Searching for McGregor
I have an old black and white snapshot of my father. It is winter and he is standing outdoors in the snow with a cigarette in his hand. In the background is an old tar papered building; a camp in the woods; and written on the back of the snapshot in my Grandmother's handwriting are the words:
"Fred... on the 'range' north of F'ton in the '30's, worked for bed and board for 10¢ a day... a feature of the hungry '30's"
But this story is not about my father; rather it is about my search for a P.McGregor. However, like my father, McGregor also lived in the hungry '30's and he spent some time at Fredericton Junction Junction for a while. When I look at my father's picture I sometimes think of McGregor for they were of the same era. My father had perhaps known him. My father maybe even envied him; for McGregor was a travelling man. McGregor was also 'a feature of the hungry 30's.'
I never knew McGregor, but he interests me, and I have found him in several different places. Manysummers ago in 2001. I found him in Cacouna, Quebec; the summer after that he was found in Pudding Bay, Nova Scotia. Just a few years ago I discovered him again and it was said that he had been located in Sussex, NB. The first time I found him I was just a few miles from home at Hoyt.
McGregor was an itinerant artist during '30's and as he travelled around from place to place he painted pictures. I have one of a seascape that he had painted on the dining room wall of the old Canadian Hotel at Fredericton Junction.. Our village was a railroad center and it is said that McGregor would sometimes come and stay at the hotel for a while and paint pictures for his keep; they have appeal. They were his "bed and board"
My daughter gave us the painting that McGregor had painted on the wall of the old Canadian Hotel in 1931 and it now hangs in our living room. As an antique dealer she had been given the opportunity to buy it, and recognizing the name of the artist, she immediately purchased it and then gave it to us as a gift.
The first McGregor that I bought was at a local estate auction less than ten miles from home at Hoyt. That painting was in a lot with two generic reprint landscapes in glass frames. I guess the auctioneer thought that the value for the lot lay in the glass frames for I bought all three pictures for $2.00. True, the painting was not of the 'group of seven' genre; yet for me it held the lure of a local historical artifact, and I was more than happy to hold McGregor's, "In the Rockies, B.C.", in my arms .That painting is the only McGregor I have seen that has a 'name' on it; or did McGregor write 'In the Rockies, B.C.'because he was in British Columbia when he painted it? I wonder?
An adventure awaited us with the purchase of the third addition to my McGregor collection. My daughter and her husband had been browsing through antique shops along highway 132 in Quebec during the summer of 2001. When my son-in-law spied a familiar signature on a large landscape painting amongst others stacked against a wall in the basement of an old antique barn, he immediately knew he had found another McGregor!
They both knew we would enjoy hearing about it! But also, as they explained, they knew we wouldn't have wanted to spend that much money so they didn't buy it for us; but as they pointed out, wasn't it interesting that they had found a McGregor painting in Quebec! My husband and I just looked at each other and smiled. Our growing collection was about as obscure as the darkest corner of that old antique barn; but we were hooked on searching for McGregor. We both knew that we would be going to Quebec.
We kind of got lost on that trip for we were driving east from Riviere du Loup looking for an old antique barn along the highway toward Rimiouski. We finally did find an old barn but it was closed and a sign nailed to the building said; "Overt Verendrei, Samdi, Dimanche "; and since we were reading those words on a Lundi we were very disappointed; especially as we had made the trip purposely to buy a painting. However, we decided that the trip wasn't a total failure altogether, for at least we knew where the Antique barn was, and we decided that we would return a few weeks later. We headed on back toward Riviere du Loup hoping that maybe we might find a good spot to do some birdwatching. It had started to rain at just about the same time we had spotted another antique barn; so we decided to go in there and browse around while waiting for the skies to clear. And it was both fortunate and amazing that we did for it turned out that the McGregor we were searching for was actually in the basement of that antique barn; just waiting for us to find it! And I did!! And the bill of sale said, "Cacouna".. so that's where the McGregor had been hiding this time!
This painting was a bit of a treasure find for it gave us a few more clues about McGregor. He had painted this landscape in "Toronto,1936", and it had a catalogue number on it! So it had probably been part of an art collection somewhere at one time! Someone else must have valued his work too! Did this mean there might be more McGregors around that area? Where did this painting come from? There was yet another surprise about this painting. It had looked very familiar to us and we discovered when we got it back home, that it was a bigger and much better version of, "In the Rockies"; the first McGregor that I had bought just a few miles from home. Perhaps he often painted the same scene as he travelled around from place to place.
The next find was during the summer of 2002 in Pudding Bay, N.S , and once again it was my daughter and son-in-law who found the painting in a shop. This time my daughter reasoned that as it was just a very small painting, with very little detail, she didn't think I would want to pay $50 for it. A week or so later after learning of the painting I located the shop on the internet; telephoned the owner and arranged to buy the painting 'sight unseen'. That painting, our fourth McGregor, now hangs on our living room wall with the others.
A few years ago, I was helping my daughter at an Antique Show in Fredericton and was browsing the other dealer's tables before the show opened to the public; and what do you think I found? Three of them!! All McGregors!! I could not believe my eyes! I smiled as I wrote the checque. The antique dealer who was selling them said he had bought them at an estate auction in Sussex, NB, a year or so previously.
So who was P. McGregor? I don't know. DO YOU? I don't even know his first name,( Peter? Patrick? Philip? Paul? Or Percy? Or?) nor where he was from; nor when he was born nor when he died. But I do know that he was a travelling manand I have found proof of that!The trail of paintings he left behind him were his 'bed and board' for P. McGregor was a 'feature of the hungry '30's'. We now have nine paintings of P. McGregor.
