Keith Scoville May 6, 1924 – December 7, 2018

Keith Scoville

My love for my Uncle Keith must have begun at the knees of my own mother. 

She loved her siblings and so I learned to love them. 

Uncle Keith was 16 years my senior. 

 I knew him through the stories I would hear of him from my father, and from my mother, though now I can hardly remember which stories come from whom.

Uncle Keith joined the Canadian Navy when he was a young man.

Others who know his story better will tell of his adventures there.

 From Doral, I think,  I know that Keith could pack a suitcase so that no piece of clothing had a wrinkle. The socks were folded with precision. His shoes had a high shine. A spit shine. One that a person could see their face in.

And in fact my mother stored that “sailor suit” for years in a trunk that held other pieces of clothing, like a sweater of my dad’s that had a “letter” on the sleeve.

Uncle Keith’s early life seems to be mixed in with other stories. His dad  dying in a tragic accident in the Raymond Sugar Factory, Earl Scoville, dying too young, leaving a woman with eight children and no way to make a living on her own.

I knew Uncle Keith in other ways. He was a salesman for Lever Brothers. He taught my mother that soap should be unwrapped and then left on the shelf to dry out. That would give it longer life.

From Uncle Keith I knew the story of diminishing returns. He had a sales route from which he could earn a living. The company then cut the size of his route and he had to work harder to get the same amount of money out of his territory. And then another cut to the size of the district happened and the work got even harder.

Not that Uncle Keith’s life exemplifies the life of that fictional character, Willy Loan in any way, but Keith was a salesman and I hardly ever see The Death of a Salesman without thinking of how difficult the life of sales people working on commission is.

For the curious?
This is what Uncle Keith's hats looked like.

2 WWII Canadian Naval Hats 1941 
Toronto Ontario HMCS Simpsons

On to other thoughts.

For sure there was never anyone like Uncle Keith for personal grooming.

Handsome.

Well-shaved.

Handsome.

A warm smile.

Handsome.

 Not a hair out of place. At least that is the way he is in my memory, long out of his middle years and into his older years.

Handsome.

After Keith left Lever Brothers,  he sold life insurance. He was sold on life insurance and believed in his product.

I know something else about Uncle Keith.

He loved a well-dressed table. Tonight I was setting our table. Putting the butter plate at the tip of the fork. Rolling the napkins three times so that they would fit in the napkin rings. Filling the water glasses with ice.  I was wishing that the paper napkins were linen, tonight, in honour of Uncle Keith.

I think he would have liked that.

Arta