to Ottawa because I was with him,” says Joyce. “He was a man who made you feel at ease.”

  On a hot summer day, Calvin was sworn in to the Senate of Canada. As the family watched Calvin walk down the Chamber Hall, Doug couldn’t help but think that not long ago, the only way his father would be walking down that hall was if he was cleaning after hours. Calvin was actively living out what he had fought so long for.

  That same summer, Calvin and Joyce had something else to celebrate – their fiftieth wedding anniversary. The family would mark the occasion at a much-anticipated Ruck reunion, taking place in Calvin’s hometown of Sydney. Over forty friends and family members gathered, some meeting for the very first time. In a special presentation to the couple, Joyce and Calvin were given letters of congratulations from the Prime Minister and the Governor General. After taking in a well-deserved dose of home, Calvin and Joyce returned to Ottawa to prepare for Calvin’s first session in the Senate.

  Not long after getting to work in Ottawa, Calvin and Joyce would come face to face with a man Calvin referenced on several occasions as his inspiration. Nelson Mandela and his wife were coming to Ottawa for a visit and Calvin and Joyce were selected to meet the former president of South Africa.

  After listening to Mandela’s address to the House, Calvin and Joyce attended a banquet of one hundred guests at Rideau Hall, held in honour of Canada’s African visitor and his wife. Unbeknownst to Joyce, Graça Machel had already seen her earlier that day. “She shook my hand and said that she had already noticed me when I was sitting up in the gallery, because I was the only Black person up there.” The Rucks were once again being singled out for being different, but this time, it was in their favour.

  While Calvin was working on Parliament Hill, Joyce kept herself busy, adjusting quickly to her new life in Ottawa. “I would be busy, cooking his meals, getting his clothes ready for the next day and we would go grocery shopping together. There was always something to do.”

  Following his two-year term in the Senate, as he had reached the mandatory retirement age of seventy-five, Calvin’s time in Ottawa was complete, at least for now. So with Joyce by his side, Senator Ruck flew back home to 27 Walker Street.

  During Calvin’s time in Ottawa, his family noticed he was becoming more forgetful. In his final year in the Senate, Calvin was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

  In 2000, Doug received news that he had been appointed vice-chair of the Canadian Industrial Relations Labour Board. Without a second thought, Doug knew his mother and father would join his family in Ottawa. Joyce could not care for Calvin on her own and he now needed assistance with daily tasks.

  To see a loved one vulnerable and helpless is one of the most painful sights. And yet Calvin never completely lost himself. He still had strong opinions on world affairs and how his day should be run. He would spend his days doing what he had done every day of his life: working. He would wake up early and head down to the basement. With sounds of gospel music being wired from an upstairs stereo that Joyce controlled, Calvin would pick up his hammer and nails and begin to bang away at scraps of wood and beaten-up two-by-fours.

  On the morning of October 19, 2004, Joyce said goodbye to the love of her life. At the age of seventy-nine, Calvin passed away in his home in Ottawa. Both Ottawa and Halifax newspapers printed tribute pieces following the announcement of Calvin’s death. A local hero had passed away and entire communities wanted to show their respect.

  Calvin was buried in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and his funeral, held at the Atlantic Funeral Home on Main Street in Dartmouth, was a celebration of life. Crowds gathered to say a final goodbye to an author, a historian, a senator, a father, a grandfather, and for Joyce, a loving husband a
nd best friend.

  It’s been said that behind every good man is a good woman. In Calvin Ruck’s case, she was always right beside.

  What You’re Given

  Don Aker

  “What You’re Given” arose from Don Aker’s interest in the evolution of love, how the relationship of a couple might change as they grow older and how the eventual death of one partner might affect the remaining one.

  Warren was surprised she’d come. When Claire’s husband had passed away three years ago, he’d simply sent a card. There were so many funerals to go to nowadays, you had to pace yourself. That was what he’d told himself, anyway, when he saw the obituary in the Herald. But the simple truth was that, even after all these years, the thought of seeing her again made his tired heart stumble, made it churn momentarily like the old wringer-washer his mother had used, the kind you only saw now in museums. Or in overgrown fields behind sagging barns that housed swallows and the occasional crow.

  Even in his seventies, he didn’t trust himself. Make that especially in his seventies, since he’d discovered near the end of his last decade that he was no longer in absolute control of certain functions he’d always taken for granted. Like his waterworks. A doctor – one of those eager-eyed interns who looked barely old enough to shave – had said decreased bladder control was to be expected, but Warren had hoped he was still several years from adult diapers or, worse, one of those plastic bags they strapped to your thigh. By his late sixties, though, it wasn’t unusual for him to find at the end of the day that he’d dribbled in his underwear, pollen-yellow streaks vivid against the white of his Stanfield’s mid-risers. (No godawful boxers for him, and certainly none of those ridiculous rigs he saw models wearing on posters in men’s clothing stores.)

  But there she was in the doorway of the Slumber Room of Goodwin’s Funeral Home, as striking as ever. Sure, she’d put on some weight – hadn’t they all? And her face bore the lines and folds that were the hallmark of years spent on the green side of the grass. Her hair wasn’t blonde anymore – she obviously used a rinse like Alva favoured that tinged her white hair blue – but she carried herself with the same regal air that had drawn him to her so many years before.