Alison Pearce – RIP – February 13, 2023 – 91st year

March 26, 2023March 29, 2023 ~ Catherine Campbell ~ Leave a comment

Some of our memories…

Diane Chartrand

KNOWING ALISON PEARCE

The first time I met Alison was in the fall of 2014, both attending Mary Ann’s Introduction to Fiction Class at Western Continuing Studies downtown in Citi Plaza. The class was large but a few of us seemed to gravitate to each other, Alison among them. We attended several Creative Writing Classes together over the next couple of years.

Mary Ann suggested that we start a writers’ group. We ended up with nine people participating, rotating our meetings in each other’s homes. Friendships grew.

For me, it was time at Alison’s apartment. It was only a ten-minute bus ride from my house to hers and she would ask me to come over and help her with computer stuff. Alison was a whiz with education things but over her life, she had shied away from computers and never learned how to use them correctly. She always had issues trying to find where her writing had gone. In her words, “It just always seems to disappear into thin air.”

I would go over and sometimes we would go out for lunch, or she would have made something at the apartment for us to enjoy. Yes, there always was wine and if she didn’t have any we would get in her car and go get a bottle. Then we would go into the room where her computer lived. Watching Alison fluster over her issues seemed funny to me but I’m sure was very frustrating for her.

She would open Microsoft Word and type up some things, like the address book she was trying to create with all her friends and acquaintances’ addresses, emails, and phone numbers. I think over the years it got lost many times, but we always seem to find it somewhere in a file folder that had nothing to do with addresses.

I pinned the files she wanted to work on at the bottom of her main screen to help her find something quicker including how to access her email account. Sometimes that helped but it always seemed that she would either forget where they were or accidentally unpin them and had no idea where they had gone to.

At times we would mostly just sit and talk about everything from upcoming classes to other members of the group and their writings. Alison had a lot of great stories but most times she was unable to get them down entirely unless she put them into emails for us to read. I had kept a few of her stories that we went over during group meetings that were printed out and you will see them along with our memories.

I think being able to make it into your 90s is a great feat and one I’m striving for. Knowing Alison helped make me a better and more informed person. Anyone who knew this fine lady definitely would agree.

Marian Bron

The twinkle in Alison’s eye and the little knowing smile is what drew me to her. It was as if you and her were the only ones in on a delicious secret. I bet that’s what made her such a great teacher and principal. She knew how to captivate and disarm.

Her storytelling was epic. Her warm voice, an arc of an eyebrow, the irrepressible smile and a chuckle, all hallmarks of a true raconteur. The listener was stuck in the mud with her on a road trip through the prairies or helped pack and lug a steam-trunk as she set sail for England.

I am honoured to have known her and to have been part of her circle.

Alison, you will be missed.

Mary Ann Colihan

Alison was remarkable. Age 80, she joined my writing classes at Western Continuing Studies. This gave confidence to everyone else that no matter what your stage of life, it was possible to take up the craft of writing. She then quietly shared that she had written a 600 plus page family history. I always told her she should be the one teaching. Of course, she was an educator through and through and was proud of her years in Toronto, especially at the Bishop Strachan School. She lived near me and I enjoyed driving her to class, She shared many family stories, told with sharp clarity, and tales of her career. She formed a writer’s group with others from the class and that was a successful model of team work and mutual support. We were invited down to visit her ancestral part of Ontario in West Elgin County. We toured the Backus Page Museum, the beautiful Pearce Park overlooking Lake Erie, St. Peter’s Anglican Church circa 1827 and cemetery in Tyrconnell where Col. Thomas Talbot is buried. The Pearce family was part of the Talbot Settlement. Alison was a gifted storyteller and we were lucky to be invited to her old family homestead nearby, a truly remarkable farm with stunning lakefront views. She loved to share all she knew about the people and events that shaped Wallacetown. As a consequence, the owners of the home always made time for her and became friends. And we never left without eating local pie from Tall Tales. She will be greatly missed by many, especially our literary group, the Wordwrights. But we know she will continue to inspire our rewrites.

