How the grandparents of a Tenors member helped save outport Newfoundland from TB
Clifton Murray was born on Canada's west coast, but his roots are firmly planted on the eastern side as well.
Murray — a member of the Canadian operatic pop group the Tenors, who are performing with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra in St. John's on Oct. 11 at Mile One — regularly came to Newfoundland and Labrador to visit his mother's family in St. John's, where she was raised.
"I was really fortunate that my mom made sure that we all knew where we were from, through her heritage in St. John's," he told CBC Radio's St. John's Morning Show.
"Growing up, at least every two years we would go to Newfoundland. And she would rotate: she would do winter, and then she would do summer, so we appreciated the beauty of the seasons here in Newfoundland."
As a child, said Murray, he fell in love with the people and the culture.
"I felt like a Newfoundlander myself because we were here so often," he said.
It's a family history of significance for Murray; his grandfather was Walter Davis, whom he calls a "true humanitarian" for the work he did from the 1940s through the '60s with the Newfoundland Tuberculosis Association.
"He realized that Newfoundland had one of the largest TB problems in the world at that time. A lot of the small coastal communities had no access to health care and hospitals, and the TB issue was really getting out of hand."
Floating clinic
The association bought a boat — christened the Christmas Seal — from the U.S. Navy in 1947 and converted it into a floating clinic with an x-ray machine.
"He went to all these inter-coastal communities and went down to the docks. People came down, they went on to the Christmas Seal and they got their shots, they got their x-rays, and he made sure he was eradicating that disease as best he could."
Murray's grandmother Olga Davis was one of the first nurses on the Christmas Seal.
Reached out to Nelson Mandela
"They spent years going up the coast trying to heal these small towns, one shot at a time," he said. "He's just been fighting the good fight his whole life."
Walter Davis also reached out to Nelson Mandela in the '60s, said Murray, to offer the political prisoner refuge in the province.
"He sent a one-way ticket to Nelson Mandela to invite him to Newfoundland, that if he did get out of jail … he could get asylum here in Canada if he needed it," said Murray. "They didn't take him up on the offer, but he actually bought the ticket and sent the letter [so Mandela would] know that Newfoundland would welcome him with open arms."
Davis was also instrumental in bringing CBC Television to the province, said Murray.
"He realized the importance of the culture and the news and so many other things that CBC brings, and he fought hard and long until it showed up in the province, and my grandfather had a lot to do with that, so I'm proud of that legacy as well."
Murray's Newfoundland roots most recently surfaced in the Tenors' Newfoundland-set video for their version of Auld Lang Syne, which appeared on their Christmas album released last year. The seed for that video was planted during a 2000 trip that saw family and friends head out to Cape Spear to watch the sunrise.
"There was just something so magical about being on the furthest eastern point and watching the sun rise on the shores of Newfoundland. It's a metaphor for hope and rebirth, and I wanted to recapture that moment in a music video."
With files from The St. John's Morning Show.
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