Norman Lowe Fraser: Physician. Artist. Athlete. Father. Born Dec. 24, 1933, in North Gower, Ont.; died Dec. 26, 2021, in Ottawa; of complications from a stroke; aged 88.
Norman Fraser.Courtesy of family
Every father has his personal story that often illuminates the man. For my Dad, that story was the Fraser family Christmas Pudding Rebellion. On Dec. 25, 1977, Norman Fraser decided that his six children required a lesson in opportunity, and it would come in the form of Christmas pudding. Truthfully, I remember little of the pudding other than I wasn’t going to eat it. My siblings all felt the same way, so we collectively boycotted the final course and waited to see who would blink first. Action was swift and predictable – we were restricted to the dining room till all traces of pudding had been consumed.
Growing up in Sudbury, the son of a nickel miner, Norman was acutely aware of social status and believed in education as a leveller. Growing up, he always thought he would end up working for Inco in the mines. But shovelling coal for a summer cured him of his ambivalence to school. After a year of focused studying and a short false start pursuing a career in theology at Huron College, Dad landed in medical school at the University of Toronto. Residency at Women’s College Hospital is where he met and fell in love with Yvonne Sayers, from Sarnia, Ont. They married, started their family of six children and established a life in Toronto.
Norman recognized his privilege well before the concept was widely understood. Soon after beginning a successful medical practice, he looked for ways to give back and eventually landed a job as zone director of the Moose Factory General Hospital. Northern Ontario is where he started his 25-year career of dedicating himself to the well-being of the province’s First Nations people. Under my Dad’s tutelage, the family became acutely aware of inequality, racism and the evils of “othering.” Ultimately, my parents relocated to North Gower, outside Ottawa, to continue raising the family.
I grew up in a home where education was sacred, holding picnics in cemeteries was a ritual and doing your bit for society was a duty. I watched him stain all the church pews in our garage, three at a time – 33 in total. I listened to him explain his passion for art and marvelled at his contributions to its world. He invested time, energy and love in his children. Prokofiev and Led Zeppelin played equally over the living-room speakers. He taught his children how to throw a ball, play hockey and piano, skin a fish and care for all.
Dad never forgot his humble upbringing and often reflected on the fateful day when studying became his preferred option over shovelling coal. For Dad, Christmas pudding represented more than a sugar-laden culinary treat. It meant a new way forward for himself, his children and those who had been for too long barred access to opportunity and possibility. Eating this pudding, in essence, became a symbol of social agency – a ritual that reaffirmed his belief that we all need to be our best selves.
As I recall, we sat at the table for quite some time. Eventually, my eldest sister plugged her nose and swallowed the pudding in two scoops. The rest of us embraced this route to freedom and followed suit. The Christmas Pudding Rebellion, like the dessert, stuck with me. Initially, I dismissed it as a bad case of parental control, but it wasn’t … it was a symbol of a sweeter future.
David Fraser is Norman’s son.
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