Category Archives: Family

Where did she go?

My mother, Vivian Phillips, died on May 28. As she kept telling people in the hospital over the five days she was there, she was three months away from being 103.

She was there, with Steven and I, sleeping in a room, the three of us together.

And then she was gone.

I’m adrift. A lifetime of love and attention, the past couple of decades of harmoniously living together, and the past few years of constant worry, vanished. I should be relieved that the hard parts of being a caregiver are over, and part of me is, and I’m certainly more relaxed, but I don’t know what to do with myself, and time spools out before me.

The end came quickly. She went into the hospital on May 22 with sudden rectal bleeding (there is no possible gentle euphemism for that). When this happened once before in 2023, medication stopped the bleeding, she had come home and was fine. It seemed that would happen again, but her failing heart had other plans.

4 billions beats, and then the last one, and done. My vital, joyous, cheerful, industrious, kind mother had become, in an instant, a husk, empty, still.

Yes, she had a long life, never got dementia, never became incontinent (a big deal), never got diabetes or cancer, remained engaged and engaging, lived in our home able to dress and feed herself, could still walk, still go to church, visit with friends, read, write, bake, and knit knit knit, never idle.

All things she and I were grateful for.

But she could never have lived long enough for me. I’m afraid I replied a bit unthinkingly to the first person who reminded me of her longevity that yes, it was true she had a good, long life, but I would give anything to have one more day with her. I will try to remember to not say to someone in a similar position that their loved one had a long life as it really is no comfort at all. Grief is grief just as darkness is darkness.

She was ready to go. She was tired. The world and her place in it wasn’t what it had been. She felt she was holding Steven and I back, no matter how many times we protested that wasn’t true. She prayed each night to Jesus that he take her to be with him, that she not wake up in the morning. I knew this, and was hoping she got her wish.

When she started telling people a few years ago that she was ready to die, it was understandably startling to some, but she knew where she was going and didn’t fear death. She welcomed the eternal rest she hoped would be her reward for trying to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. She is now reunited with my father, her brother and father, a beloved nephew who died suddenly in his teens, the grandparents who raised her, and her mother, who died when my mother was four, 98 years ago.

She told the hospitalist of her nightly prayer on the morning of May 27, and the doctor and she and I talked, and the treatment she was receiving, that they hoped would turn things around for her but wasn’t really helping, was stopped, and comfort measures started. Oxygen and IV removed, a port inserted so she could be given pain relief to help her breathing, which had become laboured as her heart stopped working properly. She died less than 24 hours later, faster than the nurses expected.

After the doctor and my mother and I made the decision to stop treatment – Do you know what this means, Mom? Do you understand what we are saying? – I called my family. I’m an only child, and my mother’s immediate family are all gone, but she is the eldest of a group of cousins, now all in their 80s, who all live close by and made it to the hospital that afternoon to say goodbye. In fact there were three generations, one after the other, some younger cousins who work in the hospital, filling the room, laughing, crying, holding her hand, kissing her cheek. An old friend who happened to be working in the hospital gift shop that day stopped by, tears in her eyes with the sudden news, but rallying to have one last jolly quick visit. My mother was delighted to see them all, even as she was sliding into the next world, asking how they were, how the oyster fishing and lobster fishing was going.

The last visitors left, and then we three were alone, the long evening slipping into night.

She woke at 2:30 am on May 28th trying to get out of bed, over the side rails, and almost succeeding, after having been quietly resting for six hours. “I want to get up, please let me get up,” she implored. I held her and told her it was okay and the nurses came and gave her another dose of morphine.

By 5:30, as the sun was coming up, she was gone. She had turned toward the window, away from us, and now the sun was rising, the first day of my life without her in it. I opened the blinds and sat with her, holding her hand. I described the hospital courtyard to her, the sparrow that landed on the spruce tree, the tulips, and told her I was sorry she was missing it.

On discovering she had stopped breathing, I immediately cried to Steven, “Where did she go?” How could this beloved, caring person be switched off so suddenly? We still had things to do. We had to go home and continue on.

The social capital my mother built up over decades of kindness and generosity has been paid back to me a thousand times over the past few weeks. The little Presbyterian church she attended all her life, where most of her family are buried, was as full as I’ve ever seen it for her June 3 funeral service. The doors were wide open, so the fresh breeze kept everyone comfortable, chairs set up at the back after the pews had filled. The choir was full, the singing joyous, and the service filled with scripture and hope, as my mother would have wanted.

The local legion held a service before the religious service and as she was one of the last Second World War veterans on PEI, and possibly the last in Prince County, there were members from other legions in the area. I am now the bugler for our local legion and told her comrades I would play the Last Post for her service. She heard me practice it nearly every day for the past year and in her unfailingly generous way always said I sounded really good, even if I didn’t always, so I knew I could do it, for her.