Annie Carpenter

I remember quite vividly the face of dear Alison the first night I showed up for my very first Creative writing class. She was the first smile directed my nervous way. I scanned the room anxiously… and one by one the faces I would come to treasure over the next few years looked up at me. Alison held the most senior in the class title. She inspired me with her thirst for knowledge beyond the time most people seek new waters. She would stand and sway a little at many a class with lower back pain. She would say she just couldn’t write sometimes…and I would think… your words and your life already had made quite a statement.

I miss the special moments with her and the writing group. I miss the Creative Creation that class inspired. Catherine… hands down kept this group afloat… by persistently being consistent . Mary Ann and Catherine’s bond with Alison is a testament. I can’t think of Alison without thinking of the unique part each and everyone in the group played…wrote… in this story we’re in. Where writing-joins souls from every walk of life. It’s a very unique thing that joins people who, by all means, may never have connected without the love of writing…. Dearest Alison, how brave you were…and so touched to have known you.

Muriel Allingham

Everyone has captured Alison’s incredible spirit, her resilience, her love of life and her sweet nature.

Maria Melillo Jones

In memory of our beloved Alison, our little firecracker.

Alison was in her early eighties when she joined the Western Continues Education program.

She sat at the back of the class; her perfect silver hair caught my attention.

“Well, it’s never too late to learn,” I mumbled.

Alison shared personal stories regarding her life journey; I felt that I was on the expedition with her.

She brought part of her past to the present by scheduling a visit to her previous family estate in the town of Wallacetown, Ontario.

The estate is a gem with a stunning landscape heading to the shores of Lake Erie; we visited the John E Pearce Provincial Park, a charming little church, and the cemetery, where she chose her eternal rest.

I feel privileged to have had a glimpse into her culture and traditions.

At times I would pick her up to go to our scheduled group writing meeting. Along the way, we joked and laughed with Diane and our dearly missed Rian.

I had many talks with Alison most of them were to check in on each-other, where in other occasion she gave me good advice.

She was a strong-willed, independent woman. She lived most of her life on her own, then towards her late eighties, I noticed her health and mobility decline.

One day in a friendly and concerned way, I asked Alison if she had thought about moving to a retirement facility.

Her tenacious personality snapped back at me like a flashing light.

“Why don’t you?”

I smiled and apologized, knowing I had offended her independence.

Rest in Heavenly peace, my friend.

Madeleine Horton

I’ve thought if Alison were born in much earlier times when names signalled desired virtues, she might well have been called ‘Patience’ or ‘Honor,’ both fitting what I know about her reputation as an educator and her dedication and respect for local history and her family’s role in it. In this vein, I might call her ‘Modesty,’ fitting the unassuming and humble person I was fortunate to know. This was brought home to me very sharply at her Visitation when I was awed by the scope and detail of the book she had written about her family’s history, researching the earliest settlers, and reaching into the present. It is a book of so much more than genealogy; it is filled with personal accounts and anecdotes along with photos and diagrams. She had mentioned it briefly, and in an off-handed manner, as if it were nothing of significance.

At the same time, she was effusive in her praise of my writing when we did critiques of members’ writings at our Wordwrights meetings. She would often preface her comments by saying how much better all the other writers in the group were than she was. Definitely not true. I have kept an email she sent about one of my writings because it was both incisive and encouraging.

Alison’s rural roots meant so much to her and as I also grew up in the country, we shared some chat about that. She had such interesting stories; I only wish I had met her earlier.

Catherine Campbell

I recall a vibrant lady with a captivating, warm smile and a self-deprecating manner. The writing she shared with us, her writing group friends, radiated her wit and humour.

Alison, I regret that I never got an opportunity to play that grand piano at OakCrossing for you thanks to the pandemic.

The Forest City Wordwrights did get to share coffee and special treats at our meetings and a glass of wine or two at our Christmas lunches. We were so privileged that Alison was able to join us at our first post-pandemic Christmas lunch this last December. We presented a screening of pictures from our last visit to the Pearson homestead that Alison had been unable to attend. This was all especially poignant when we lost her so soon afterwards.

I will certainly toast her often!

The Road Ahead – the GPS is Always Right (Alison Pearce)

March 19, 2023March 26, 2023 ~ Alison Pearce ~ Leave a comment

What a fabulous trip we were on.

When Bill (Keeler) was in his eighties, and with me not far behind, we both decided that age would be no obstacle to our love of travel. So, with our route well-mapped and our food cooler filled, we set out at the end of July on our journey to the West.

