[...]... death, the details of my grandfather’s life are still vivid Many of the young men and women who will make millions of dollars playing basketball may not know the name James Naismith or may not be able to correctly answer the question Who invented basketball? ” As long as they are playing the game, and playing it the way he thought it should be played, however, my grandfather would be happy He was a humble,... on the Ottawa River called Grand Calumet Island His father bought a sawmill there to create his own source of lumber, thinking it easier to ship the lumber to the cities than to ship the logs down the river to another sawmill Naismith barely avoided a tragedy one day when he was in the mill and the workers were all in another part of the mill “I took up a cant dog and began to roll the log towards the. .. come and join them The established settlers took in the newcomers and cared for them until they could G r ow i ng Up • 3 make their own way The attitude was that there was “always room for one more.” The people were not stingy but frugal and thrifty,” Naismith s daughter Margaret wrote in a family history years later The women spun their own yarn, knitted as many articles of clothing as they could,... after watching the other kids skating, he left the pond and looked around the buildings in Bennie’s Corners until he found two old worn-out files He took them into the blacksmith shop and ground them until they were the size he wanted Next he found two strips of hickory wood and figured out how to attach the files to the wood He also made leather straps so that he could fasten the boards to the bottoms of... worked in the area Naismith recalled how they enjoyed giving him an old blackened pipe to smoke “I was eight years old and I could smoke a pipe with the best of the teamsters,” he said Naismith wanted to learn to operate the machinery in the mill, and one day he complained to his father that another boy, Johnny Wilson, only slightly older than Naismith, was allowed to work on the machines The elder Naismith. .. told his sister to get the children’s clothing and she complied, kissing the three children goodbye and telling them to go off with their uncle The last vision Naismith had of his mother was of her standing at the doorway to their home, proudly waving goodbye Naismith s father was too sick to get out of bed, and the children were forbidden to go near him for fear they would catch the disease Uncle William... found swimming or fishing in the Indian River “It was typical boys’ play in the water and they ducked each other and used the mud banks for a slippery slide,” Naismith said In the fall, the boys hunted birds and rabbits in the field and tried to catch the great northern pike in the river Naismith was particularly adept at going out in a canoe at night and spearing a fish During the evenings, a group of youngsters... the anvil in the blacksmith shop trying to out-lift each other One of their favorite stunts was to try and lift the anvil by grasping the tapering In the sugar bush back of the shop some of the boys tried to do some stunt that none of the others would dare They would swing from one branch to another or run along a limb far above the ground, risking arms and legs in an effort to out-do [the] competition.”... was on If the guard tagged the youth who had thrown the stone before he reached his stone, the two had to trade places “More often than not, [the boys] missed, and when they went to retrieve the duck, the guard could tag them,” Naismith noted in later years He said he enjoyed the game because it combined alertness, good timing, and dodging ability Over time, the youngsters discovered that if the stone... stop the disease from spreading throughout the family and the community The news of John Naismith s illness reached family members in Almonte, and his brother-in-law, William, thought of his sister and the three children Not listening to the suggestions of his wife that other family members could care for them, William Young harnessed horses to a sleigh and headed for the Naismiths’ home Arriving there, .