S.A. Pring
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1964, St Rose Laval Quebec, S.A. Pring is first generation Canadian of Irish and Welsh descent, second born into a family of five children. His family left Quebec during the FLQ uprising of the late 60’s early 70’s settling briefly in Toronto, Ontario. What followed during those early years was a constant unending chain of new schools as his father followed the work. Seldom was the school year started and ended in the same school. A continual requirement to prove one’s self – fight your way in, fight your way out. However, it was during this time of constant upheaval that the house pictured on the cover came into the author’s life. Back then it was known as Hebron Acres – a nickname given to it by the Wings of Faith Church that owned it and ran it as a summer camp/retreat. It was after his Grandfather had suffered a major heart attack that church moved his grandmother, unable to support herself, onto the property in the dead of winter of 1977. His Grandfather recovering in hospital, his Grandmother was now snowbound 200 feet back from the road in a decidedly creepy old house with no one but the ghosts for company. It wasn’t until an intrepid Cable installation woman made her way through waist deep snow to the old woman trapped in that house did they learned the “truth” about the place. The house was located 3 km west of Wyoming, Ontario.
A quote from the land registry office of Lampton County described the property as follows:
“If walls could talk, Tansy Hall could speak volumes. This handsome brick home, built in 1889, has an illustrious past. Edward Ivinson built the 17-room house as one of Enniskillen Township’s early oil barons for wife, Ellen, and their seven children. Ellen named the mansion after the yellow-blossomed tansy flowers which grew in abundance nearby and were used for medicine. The original estate included barns for his race horses. In subsequent years, it became a centre for bootlegging and ladies of the evening. It then became a family home again for many decades before it was bought by the Wings of Faith Tabernacle Evangelistic Association in 1971. By 1985, it was a family home again.”
By the time Pring’s Grandparents resided there in 1977 the house had become a place of horrors. Places within and without one just did not go alone for fear of never returning. Huge gaping black maws in the side of ancient barns you dared not venture too close to, the presence of those waiting concealed in the darkness so keenly felt. The family moved on from there once Pring’s Grandfather was well enough or perhaps his Grandmother just got tired on being in the middle of nowhere. Regardless, it left an indelible mark on Pring’s memory becoming the wellspring of endless tales.
Perhaps the most impactful person in Pring’s life was Mr. Fox, his grade 10 English teacher. Somehow, he was able to redirect an angry misguided youth to the written word and the wonders hiding between what is seen on the page toward the intended and inferred. A reader was born that day, and by extension … a writer.
Today, S.A. Pring has been a proud serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces since 1993. His travels and adventures have given birth to numerous articles published coast to coast and later adopted by the National Defense Recruiting website as an accurate depiction of what life at sea is truly like. Today Pring can be found residing in Victoria, BC.