Bill was so proud of his shiny white Mercury Milan. There weren’t many in Canada, and its previous owner had managed to bring it across the border the year before. Bill snapped it up from the lot of his Ford Dealership the day he had to leave his Crown Vic behind. Sadly, for him, the Crown Vic had seen better days. Bill loved his cars, and he treated each one like a personal friend.

Bill was an excellent driver, and with as many turns at the wheel, I matched him. Along the northern shores of Lake Superior, across the prairies, south to the mountains of Alberta, through the Crowsnest Pass, to the coast, and finally by ferry over to Victoria, we traveled, visiting relatives along the way.

After six wonderful weeks of sights, we were finally heading home. We had one more destination, which Bill insisted on visiting. He had found a town marked Keeler, a dot on the road map of southern Saskatchewan. A little village, Bill thought, where he might find some more relatives to add to his family history. He had found a number of Keelers in Manitoba, and Saskatchewan was not that far away, was it? And so, we planned to visit Keeler(ville) on our way home.

As we sped along the Trans Canada through the bleak prairie land of southern Saskatchewan, we found ourselves traveling beside railway track after railway track. They seemed never-ending, and the whole scene was actually quite depressing to us. There were no signs of human habitation for miles along the way. However, the very thought of finding live Keelers in Keelerville lifted Bill’s spirits. He hoped that he might find another relative whom he could add to his clan’s history.

It was early afternoon. “Maybe we should get a motel room before we turn off,” I suggested. “At least we will have a room to drive back to.” Bill agreed, and with that, several miles on down the road, I pulled up to a small, gray building that had five or six rooms. It was not terribly inviting from the outside, but motels were few and far between. It was my task to choose our motel accommodations along the way, so I hopped out and went in.

“No,” I said to Bill as I came back to the car. “It won’t do. Why don’t we visit Keelerville first and then go on to White City for the night? There’s a hotel there. Do you remember the fabulous breakfast we had in it that Sunday morning on our way out?”

What a great time we were having! Neither our GPS nor Bill’s car had let us down these thousands of miles along the way.

Bill agreed with my plan, and so on I drove down the highway until the GPS told us to turn south for 20 kms, and then I reckoned, having studied the map, we would turn right for a bit. And this was exactly what the GPS told us to do. As I turned onto a narrow, dark laneway of a road, I could vaguely see in the distance what might be some buildings amidst a clump of trees. Keelerville, I thought! But I hadn’t gone fifty feet before I could feel the car sinking into what appeared to be a thick, dark, clay-like loam. The car had completely lost traction and stopped dead.

“I can’t move,” I said to Bill. “I’m stuck.” I could move neither forward nor backward. “I don’t know what to do,” I cried out helplessly.

With that, Bill opened his door and was already part way out on his way to exchange seats. I did the same. But the black, thick muck clung to our running shoes, more and more of it with each step we took. My feet began to feel like heavy wooden blocks. Bill was experiencing the same difficulty. I was able to grab a stick, and both of us removed some of that heavy stuff from our shoes before we each got back into the car.

Now! As I said, Bill was an excellent driver, and I was relieved to see him once again behind the wheel. He tried and tried to go forward and then backward, but the wheels just kept spinning, and with each spin, a little more black guck flew into the air and onto his precious white Mercury Milan.

“Merde,” said Bill. “Merde, Merde, Merde!” I suddenly became aware for the first time that Bill could speak French. Then I soon heard him muttering under his breath, “Damn you bugger.”

I sat in silence, and so did Bill as he kept studying all the buttons on the panel in front of him. But what to do? Finally, out came the manual from the glove compartment. After studying it carefully, Bill had another try. And yes! Would you believe it? He had discovered a hitherto unknown button. He tried it! With pressure on the pedal and in reverse, we eventually inched our way backward, wheels spinning and mud flying in all directions until we had covered the 50 feet or so back to the main road. What a relief! We were once again on firm ground.

