“If you want to know about a man, getting to
his brother is half the battle won,” or words to that effect are spoken by Yevgraf Zhivago.
That
this truth perhaps can be applied in the case of different relatives is something
my colleague Ken McIntosh and I have learned a few times in our pursuit of the
truths of the lives of Dr Robert Henry MacLauchlan and his third wife Margaret
Ann (nee Herring). Sometimes it even applies to the results of hearing from
step-relatives, as has happened recently to us, in relation to one of Dr
MacLauchlan’s siblings.
About
a month ago, out of the blue (as the saying goes), we received an email from a
man whose mother had once been married to the son of Lieutenant Colonel Donald
George MacLauchlan, a former World War II commander of the Calgary Highlanders
and the younger (and only) brother of Dr Robert Henry MacLauchlan. Although we
were well aware that Lieutenant Colonel MacLauchlan had married a member of the
minor British aristocracy, Elizabeth Loder Johnson, during the war, we had
always wondered if that coupling had resulted in any offspring. Our searches on
that score had always been without results.
Then
arrived the letter and it was from a man whose stepfather, Michael MacLauchlan,
had been the son of the Lieutenant Colonel. According to this informant, whose
name we will not reveal at the present time, Michael MacLauchlan had a previous
wife who, during the middle 1980s at least, had lived in Victoria and his name
was Brett MacLauchlan.
What
was very interesting about this man’s (our source) information is that it provided us
with some fascinating details about how Michael MacLauchlan’s professional and
personal character differed quite substantially from those of his father and
those of his father’s siblings. Educationally, at least, the accomplishments of
the MacLauchlan siblings were quite impressive for their time. The brothers
held high qualifications in medicine and in the military, respectively ; the
several sisters were nurses and even nursing supervisors in some cases.
Michael
MacLauchlan, on the other hand, seemed a bit of an under-achiever. According to
his step-son, Michael was a mostly itinerate truck driver who seemed to have a
hard time holding a good job. Among other failings, he appeared unable to
provide his new wife and two step-sons with proper furniture or, on some
occasions, a properly sympathetic parental ear. As he wrote in an email to us:
“He was impatient with children and he was verbally, and at times,
physically abusive with my younger brother and I. He was very frank in telling
us that he didn't like children.”
In the early
middle 1980s, the small family moved westward, eventually ending up, of all
places, in New Westminster – on Salter Street in Queensboro, where our
informant attended Queen Elizabeth School for a brief time before moving to
East Vancouver.
Of importance to
Ken McIntosh and me is our source’s memory of Lieutenant Colonel MacLauchlan. We had always
read, in the accounts of his WW II service as a leader of men, that he was
somewhat remote and distant to his underlings in the officer and enlisted
ranks. Simply put, he seemed to have been somewhat of a martinet. Contrary to
these images, our source (his step grandson) remembers him this way:
“Donald was an
absolute joy to be around. He was always welcoming; always smiling and joking;
and was quite fond of my mother, brother and I. Every time we visited him at
his … apartment in Ottawa, he had "Sesame Snaps" that he would share
with my brother and I. Donald taught me how to play cribbage and how to
properly tie a neck tie, all before I was through grade 4. Donald was one of
the most wonderful and likable people I have ever met and I regret not having
spent more time with him while he was alive, despite the fact that my mother
and Michael split up after (I think) 5 years of marriage.”
What is of
immediate interest to Ken and me is the fact that Michael MacLauchlan had a
former wife, and a son named Brett, who lived in Victoria during the middle
1980s. We are very interested in hearing from anyone who may have known of a
Brett MacLauchlan who, during the early 1980s, would have been between the ages
of 10 and 14. His mother, whose name our informant does not recall ever having
heard from his stepfather, would have perhaps been in her middle to late 30s.
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