Monday, July 3, 2023
I came across Clifford Goring's obituary on July 3, 2023, while I was looking for people I went to school with as a youngster. I started my education in 1948 at Lorndale School in Odanah Municipality, Manitoba. Clifford was one of the "big boys" in Grade 7, and was living at the time with Mr. and Mrs. Bert Collins, whose farm was two miles south of the farm where my family lived. Lorndale had a reputation for bullying of the smaller kids by the older ones. As a little guy, I was terrified of these mean boys, but Clifford was never one of them. To me, at the time, he was a tall, lean fellow, very quiet and gentle with us. He may have been an orphan, as he was a ward of the Children's Aid Society at the time. There were two other kids at the Collinses that year - Lloyd and his sister Viola Smith - who were also wards of the state. The Collinses were the meanest people. Those kids had terrible lunches - bread with lard and a whole onion is one lunch I remember, and I was only six years old! That little country school is long gone now, but I attended the dedication of a monument some years ago, and one of my old class mates, one of the "Big girls", asked me if I remembered those lunches. So I wasn't the only one who noticed. The Smiths were gone the next school year, but Clifford completed Grade 8 that year. I often wondered what happened to him, and when I found him today, it was heart-warming to know that he had left a loving family behind. If anybody in the family reads this, or if the message is passed on by the funeral home, I would love to hear from a family member, and I can tell you more about that time and that school. My email is rshirr@mymts.net
Raymond Shirritt Beaumont, 3 July 2023