We spotted a man in a huge yellow grader coming down the road, so we drove toward him to make an inquiry. I’m certain he wondered if all Ontarians were this crazy. He stopped and turned his engine off. Yes, indeed, there had been a place called Keelerville down that road a ways back. “You must have crossed it,” he told us. “I believe there’s only one person living there now. You’ll find him in the schoolhouse. Let me take you there.” And with that, he switched his engine on, made an abrupt turn, and beckoned us to follow. We crept along slowly behind until he stopped in front of several old, abandoned buildings. Bill was anxious to reimburse him for his troubles, but he would have no part of it, and as he turned around, gave us a smile and waved goodbye.

We pulled up a little farther in front of a dirty, gray, stucco building that had the name “Keeler Community Centre” clearly etched along the top of it. After a few moments, an unshaven man came out of the weedy growth to greet us. Yes, he was a Keeler, the last one to remain here, he said. No, his Keeler family was not from Norwich, where Bill’s had come from in England. His were from Aylesbury. After several minutes of discussing their family backgrounds, the two men agreed they had no family ties.

Then the conversation turned to Keelersville itself. In the midst of wheat land, it had been a centre for grain storage for years and had once been a thriving Keeler community. At one time, there had been over a hundred children attending the three elementary and secondary classrooms. The remaining Keeler dweller, whom we had just now met, was living in one of these deserted classrooms.

It seems that when the railroad came in forty years ago, the grain elevators had all disappeared, and the townsfolk soon left the area. Our newfound Keeler friend was the only Keeler living there now.

Both the Community Centre, which had been named after the family, and the village hotel had been left to decay. The doorways were open, and I wandered in to explore. The bar arm tables were still standing on the first floor of the hotel, but the customer tables and chairs had long since disappeared. One would not venture up the aging staircase to the second floor, which housed the bedrooms. In my imagination, I envisioned the layout of the rooms above, probably quite barren and with just the essentials that travelers would need as they passed through.

Sensing Bill’s desire to move on, I climbed back into the car, mud still clinging to the soles of my shoes. The shiny Mercury Milan, Bill’s pride and joy, was covered in black polka dots. Anxious to locate a car wash, Bill was relieved to find one in White City. Once the car had been restored to its normal pristine state, our attention turned toward ourselves. It began feet first with me. What a relief to see the mud disappearing from my shoes as I held them, one by one, under the washroom tap.

By this time, it was heading on to six o’clock and long past our regular stopping time. We headed over to the White City Hotel, ready to retire for the day.

“We’re filled right up,” said the woman at the front desk in the White City Hotel.

My jaw dropped, “Every room gone?” I asked in a raised voice and much to my dismay.

“Yes,” she said, “All seventy of them gone. We’re really busy right now. Try the motel on the next street”. And so we did. But it, too, was filled.

“I don’t know what we are going to do. We need a room for the night, and the hotel is filled, too,” I told the man.

“Why don’t I call the nearest motel?” said the desk clerk, and to our joy, it had one room left. “Please tell him to hold it, I urged. We can give him our Master Card number,” but he shook his head and told us it would be fine. They would hold it for certain. With that, he gave us directions to the motel, which was quite a piece back from the way we had come. Well over an hour later, we arrived.

“Doesn’t this look familiar?” I said to Bill. When I went to the office, there sat the same man whose room I had turned down earlier in the day. Not surprisingly, it was still vacant! But at this point, neither of us cared. We were dead tired, and it was close to five hours past our stopping time.

The tiny air conditioner sat perched high up on a triangular shelf in one corner of the room while a lamp with a pink shade and 25 Watt bulb on our night table was the only light we had.

As we sat on the side of our beds, each holding a glass of wine while we munched our cheese and crackers, we laughed aloud as we recounted the day’s events. We had had an adventure that we could never have planned.

“The GPS is always right!” I said. And shortly after that, we both fell sound asleep.

Grandma Anna’s Funeral (Alison Pearce)

June 1, 2021June 9, 2021 ~ Alison Pearce ~ 1 Comment

Grandma Anna has just died. Bless her! It was May, 1943.

Thank goodness she had presence of mind to plan her expiration date in the springtime. Had it been January, the locals may not have been able to master the snowdrifts that often filled the country roads in winter. They would have been disappointed had they not been able to see who had come to pay their respects. For everyone goes to all the funerals in the country, you know. It is simply the thing to do.

