Glenn and Debbie Hallett
Glenn and Debbie live in a beautifully treed area beside Lake Mindemoya. Their charming comfortable home is surrounded with ample acreage, hosting two horses and two cats, their own, ‘Mister,’ and a friendly visitor named Oliver. Glenn and Debbie, both nurses, have spent their careers in the health profession. The writer first met Debbie Christmas Eve in 1996 when her younger son suffered a significant head trauma from a downhill toboggan ride. The helicopter was not available for the Mindemoya Manitoulin Health Centre until later that evening. Debbie and this writer joined my 19-year-old son on the flight to Sudbury. The trip reminded me of a Mash episode, with rattling windows and doors letting in frigid air. Nevertheless, we made it to Sudbury and this writer is still thankful to Debbie for giving up her Christmas Eve. Glenn was also a familiar face in the health care field. We occasionally worked in the same facilities.
Glenn begins. “My father bought this farm in 1945 when he was 18 years old. As a carpenter, he rebuilt the original log home that still stands today. He also helped construct the Treasure Island buildings, among others. I was born on January 18, 1953. I have two sisters, Marlene, married to Pat Boyle of Boyle’s Marina and Janice, a registered nurse in Stratford. Janice also helped standardize local treatment systems when COVID hit.”
“I learned as much as I could from dad’s carpentry skills, but diabetes made dad’s work challenging. When he lost his leg, he had one made in Toronto, but it was not suitable for carpentry work. He couldn’t climb ladders or get on a roof, so he built his own artificial leg. He could do so much more now. It was cupped at the knee for his stump and the leather straps surrounded his waist gave him a good degree of flexibility.”
“Maternal grandparents were Ellen (Coe) and Wright Leeson of English and Irish ancestry. The Leesons lived on a farm off the Slash Road and later in the Manitowaning area. Wright had worked in the lumber town of Michael’s Bay at first. Later, he became a blacksmith, owned a sawmill and did maintenance work for the Manitowaning Lodge. Ellen was an excellent baker, sewer and rug hooker. She also helped with the horses on the farm.”
“Scottish and English paternal grandparents were William and Ada (Cosby) Hallett. They had a farm near here. We lived with them for a short while, until our log home was finished. Grandmother Hallett had a huge garden and she was also a great baker. We called her the ‘cookie’ grandmother. Sadly, Grandfather Hallett died when I was 12 years old. After that, grandmother spent her winters in the homes of elders that needed extra assistance, returning home in the spring.”
“I recall the basement being built under our log house. A tractor with a loader dug out the space and a concrete floor was poured. Dad also put on the roof wearing his self-made artificial leg. Another memory was putting a harness on my grandparents’ dog, and he would pull me on our wagon. One time, he turned and bit me! Dr. McQuay closed the bite with metal clips and a bandage. I felt uncomfortable with my bandaged head, not only getting on the school bus driven by Mike Smith but also walking into my grade one class with nice Mrs. Lowry.”
“Grades 1 to 8 were in the Old School in Mindemoya and Grades 9 and 10 were in the building where the public school is today. Manitoulin Secondary School was built and opened in 1969 in time for Grades 11 to 13. Favourite subjects were Science, History and Geography. By then, dad had a riding stable with 25 horses. I helped train the horses and gave riding lessons. In the summers, I worked at Gus’ Esso, a local gas station and store where Mum’s is today. I pumped gas and helped sell fishing tackle, tobacco and confectionery items. I loved the work. At 14, I got a Honda 90 motorcycle and took a driving test. At 16, I got my license from Gus’ Esso.”
“After high school, in 1972, Cousin Willis and I headed for Toronto for a year to make money for school. We lived with his sister. I found work with ‘Sinclair and Valentine Inks.’ We made printing ink for newspapers and specialty ink for metal cans. We also helped make the ink for the Treasury’s one-dollar bills. These powdered dyes came in 45-gallon drums, and you had to wear gloves and masks to use it.”
