Sir John A. MacDonald

This lovely question was sent in by my father (you do know this is not what I had in mind, right dad?!!!)

If you had the opportunity to meet and interview the great grandson of Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first prime minister, how would you proceed and what would you want to know?

Well, jeez, talk about a homework assignment here! Given that I’ve sort of blanked out much of my history lessons, I guess it would probably be prudent to brush up at little on Sir John before talking to his great grandson. I certainly wouldn’t want to look like I didn’t know much more than the fact that his great grandfather was our first Prime Minister, had a lot do with establishing the national railway, and I think was the key figure in our country’s confederation, although this is sadly about the extent of the knowledge I can conjure up off hand.

So, assuming I had done some research and had also figured out exactly how old this great grandson is himself (for the purposes of this exercise, using no calculations whatsoever, I am arbitrarily imputing an age of 80) I would suggest meeting at comfortable location of his choice. (Where does the 80-something crowd hang out these days?) After some pleasantries and trivial chit chat, I would get down to the questions. Which, by the way, were not easy to come up with. I mean, we’re not talking about a conversation with Sir John A. MacDonald himself, we’re talking about a chat with his great grandson. How much connection do any of us really have with our great grandparents, if any?

Anyways...Here are the questions I would pose:

Did you know him and if so, what memories do you have of him?

Is he your mother or father’s father? What kind of relationship did he/she have with him?

Were you curious about that part of your family history? What stories were passed down to you about your great grandfather by other members of your family?

What was it like to learn about your great grandfather through history books in school? Did the information taught in school match what you were told by your family?

Would you tell your classmates that you were related to him? Would they believe you?

Has being the great grandson of Sir John A. MacDonald impacted your life in any specific way?

Is there anything you can share about him that others can’t?

Whew! Back to answering the more important "what if" questions, like, "if you were granted one wish, what would it be?" (to be answered in a future post)