With his commanding presence, exuding goodwill and fragrant pipe smoke, Centre Wellington’s Carl Leybourne looks like a man with a story to tell. True to character, he has gone ahead and written it.
In plain language, Memories: From Farm Fields to Urban Success proudly chronicles a multi-dimensional life well lived.
Growing up in a tightly knit farm community in Wellington County must have formed a core of strength and good fellowship on which to base all of his future endeavors.
Whether pitching hay or softball, heading up a school or dealing with ghosts, Leybourne remembers his own life with clarifying detail, providing insight along with intrigue.
As a memoir he focuses more on the public rather than private aspects of his life and the chronological scope is determined by context, granting further focus and flexibility. Each chapter deals with a chunk of the life that shaped him.
His boyhood years growing up on the farm are filled with the sweetness and honesty of hard work and the joy that he felt from working the land. Extreme detail is incorporated on long gone practices such as: “Rolling the land, after the stones were picked, with a two-horse drawn, two-drum metal roller with an attached seat completed the oat and barley planting.
“It was a job I was often entrusted to do after my eighth birthday. What joy I experienced with the warmth of the sun on my face and the dust at my back as I drove the team of horses around and around the field.” These details can be fascinating and are historically significant.
The early school years provide the reader a glimpse at inspirations that shaped Leybourne’s contented career in education. Included is the disturbing bullying issue still so profound today as it was to him.
His many years as a teacher, and more as a principal, are documented with incidents and the creativity that he combined with innate common sense to discipline and inspire the students, “fairness and consistency” being the key elements.
In a humorous example, he remembers having two feuding students barrage each other with names until they ran out of them laughing, their animosities gone. Whether or not these methods can be put into practice now is food for thought – as is much of the book. Memories has one hoping so.
Other chapters deal with his triumph over tragedy, including the sorrowful loss of his barn to fire, its’ rebuilding and consequent bond with the Mennonites who built it.
His chapter on the Supernatural is wonderfully odd and Leybourne makes no apology for it (“too old”), thereby making it all the easier to swallow.
He is a burn survivor, undefeated arm wrestler, lifelong farmer and current real estate agent. Throughout the book, names, places and references will be familiar ones within the Wellington County readership, adding to the intrigue. There are photos as well and an added bonus is the large print.
Arguably, any life makes interesting reading, whether it is for legacy, therapy or recreation. Leybourne’s Memories is an enjoyable gem to read, whatever its’ intention. Hopefully it will encourage others to do the same and add author to their repertoire.
Memories sells for $20 (including tax) and is available in Fergus at Ron Wilkin Jewellers, in Elora at Nieuwland Feeds, in Palmerston at Peak Realty, in Harriston at McIntee Realty, in Mount Forest at Coldwell Banker Realty, in Arthur at Walsh’s Pharmacy and in Rockwood at Remax Realty. Price: $20 including tax.
For more information call 519-843-3562 or email cleybourne@homelifeguelph.com.