“In 1973, I returned to Manitoulin and headed to Sudbury for nursing school. Classes started at 8 am and went until 4:30 pm from September to July. Two days a week, we had a three-hour evening class as well. Research and homework filled any remaining time. I met pretty Debbie Barbe in class, and we often shared our lunch time in the common room. Debbie was living in residence and I was boarding at a local home.”
“Placements for two to three days a week for two to four weeks at a time began in the fall of the first year. I wound up in the nursing home of the old St. Joseph’s Hospital and at the downtown Sudbury General on the medical floor for mens’ issues. Sudbury Memorial and the Sudbury Algoma hospitals were also attended. In our last year of training, we did our final placement at the General Hospital.
Debbie begins to share her story, “I was born on February 16, 1954, at the General Hospital in Sudbury. Our home was in Coniston. Dad, Ernest Barbe, grew up on a farm in St. Charles where his parents George Barbe and Juliette (Fournier) lived. He was nicknamed ‘Corn’ for his yellow hair for most of his life. My dad quit school after Grade 8 to work on the farm with his dad but after they lost the farm, they moved to Coniston when dad was a teen. Many people there had nicknames, i.e., (Hector) ‘Toe’ Blake.’ Dad went to work as a ‘brakeman’ for INCO on the slag train at the Coniston Smelter, then later at Copper Cliff.” He was only 15 but needed to help his parents and siblings financially.
“My mother, Shirley (Gagnon) lived in Coniston all her life. Her parents were Harold Gagnon and Agatha (Kirwan). Mom and dad had 10 children: Brian (retired from printing jobs at Laurentian), myself, Michael, (who worked for Hydro), Kathie worked in INCO administration and the Lively Pharmacy, Robert also worked at INCO and in Thompson, Manitoba where he did carpentry and built hydro dams, Cheryl was at Colonial Cookies in Kitchener and did office work for a fish processing facility in Newfoundland, Susette lives in Coniston and worked for Canada Post. Shawn is in Saskatoon, and he worked in a northern Saskatchewan uranium mine. Joanne works with the Electrical Authority in Sudbury and Manitoulin and Ann Marie is an RN in the recovery room at Health Sciences North.”
“Our family had three divisions. The four oldest, including me, are in one group. The next three and the last three formed their own groups. Mother stayed home and looked after her children. She did all the cooking and chores, but we helped with the chores. My earliest memory was living in one of many INCO company houses in Coniston. You had to have a family to get one, but it only had two bedrooms.”
“We got a bigger house, and I recall moving the fridge on a toboggan to the new rental. There was no basement, just a ‘dirt’ cellar. We had a garden and grew a lot of our food, but we bought groceries too. We moved last time to a two-storey house my parents eventually bought from INCO due to Mom’s great financial planning and Dad’s work ethic. There was only one paycheque, but Mom managed the household and 10 children so well that all I can say is ‘thanks Mom and Dad!’ We had a great childhood. “School was at ‘Our Lady of Mercy’ which had a French and English section. I wore a school uniform in the English side. Only our oldest brother went to the French side.”
“My first classroom was part of the boarding house for INCO workers. When the new school was built, I moved from Grade 1 to the new, big school. The principal welcomed us. I was sitting in the front row at a desk that had been written on by someone. The principal noticed the writing and declared, ‘there is writing on your desk.’ She scolded me and gave me the strap, even though I could not have done this writing as I had no pencils or pens yet. I did not like the principal.”
“My favourite subjects were history and science. School athletics started later with a new principal. We had intramural and travelling teams. I recall trying to win a Centennial award in 1967 from ‘Participaction.’ Time in the sport and achievement levels were considered. I finally got the gold medal after completing the ‘running broad jump’ at the very end.”
“Our family bought an old blue school bus for camping. Cars were not large enough, so we never had one. When I was 10, I started to babysit for extra money. When I was 16, I sold event tickets, i.e., skating, at the local arena. I also repaired roller skates in the summer, replacing the bearings. I joined the Brownies, Girl Guides and the Rangers. I became a junior and, later, a senior leader to help with the younger entries for these organizations. We had a ‘Moot’ gathering with guest speakers for Rovers and Rangers at both La Cloche and in Toronto. We camped and met a lot of nice people. We also helped with some of the boys’ organizations, and we attended Camp Hazelmere in Sudbury as leaders for the Brownie camps.”
