Thanks to the internet I've learned more about Pete. I found his stats from his hockey career, for example. He played semi-professional hockey in the American Hockey Association between 1925 and 1936, and in the Praire Hockey League, for the Calgary Tigers, in 1926-1927. He was described as "a player from Scotland", who stood 5'8" and weighed 154 lbs.
Pete settled for a time in Calgary where he met his wife-to-be, Margaret. From the list of teams he played for, I can piece together where he was between 1926 and 1936: Minneapolis, Detroit, Calgary, Kansas City, Oklahoma and St. Louis. He and "Peg" had three children and from the photos, the family seemed happy and quite well-off. After his hockey career ended, he worked for the Falstaff Brewing Company, in what capacity, I don't know. Sales, I imagine. Sadly, he died at the age of 42 from cancer of the sigmoid colon, in Kansas City, in 1947. Apparently, Pete was a bit of a hockey celebrity in Kansas City and when he died, his obituary focussed on his exploits as a "puckster" (I love that term!). His wife took the three children to live with her mother in Victoria, BC, but she died a year or so later of rheumatic heart disease, leaving their three young children orphaned.
Although my dad spoke little of his parents, he did talk about his early years in the States and was definitely nostalgic for the towns and places of his childhood, the soda fountains, the baseball games, Lake Okoboji, Hydrox cookies (more about them later), and, yes, Spam. (In later years, he participated in the Spam carving contest in Seattle. He made a "spam pan"- a sam pan boat made of spam, of course.) He had a baseball signed by Stan Musial from a World Series in the 30s. He'd get annoyed with us kids if we "skipped" the American history questions in Trivial Pursuit. And, of course, he was a hockey fan, especially of the American teams like Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago. He got me to write fan letters to the players, when I was 7 or 8, probably knowing that if I wrote a cute letter, I'd likely get the autographed photos! I wrote to Bobby Orr and Jim and Joe Watson of the Philadelphia Flyers and sure enough, I did receive photos and autographs, but I'm dismayed to say that I didn't keep them. Dad was a good athlete himself, but I don't remember him playing ice hockey. He went to medical school, got married and started a family when he was very young. My brother Todd and I are from his second marriage, in his thirties. We remember him playing in a floor hockey league. This wasn't your usual old-timer league; this was full contact hockey. Todd said that dad separated his shoulder during a particularly rough match. As for my generation of the Mitchells, we did our bit (a very little bit) for hockey. Todd played ice hockey and I played field hockey. Todd moved on to tennis in high school and my figure skating practices didn't leave me time to try out for field hockey when I got there. I really wish I had though. I was more naturally talented at hockey than at figure skating. My sturdy family genes built me for sports requiring hand-eye coordination, not those needing flexibility!! I mean, my husband can point his toes more than I can. Enough said.
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| Shanon as Uncle Sam -an homage to my grandpa? |
I even made up a joke about Hydrox cookies once: Question: What do you call a double-stuffed Hydrox cookie? Answer: A dihydroxide. That one's for you, Dad.