But this was a special funeral and no doubt it would be a big one. Grandma Anna was in her nineties and was the last of her generation to go. She was 3^rd generation on my father’s side of the family but she was still considered a pioneer. She was the only one left who knew full well what had come before. If anyone in the area needed to “know” something, they came to Grandma Anna. There would be an emptiness with her gone for there was no one who could fill her place now.

Grandma Anna had been born in 1850, the year that her father had built that beautiful Georgian brick house on the lake road. It was the first brick house to be built in the county. And less than a mile the other way on the lake road was the home where her husband, Leonard, had been born. His father had built that home in 1874 and it was even more elegant than the house in which Grandma Anna had been born. Leonard’s house had seventeen rooms to fill it.

Leonard, Grandma Anna’s husband had not been a physically strong man, but he provided for Anna as best he could. Theirs was a frame gingerbread house with an outdoor privy and though Anna may have longed for the bricks and mortar of the home in which she had been brought up, no one ever knew. She held her head high. Her home was her castle and she expected everyone to treat her as the queen she was, who lived in it. And they did!

Her sons Edwin and James, who rarely saw eye to eye, had agreed on one thing. Their mother would have the best casket that money could buy. Made of polished oak with brass handles, it had a quilted satin interior and satin pillow on which to lay Grandma Anna’s head. Too large for the parlour, the casket had been brought into the house through the back kitchen door and into the living room where it remained throughout the visitation. Grandma Anna’s bible, always opened on a stand in the parlour, was open to “The Beatitudes” on a stand beside the casket now. An air of peace and holiness almost seemed to prevail.

Edwin and James knew there would be a lot of people. Anna’s lane was narrow and was flanked by huge jack pines on either side. The visitor’s vehicles were to continue on down a side lane, through James’ property and out to the main road. On the day of the funeral, the procession would follow the country road down to St. Peter’s Church for the service and on to the cemetery for burial, where lay Grandma Anna’s final resting place.

On the day of the visitation, the first person to arrive was Jacob Dinsmore and his wife Effie Cusack. Everyone assumed they were husband and wife for they had lived together for years on the town’s main street. Jacob, the only townsfolk gentleman who had a horse now, kept it on the property behind his house. He came early to Grandma Anna’s house, hoping to avoid the frightening noises of the automobiles, especially that dreadful Ford car of Ernie McKillop’s. “Why he does not get his engine checked, I will never know!” said Jacob.

Just as he and Effie were about to climb into their buggy to leave, who should drive in but Ernie himself. And wouldn’t you know? Ernie drove his car and parked right up beside the post where Jacob had hitched his horse. Muttering under his breath, Jacob was forced to step back until the churning noise of McKillop’s car had ceased and his horse Prince had calmed down. “Why he does not get his engine checked, I will never know!” said Jacob.

Along with Edwin and James, Anna’s two widowed daughters, Norah and Beatrice who both lived up the road in Wallacetown, were there at their mother’s home to receive guests. as well. A number of the ladies from the Dorcas Society began to filter in and could be heard talking amongst themselves.

“Oh, haven’t they done a great job on her hair!” remarked Verna as the girls wandered over to the coffin. Some of them peered in at Grandma Anna’s peaceful face.

“She didn’t have much to work with in the beginning”, said Doris.

“And there she is, wearing her purple beads. Aren’t they the same ones that she wore every day,” chimed in Mabel.

“Don’t you like her knit dress,” remarked Grace. “I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”

At that moment Beatrice stepped over. “Mother bought this dress almost twenty years ago.” she said. “She wanted to be ready for the day when she would need it.”

Just then the girls turned around to see who was sobbing. Doris walked over and put her arm around Marion who was crying her eyes out. “We won’t have her any longer,” she sobbed, “to lead us in prayer at any of our meetings. Who’s going to do it now?”

“Well let’s get her buried first before we think about that” chirped in Mona.

“Come on Marion! Anna would not be pleased to know you are crying so much. Remember she always told us that we should rejoice in death because it’s only through death that each of us will truly meet our Maker”.

“Well, she’s surely with Him now”, Tina announced as Marion struggled to wipe away her tears.

