Dennis Kearns
The interview I conducted with Dennis Kearns took place at Norfolk Manor in Guelph, Ontario on March 13th, 2019. After relocating to his room to have a quieter place to record, we began to document his life history. I would like to extend my thanks to Dennis for spending his time with me and for participating in this oral history project. ■ Jump to the full interview
Dennis Kearns was born on July 11th, 1949 at Toronto East General Hospital (now named Michael Garron Hospital) to Thelma Ruth Rodreguez and Elmer Kenneth Kearns. His childhood involved him moving often and while he never spent a significant amount of time in any one community, he did remain in the greater East York area for most of his adolescent life.
His mother, Thelma, was his primary caretaker and the one who influenced him the most growing up. Dennis believed her to be of Spanish descent and he said that his mom was “the main figure when I was growing up, you know she kinda, taught me the rules of life.” His father, Elmer, worked in construction most of his life and was largely absent when it came to the task of raising Dennis. He served in the Queens Brigade as a heavy machine operator laying roads for the allies in Europe at only 17 years of age.
Since Dennis’ family moving around so often didn’t afford him the chance to settle down anywhere in particular, he found himself jumping from high school to high school in his teens. From West Hill to Cedarbrae to Danforth Tech, it’s easy to see how it was difficult for Dennis to settle down. How difficult it was can be emphasized even further since Dennis dropped out of high school in 9th grade implying he moved twice in approximately 10 months. After Dennis dropped out of high school, he briefly had a job as a baby photographer before his dad got him a job on a survey crew. Some of the notable jobs that Dennis worked on were surveying for the Ontario Water Resource as well as laying out most of the Markham subdivisions. Dennis spent about 10 years working for the survey crew off and on before moving on to what would become his primary career during his lifetime, cement masonry.
Dennis started his cement masonry career in 1977. As a cement mason, Dennis worked on many different types of buildings over his 33-year long career. Some notable buildings that he worked on were the CN Tower (9 ½ months) and the TD Center (4 years). When I touched on the topic of his work on the CN Tower, Dennis stated that “we started at the restaurant and worked our way down ... We had safety lines and safety belts and stuff like that but If you fell over, you just hung out there until somebody came and got you.” The height of the CN Tower is 553 meters and Dennis was working at a height of 351 meters, or 1,136 feet, in the air (CN Tower, 2017). We spoke at length about how difficult the CN Tower can be to repair due to how careful anyone repairing the structure must be to ensure the internal rebar isn’t exposed to air (Winsa, 2014). Dennis told me that he had to apply “green goop on it … it kept it dry and protected it [the internal rebar system] from rusting.” Over the course his long career, Dennis has sustained 9 back injuries that finally culminated with the one that forced him to retire. After one of his coworkers neglectfully left the switch that controlled the up and down movement of their stage in the ON position, Dennis’ legs were trapped between one of the balconies and the stage. At that same moment, Dennis’ safety line activated below and began to pull him backwards hyper-extending his leg and shredding his muscles. After this incident, Dennis was unable to walk properly and was forced to retire from cement masonry. Dennis picked up a few other jobs after he retirement from masonry such as reading gas meters, delivering cancellation of electricity notices, and working for Red Top Taxi. Dennis’ final job was driving for Red Top before he was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2015 and was forced to retire for good. In 2016, Dennis moved into Norfolk Manor Retirement Community where he lives to the present day.
Dennis came to Guelph in 1998 due to his mother moving in with Dennis’ brother after developing Alzheimer's. As Dennis was living with his mother at the time, he ended up without a place to live after his mother left. One of his friends in Guelph offered him one of their spare bedrooms and Dennis accepted.
Dennis was married to a woman named Connie for 9 years before divorcing. Denis re-married and was with his second wife for 18 years but divorced her due to her drug and alcohol habits. Despite their divorce, Dennis and his second wife are still friends. Dennis had 2 daughters with his first wife who he hasn’t seen for roughly 30 years due to how messy the divorce was and his daughters taking his mother’s side. Dennis’ daughters resent him for not coming around and spending time with them after the divorce but in Dennis’ words “I had no idea where they moved to. They didn’t leave any forwarding telephone number or anything. The courts weren’t allowed to give me any information on them … So I just went on living on my own.” Dennis had family living out in Vancouver, mainly his brother who unfortunately passed away in 2018 after overdosing on morphine. Dennis told me “He didn’t care about life anymore. After my mum died, he didn’t have much reason to live. Then he developed progressive MS … He couldn’t take it anymore … He was a good guy, he just couldn’t take life without my mum.”
Dennis used to take trips to the Dominican Republic 2-3 times a year, specifically to Santo Domingo. While there, he met a woman and started a relationship with her. As she lived in poverty with her two children, Dennis would send money every month to help support them. Dennis’ money would help both the mother and her two sons to go to school and when he would visit, he would take them to resorts.
One of Dennis’ hobbies included watercolour painting. He took some courses and had his teacher encourage him to keep up with his art. He continued to paint on his own and develop his own style. He attempted to sell some of his paintings but found it difficult due to the fact that he didn’t have a recognizable name, so no one wanted to buy his art. Three examples of Dennis’ art can be seen below.
Gallery
All paintings by Dennis Kearns and photographed by Oren Bowes. Click any image to enlarge.
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You can listen to the full interview with Dennis Kearns here.
Click here to read the interviewer, Oren Bowes' page and reflection on this interview.
On the Record student member, Shyler Hendrickson, also wrote a reflection on Dennis Kearns' life story. Click here to read the reflection.