Later Years
Historian Norman R. Hacking came to known John Irving well in the captain's later years, and wrote of him:
| “ | The latter days of Captain Irving were sad. He gambled or gave his money away with gay abandon. In a few years his fine mansion in Victoria, his horses and stables, the accumulated wealth of a most successful business career; all were gone. The death of his only son Willie in the first Great War was a great blow, and the old man gallantly offered to enlist and take his son's place. | ” |
When Irving had sold the Canadian Pacific Navigation Company to the CPR, he had been presented with a lifetime pass to travel on the CPR's coastal steamships as a guest of the company. Irving, who apparently lacked a regular home ashore, came to use the pass constantly. So long as Irving's old friend James W. Troup was superintendent of CPR coastal operations, Irving was always welcome aboard the company's ships. When Captain Troup retired, his successor, believing that Irving was abusing the pass, warned his captains that while travel might be at the company's expense, Irving was to be required to pay for accommodations and meals on board. This directive was ignored by the CPR's captains, who continued to seat Irving at the captain's table and make sure a cabin was available for him.
Hacking described Irving's last years:
| “ | In his later years Captain Irving lived in a small converted store on West Pender Street in Vancouver. With his tall spruce figure and his white goatee beard he was a very handsome gentleman. His favorite remark when meeting an old friend on the street was "How about a smile?" He died in 1936, poor in everything but friends. | ” |
Read more about this topic: John Irving (steamship Captain)
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“But he answered his father, Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 15:29,30.
“I Years had been from Home
And now before the Door
I dared not enter,”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)