Ferdinand Alfred Johnston

Ferdinand Alfred Johnston and Christine Agatha Johnston (née Cooper)

Ferdinand Alfred Johnston, my grandfather, was born in Jamaica on July 13, 1884. I was not there when he was born, but I heard about it from Marvin Gaye, and he heard it through the grapevine.

I do not know where Grandad was born in Jamaica. He had a Scottish father — Johnston is a Scottish name — and his mother was of Chinese-Jamaican descent.

Dad told me, “Many times when I was a kid, I would be walking with Pop downtown. Chinese people would approach Pop and start speaking Chinese. Of course, they would stop talking once they realized that Pop did not speak Chinese.”

Grandad worked as a police officer in Kingston, Jamaica. When he came to Toronto in 1910 (?), he applied to the Toronto Police Department. At that time, the Toronto Police Department did not have an affirmative action program. To qualify as a police officer, you had to be Protestant and White.

Nana, who had come to Toronto in 1908(?), was working for an influential Toronto family. (Dad thinks it was the Weston family, but he was not sure.) This influential family got Grandad a job at the post office as an inside worker, and he stayed there until he retired.

Nana and Grandad moved back to Jamaica before my brother, two sisters, and I were born. They moved back to Toronto when I was seven years old and lived with us for six months before Grandad died.

About me, Grandad told Dad, “There’s no middle of the road with that boy. He goes to extremes. He’s either going to be very, very good, or very, very bad.”

Wow! I was seven years old and Grandad only knew me for six months. What did I do for Grandad to reach such an accurate description of my personality? Not even Marvin Gaye could tell me.

Happy 141st, Grandad!

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