Chapter 2: Conspiracy Theories

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My grandparents John and Anastasia Freak lived in a two-storey house on the south side of Eagle River’s main road, which ran parallel with the railway tracks. Inside the house, the windows were small, the lighting was poor, and the place always seemed dark and dreary. The entire place reeked of a very peculiar, pungent smell, caused from the creosote that accumulated in the chimney pipes that criss-crossed the ceiling on the main floor of the house. This overpowering smell permeated their clothes and everything in the house. Besides the stench it gives off, creosote is highly combustible and the leading cause of chimney fires. Creosote is a very dangerous fire hazard.

From what I remember of my grandma Freak, she was very kind to her four precious grandchildren. Her presence filled the room with warmth and love. I enjoyed those times when I sat at her rustic kitchen table eating ice cream, a dessert that was a rare and special treat for us. Grandpa Freak, on the other hand, seemed to view us as an annoyance. He usually sat in the sparsely furnished living room and stayed away from us. However, I was able to provide him with a very sadistic source of amusement.

Once I finished eating the ice cream, I looked for things to do. They had no toys, no colouring books, nothing that would entertain a child. So, I invented my own little game. I would see how fast I could run around the house, making a small circle in the kitchen, down a step into the living room, around the pot-bellied stove, and back into the kitchen, until I tired myself out. Grandpa hid behind the door and waited until I least suspected it. Then he stuck out his foot to trip me, watching me sprawl face first onto the floorboards. It shocked me each time. And it amused him each time.

When I fell, I skinned my knee, bruised my elbow, or bumped my head, and as I moaned on the floor, I could hear him laughing hysterically. He seemed to get immense pleasure from watching his young granddaughter go “splat” on the floor. I looked at him quizzically, trying to understand why he found so much humor in watching me get hurt. Of course, this merciless game of his didn’t endear himself to me in any way. He tripped me a few times before I got wise to him and made sure I looked behind the doors to see where he was lurking, being careful to slow down when I came near him.

My grandpa Freak died when I was five years old. He was 91. That was my first experience at a funeral, so morbid that I would never forget it. There he lay, a dead body in a casket. Creepy. I have fond and wonderful memories of my grandmother, but I did not feel any sadness or remorse when my grandfather died.

Uncle Felix, the youngest of the three brothers, lived next door to us in a log cabin with his wife Emily, so we saw them almost every day. Uncle Felix was an army war veteran and met Emily in Toronto. Having lived in the big city and served in the army, he most likely experienced the social handicap of being a Freak. So he swapped out a letter and changed his name to Fread, this was before I was born. So, he was known as Felix Fread, but the rest of the family were all Freaks. I did not know the difference. To me as a young child, our last name was irrelevant.

I do not know why my parents did not change their names. They knew it was possible. I am sure that Felix would have helped them with the application. He did it, they could do it. It might have brightened the future for the four of us children who lived with the Freak name for far too long.

When my mother took a break during the day, she sat alone at the kitchen table, drinking tea or coffee, and smoking a cigarette. She played solitaire or solved a crossword puzzle, which she was quite good at. She also came up with conspiracy theories.

One conspiracy theory was that aunt Emily had an illegitimate child before she met Felix, and gave the child to her married sister to raise as her own. Whenever a particular nephew came to visit, my mother noticed that Emily was more attentive towards him than any of her other nieces or nephews. My mother’s theory was plausible because aunt Emily came from a very strict family of Mennonites from Manitoba. If she had become pregnant without being married and kept the child instead of giving him up, she would have been shamed, perhaps disowned, not only by her own family, but the whole community as well. Unwed mothers were not accepted into society and especially abhorred in religious sects. Her pregnancy would have caused a huge scandal in her hometown and brought shame and embarrassment to her entire family. It would have been a lifetime burden for her to bear on her own, and even worse, the child would grow up being called a bastard, making it difficult to be accepted into polite society. Imagine being a bastard Freak. Emily’s chances of ever finding a husband would have been bleak, too. My mother could have been right about her assumptions. My mother seemed to be suspicious of Emily for other reasons too, believing her to be conniving and dishonest.

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Though my mother had dreams and aspirations that were not fulfilled, my father seemed to be quite content with his family and his life as it was. He did not have any great ambitions. He had achieved about as much as he ever would. I think this frustrated my mother. She wanted more.

Fast forward to today, the Beyer side of the family has created an ancestry record, which now has hundreds of names listed and more being added often. I see the names and the dates of births and deaths, but there are no stories about these people. They lived, they died, but who were they and how did they live? What were their sorrows and their joys, their accomplishments and their failures, their hopes and their dreams? Because I know nothing about their lives, their names also mean nothing to me. If they had written a diary, I would be much more interested in them because I could gain an insight into who they were, instead of just another name in a long list of other names.

There is little record of the Freaks. Perhaps we were less happy and less proud, and we don’t want to highlight our history, never mind celebrate it. My mom’s family didn’t have three children who met untimely deaths, and their seven children seemed to advance further along in society, all getting married, having children, accomplishing big things, building wealth, all but Leo moving away and out of the desolate remote bush to greener pastures.

Except my mom, she became a Freak. And the only one to have more Freaks.