“High school was at Marymount College, an all-girls Catholic school for Grades 9 to 12. We had to pay for Grades 11 to 13, so I chose to go to Grade13 at the public high school, Nickel District. I liked math, along with science and history and I was in a school play, ‘Helen of Troy.’ We also sang in the travelling choir for the Church Youth Group and for Mass.”
“When I got to nursing school in 1973, I slept in my own bed for the first time. I met Glenn that year. After our training was completed, we applied for jobs, knowing there was no shortage of nurses. I wanted to go up North. Glenn was contacted and hired by the James Bay General Hospital. The manager asked Glenn if he knew Debbie Barbe. He smiled and said ‘yes, she’s right here.’” Soon both were on their way north to the communities of Moosonee, Fort Albany and Attawapiskat sited about 100 miles north of each other on the James Bay coast. The army had left the hospital and airport.
“In June 1975, we flew from Sudbury to Timmins, to Moosonee and finally to Fort Albany. We had to return in the fall for our final exam. The doctors came once a month for 24 hours only, so we had to prioritize the patients. Tuberculosis was a concern in the north. Communication was challenging. There were no telephones that reached beyond these communities. Radio telephones, ‘over and out,’ in Cochrane, were the norm. You could connect through Cochrane to the outside world after 6 am until 6 pm only. Often the weather interfered, and we were on our own much of the time.”
“Water came from filtered lake water to the residences of the Catholic brothers and sisters. One outside tap at the sister’s residence was for the community. They could bring containers and fill up from that tap. Fort Albany was also the site of a DEW Line, a Distant Early Warning used in Cold War time to recognize any incoming military attacks. Entertainment, such as reel-to-reel movies, had to be brought in by visitors and viewed at the church residence.”
“In Fort Albany, the reserve land and the provincial land was separated by the river. Glenn recalls a helicopter crashing by the river, and his trek there to help the surviving pilot. He put a splint on the pilot’s leg and arms around his chest to lift him and slowly transfer the weight to the helicopter that came to rescue the pilot. Glenn wound up standing on the skid of the helicopter. “We got him to a hospital with an old Austin Airways, DC3, medivac, an old WW II plane. The starter caught fire on the runway, so a group of 12 people had to put a rope on the nosecone and run to start the engine for the trip. Earlier, Glenn had climbed a tower to put a red light on top for the plane to leave. Smudge pots and snowmobile lights also lit up the air strips.”
“I remember being stuck with 50 geese at low tide on a hunting trip with a canoe,” Glenn adds. “The girls plucked the geese until the tide came back.” Another time Deb was helping to bring an unconscious man on a stretcher to shore from a plane. They put the man in a freighter canoe. There was also a lady in labour. A float plane came in for her and hit the dock with one of the pontoons, so it had to be pumped out and then it did a quick departure to avoid more water getting into the pontoon. Water continued to fill the pontoon on landing on the river, so the pilot had to beach the plane in Moosonee. Debbie and the pregnant lady had to walk to the hospital from the beach, after a canoe ride from the beached plane to Moose Factory.
Glenn and Debbie were married in a Coniston Church. A reception followed in Debbie’s parents’ yard. Mother and helpers made the meal. “Our honeymoon was a camping trip along the east coast. We travelled on the back of our motorcycle, and we saw Cape Breton Island, PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec over three weeks. Then we were back in Fort Albany.”
“In April of 1977, my dad was very sick,” Glenn shares, “ so we flew home for the last time. He died three months later. In the fall that year, we built the house we live in now. In time, Rebecca and Mathew were born. Today, Rebecca is a community paramedic in Sudbury where she deals with high-risk elderly and homeless people. She is married to Neil Poulin who is a paramedic at a Glencore mine and is a member of the Mine Rescue. They have three boys, Emmett, 13, and the twins, Cormac and Nohl, nine.”