The living room was beginning to fill up with people coming and going all afternoon. Men and women who hadn’t seen Grandma Anna, some for two or three years, came from far and wide to pay their respects. They had come to say good-bye to Grandma Anna and to catch up on local news at the same time. There was something about Grandma Anna that one could never forget once you had met her. She had a deep and abiding faith and an aura of spirituality that seemed to envelop every person who came in contact with her. She was a lady for whom deep respect was afforded by everyone who knew her

The ladies of the Dorcas Society were about to leave just as John B arrived. He wasted no time in making his presence known and was soon heard to say in his booming voice, “I wonder how much she’s left the family”. No one bothered to turn around. Everyone knew John B’s voice. He was the town bachelor who rode about on his bicycle helping the farmers when they needed him. He was a good worker but other than that, social “know-how” was not part of John B’s make-up. He always knew where he could get a good meal. On his way home from work he would often “conveniently” drop in to a home at supper time. Nothing would do but, that he had to be invited to join the family.

Disgusted, the neighbour standing beside him started to walk away but not before the minister who had heard John B’s questioning remark came over to silence him. It was not unusual for John B to speak out as he did. He had never learned to keep his mouth shut at the appropriate time.

Just then the Reverend raised his right hand and asked everyone in the room to remember Anna, each with their own silent prayers after which he pronounced a blessing of his own. “Amen” he said, as the group followed together with a second “Amen”.

The following day at noon hour, the cars were lined up on the roadside waiting to follow the hearse down the road to the cemetery. It was a lengthy procession, for it seemed as though everyone in the neighbourhood had come to bid a final farewell to this lovely old lady, the last old timer of the community.

Since her husband’s death, Grandma Anna had always sat in the front pew of the church. Now her two sons, Waltham, who had come from Halifax and Reginald from Alberta, occupied it. The remaining members of her family sat behind them.

The church which could barely seat a hundred people was filled. So was the balcony. People were standing at the back of the church and in the aisles. A few were gathered outside on the lawn, one or two of the farmers still in their work clothes since they had not had time to go home to change.

This was the church that Grandma Anna’s forebears had built over a century earlier. St. Peters’ Anglican Church which was known for its splendor and elegance had seen many visitors during the course of each year. Though money may have been scarce for a number of things in those early days, one could see upon entering this beautiful edifice that the early settlers had spared nothing to make their house of worship, a House of lasting beauty.

Several large stained-glass windows depicting biblical scenes such as “The Sower” or “Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock”, caught one’s eye the minute one walked in. These windows were monuments of great beauty and had been dedicated to a number of the early pioneers. And the pews of solid polished oak spoke loudly of the reverence that these people held in their hearts for the wood and trees of their forests. Small wonder that the boys had chosen an oak casket for their mother.

The congregation stood when the casket was rolled up to the front of the church by the pallbearers. As the minister took his place, the choir began to softly sing “Abide with Me”. Reverend Craven’s eulogy was not long for that was the way Grandma Anna had wanted it. She was, after all, a humble woman and had told him when she was alive that whatever he had to say, it was not to be lengthy. As the service came to an end the bell began to toll. It continued ringing while the mourners filed out and followed the hearse on foot, up the road and over to the cemetery where they spread out circling the grave site of Grandma Anna.

As the minister pronounced that final blessing to the dead and the casket was slowly being lowered within the freshly dug grave, a pair of yellow warblers flew onto one of the branches of a nearby tulip tree. They began to warble so loudly that their song brought nothing but joy to all standing around, a song that seemed to be a heavenly benediction to Grandma Anna, one grand old lady and the last of the pioneers.

Note:

I was 11 years old when Grandmother died and I remember well her funeral. I am sorry that her house no longer exists. A cousin lived in it for a few years and it was eventually torn down. But it holds many memories – the row of Jack pines that grew tall along one side of the laneway- and the eerie sound when you heard the wind blowing through them.

I did not like going to Sunday School or church and I used to disappear when it was time to get ready. I would high tail it up the gravel road around the corner to Grandmas on when it was time to get ready for church on the Sundays in springtime-The first pine tree inside the gate had a bough that came straight out for a few feet. I could hoist myself up on it and sit with my legs dangling, a perfect place to observe blue sky the buttercups dancing in the breeze. As I communed with God and nature this ritual fed my soul far more than listening to a stuffy old minister- But too soon I heard my name being called as I was told that it was time to get ready..