I don’t have one particular story about Barb, because I’ve known her my whole life. Our parents and our grandparents were friends, you see. Our kids were the same age — Blair and my daughter and then Blake and Bob, my son; I was at both of her weddings and she was a bridesmaid at mine, so we had many connections.
I grew up in Ottawa but my family came from Port Perry and I spent all my summers and every long weekend here. When we lived in Ottawa, Barb would come and stay with us and the Millers — Barb’s grandparents — would come, too. The parents would go play bridge and Barb and I would go party or something. One weekend, we were probably 17, and they came down. Barb always had fabulous clothes and she was a lot more sophisticated than I was. I was going with this one guy who was attached to an embassy just near us and they were having this party. Barb had these beautiful taupe-coloured pumps. I just remember they were so much nicer than anything I had and that night she said, “Well, wear them!” I felt quite grown up.
After we moved back to Port Perry, which was about 52 years ago, we got really close then because we were together a lot. I’m the kind of calm, steady one. I’m not adventuresome like Barb was. She’d come here when she needed to sit down. My favourite thing was when I’d be working around the house and all of a sudden I’d hear, “Is the coffee on?” Sometimes she’d bring a dog, sometimes not. And we’d have coffee and talk. And then she’d be gone and then she’d appear again. You never knew when. One day last week (I forget what day it was, Wednesday or Thursday), I opened the door in the morning and thought, Well, Barb won’t be coming today.
When I worked, I was an EA in the public school here and she was teaching in Whitby. After I retired she’d often call in the morning and say, “Ok I’ve got a HomeEc class this afternoon, what am I gonna make that’s easy?” I’d go through my recipe books and give her something I thought the kids could do during lesson time. So she had them make some of my recipes — especially the tea biscuits, they made a thousand of those I think.
In the early years — the ’50s — Barb and her family often spent Christmas eve with us at my grandma’s house. She had a great big house. And the year after Barb’s grandpa died her mom and dad and her grandma all came up on Christmas eve again. And so we spent the evening together and about quarter to twelve we decided we could open gifts. It was probably one or two in the morning when they went home. At the time we were teenagers so I thought nothing of it, but we each had three generations there and that was very special.
I can tell you a funny story. When Barb first met George, who was living in Ottawa, my husband and I were going down one weekend to pick up something we had bought before moving back to Port Perry. She was just starting to go with George then — they had only met up a couple of times and she wanted to come with us to see him. So that morning we all got in the truck and headed to Ottawa and met George at the museum parking lot. Off they went and had a lovely romantic picnic up in the Gatineaus somewhere while we got our stuff. Then we met up at the museum again at about five o’clock and drove back home. And that was the start of their relationship.
We got to be really good friends with George, too. They came up here all the time. We went to parties and stuff together. These would be in our friends’ homes mostly or a cottage. There was a group of us, maybe eight, that often did things together — nothing exciting — we would just have drinks and food. We were all old Port Perry people.
Barb was the most flamboyant one. She’d come in these — y’know what kind of clothes she wore — and I’d say “Oh, is that ever smart, where’d ya get that?” And the answer would be, “Goodwill. $3.”
She’d try anything, do anything, go anywhere. Whereas I wouldn’t. She never talked me into anything. She did have some scary times at that farm though. She got pinned under a machine once, ran over her dog’s foot and the horses had some illnesses that she tried to look after herself and, oh my goodness, I don’t know how she survived over there!
She lived life to the fullest, and she was very happy with that move down east. We talked all the time on the phone. She loved the peace, she loved the water and watching the fishermen coming and going. And she had a couple of horses sent down there — it was like the country, what she was used to. It worked out well that she sold the farm. The boys would have had a tremendous job doing all that.
I understand exactly how hard it is to get rid of stuff. Half of my house is my grandparents’ things. I have a lot of antiques with a lot of memories. It was the same with Barb. At the party they had before she left the island, Blair was talking about how they had three piles: the garbage pile, the giveaway pile and the sale pile. And he picked up a cup and waved it in the air, explaining the sorting process. “Where d’ya want this to go?” he said he’d ask her and she’d say, “Well that was my grandmother’s and she bought it at...” And he was imitating her so perfectly that we were in stitches.
That’s what I did with my kids, too. Right now I’m looking at this beautiful covered bowl that mom always put the tea biscuits in. People don’t do that now. My kids are not going to have use for half of this stuff. They don’t live that way, they don’t entertain that way. People are staying home more now, though. They are cooking and they’re doing more things together, which I think is great.
Growing up, we were very close and our families all knew each other. But Barb was much more outgoing, just one of a kind. My kids thought she was wonderful because she was so funny and up for anything. She was always like that. Her mom was very outgoing but more traditional than Barb. They were ordinary people. They entertained a lot. We all entertained a lot. We had a lot of people around all the time — all of us. These memories of Barb are plentiful and precious. I am very lucky.
As told to Alex Laws.