“Mathew and Laura (Wyman) have three children, Sydney, 22, Allison, 16 and Jacob, 15. Mathew is a small and large engine mechanic and Laura works at Community Living on Manitoulin. The two younger siblings are in high school. Sydney is engaged to Carson Pitawanakwat, and they live in Birch Island. They have two sons, Ben and Blake.”
Glenn worked at the Little Current hospital as a staff nurse for five years before joining Doug Graham in the mental health clinic for 15 years. Later, Glenn became the nursing supervisor in the Mindemoya Hospital, and subsequently, he spent 10 years with M’naamodzawin where he worked with Barb Erskine, the psychologist of Noojmowin Teg. Glenn retired in 2019. Debbie had returned to part-time nursing in 1979 and as a full-time staff nurse in 1983 at Mindemoya Hospital, doing mainly emergency nursing and chemotherapy. She retired in 2023, the year her Barbe family had a reunion on Treasure Island.
Were you named after anyone? Glenn: “My father, William Lloyd. I am Lloyd Glenn.” Fondest memories? “Going up north. Getting on that plane and flying to Fort Albany that was the beginning of our lives together.”
Favourite pets? “‘Muskwa Sheesh,’ Little Bear, our Alaskan Malamute from up north.” Favourite time of the year? “Fall is a little cooler, fewer bugs, hunting season, and a fun time to be in the bush. Springtime is special too, for making maple syrup, our spring tonic.”
Favourite collections? “Old hockey cards. You could send for the cards, from a ‘Bee Hive’ corn syrup promotion. I also collected airplane coins,” Glenn adds. For Debbie, it was rocks. “Dad often brought them home in his lunch pail for me.”
Favourite family holiday? “Downhill skiing in Little Current and in S.S. Marie, Mt. Tremblant, Owl’s Head and Horseshoe.”
Favourite television shows? “The Voice, hockey, news, on CBC, CTV, BBC, and CNN.” Deb loves Star Trek.
First hourly wage? Glenn: “Forty-five cents an hour at Gus’ Esso and for Debbie, 25 cents an hour babysitting.”
What are your strengths? Glenn: “Caring for people, like elders and others that need assistance in the community.” Deb: “Being there for our families, especially our grand and great grandchildren.”
Is there something you still want to do? “Visit England, Ireland and Scotland and do that European River cruise.’”
What did you enjoy most as a parent? “Seeing them grow into their personalities. We are very proud of our daughter and son and what they have done with their lives.”
Holiday traditions? “Christmas used to be here, now we go to the kids. In Coniston we would rent a hall in Wanapitae for 60 to 75.”
Associations you participated in? Deb: “Brownies, Girl Guides, ONA, CNO, Women’s Auxiliary, Tai Chi Academy.”Glenn: “ONA, the Lions, CON, and the Historical Society.”
Is there anything you would do differently, going back in time? “We often think the kids might have had a different life in the city but then I realize that they were happy with the opportunities they had here and they all love visiting and living here.”
Special event you participated in? “A Haitian nurse Huguette Legendre organized a medical group from Mindemoya to work for two weeks in Haiti in 2014 after a terrible earthquake caused devastation there . We were happy to help the people, and they appreciated our work.”
What will still be here 100 years from now? “Wars and pollution.”
Recipe for happiness? “Respect one another and others. Respect the opinions, religions of others, even if different.”
“Manitoulin is our home now. Both of us love her beauty and slower pace. There are lots of outdoor activities and it’s a great place to raise children. We both coached ringette with some good friends and Glenn coached hockey. He was also on the Community Center Board and the Advisory Committee for council and the board for Community Living.” Glenn was chair of that board and Deb helped. “We raised all the money and worked on the first building, Maple Terrace. The government paid for the second building. Manitoulin is a special place for us, and we are tightly woven into this community. We always want to live here.”
