When I started looking for Seeley, I had no idea who or what I was looking for.
Obituaries are a good place to start with someone who’s already deceased, so I called the library in Tobermory, Ontario to see if I could get a copy of the local newspaper. Small towns are a wonderful thing.
The librarian in Tobermory is Gladys Morris, and she’s been in charge of the archives for as long as most people can remember. She didn’t actually know “Doc” Seeley, as he was called, but her brother had. And so had a bunch of other people she knew. So she didn’t just send me his obituary and a copy of an ad he’d taken out in the local paper. She gave me the names and phone numbers of people who actually knew him. Calling a library to ask for info is one thing, but calling some random stranger who may or may not have known one of your dead relatives is a whole other adventure. Besides, Seeley died in 48. It was over 50 years later. I can’t remember what I had for dinner last Tuesday, how could I expect people to remember some guy they’d known briefly over half a century ago.
But they did.
Doc Seeley was somewhat of a fixture in Tobermory. He was well known, apparently well liked, and almost never talked about himself.
There were a ton of inconsistencies in the recollections, but the people I talked to were kids or teenagers at the time they knew Doc and all of them were now retired.
Brown eyes, blue eyes, accent, no accent, was in Canada in the 30s, didn’t arrive until after the war…. All was fun stuff to hear and the best recollection came from Tommy Adams, a charming fellow who was more than happy to spend three hours on the phone with me (I was his escape from some kind of afternoon tea).
Old Doc Seeley was apparently able to wrestle any of the local young bucks to the ground; it was some kind of right of passage at the time to have a go at the non-practicing doctor. His plans to open an eco-health resort on a local island seem decades ahead of his time. He intended to offer people a relaxing escape to a spa-type resort that provided locally raised foods, alternative health therapies, and a facility that was constructed in an environmentally friendly manner. He and Grandma were somewhat revered for their forward looking thinking and radical ideas, and no one doubted that they’d make their plans come to life and put Tobermory on the map.
I loved chatting with Tommy (I’d do it all again today just for fun) but the most important thing I found in Tobermory was the name.
Seeley went by Patrick Joseph. That’s the name my family knew him by. That’s the name given to his first son. But that wasn’t his whole name. He left something out by asking people to call him that.
Charles Elmer. Legally, his given names. He left those names behind when he left for Tobermory. But what else did he leave behind? A man who marries and comes to a new town to start a new life at 45 has already lived most of one life. But now that I had the name he’d left behind, I could start looking for the man.