When I stood to play at her service, though, my mouth was suddenly and alarmingly dry from continuous talking and being tired, and I didn’t get off to a great start. But I remembered my mother’s consistent, loving praise and continued on, because it had to be done, and I did it, counting out the two minutes of silence, which seems so long, and then the Rouse to awaken her to eternal life.

All this feels a million years ago, and at other times it feels like it just happened yesterday. Time contracts and expands: I am five years old, I’m 90, I’m my real age of 58. As I walked out to my car the day before my mother died, pushing the walker she would no longer need to make more room for the family that were making their way to the hospital, I sensed the wave that would soon wash over me, the impact my mother’s death would have on the wider community, and on Steven and I.

I felt untethered, like I would float away, like if I let go of the walker I would fall up to the sky. When I was a child, I had a fever, my hands felt just like two balloons. Now I’ve got that feeling once again…

I’m doing as well as you can, I think. That wave did hit, the most powerful force I have ever experienced, a sadness that I could feel in every cell of my body. Like a wave does, it returned out to sea, sucking me under for a time, but now I’ve popped back up and am floating along. I can see the familiar shore, and I have even touched the sandy bottom a few times, feeling like my old self, but it is hard.

I’ve lost my last parent, I’m the last one standing of my little trio family. I’ve also lost the focus of my life for the past 10 years, my job, the clock that regulated our lives, the heartbeat of our house, and the joyous kindness that my mother spread every day of her life. It is a bitter thing.

I felt sad that my mother couldn’t have one more summer here with us, to experience the fresh berries and the flowers and birds and watching the activity on the river, the fishing boats motoring up and down, the herons marching regally by, the sunsets and storms and waves upon waves.

As her life went dark, the world was getting lighter and lighter, long, green days, the bluest skies after a dark, dreary May. Spring turned to summer, the trees and shrubs all in flower, the most beautiful, fresh time of year. I moved from my own dear mother to Mother Earth. My mother knew how much solace and joy I find in being outside. Not that she chose when to leave, exactly, or maybe she did, who knows? There are mysteries upon mysteries to life and death.

*The front door of Freeland Presbyterian Church on the morning of my mother’s funeral, waiting to welcome her one last time.*

My great-grandfather Thomas nearly dies on Malpeque Bay

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This story I found last month was a tale lost to my branch of the Phillips family.

My great-grandfather, Thomas Henry Phillips (1851-1924), was a farmer in Ellerslie, PEI. He and his wife Agnes had nine children, who all lived well into their adulthoods with the exception of my grandfather Alvin (1890-1936), who died of appendicitis. Alvin took over his father’s farm and the other four sons left Ellerslie, one to become a merchant in Summerside and three to the O’Leary area to farm and, it seems in the case of Forrest, to eventually enter provincial politics.

The names of the other characters in this tale of 19th century perilous winter travel are still common names in our area with the exception of Price. I found a Jesse Strang Price (born Bedeque, PEI, 1831 – died Green Forest, Carroll County, Arkansas, 1916), married to Mary Ann, who had a son John born 1864, the eldest of his five children, all of whom were born in Ellerslie between 1864 and 1874

It appears that Price family moved to the US, perhaps to escape the dangerous winter weather, who knows. One genealogy website I found said John Price drowned in the Arkansas River on June 5, 1916, aged 52, and it seems Jesse died later that month on June 28 at age 84, which would be a rather heartbreaking coincidence as they both risked dying together on a frozen Canadian bay so many years earlier.

The columnist, Frank MacArthur, was a prolific contributor to the Guardian in the mid part of the 20th century and later published a book about PEI legends.

Pioneer Days In P. E. I. by F. H. MacArthur

Charlottetown Guardian, April 12, 1950

Tales of ice travel are always thrilling and the adventure which befell a party of Ellerslie and Tyne Valley folk almost one hundred years ago is one of the most exciting. It is still told from Ellerslie to Richmond Bay and no matter how often it is retold, it still grips and holds the listener.

Jesse Price and his son John, William Ford, Thomas Burleigh and Thomas Phillips of Ellerslie, with William Ellis and son, and “Billy the Duke” of Tyne Valley, and a couple of teen-aged youngsters, had loaded their sleds with timber gleaned from the surrounding forests. Their destination was Malpeque. The timber was for the shipyards. Ellerslie folk supplied a good deal of the lumber used at Malpeque, Darnley and Princetown. In return for the lumber the settlers got flour, groceries, fodder, and their spring seed – the old trade and barter system was then in use.

Our story opens on a certain day in the month of March. Their journey, a distance of twenty miles, had to be traversed by ice. The little party set out before daylight with the expectation of being back home early that same night. The party reached Malpeque without mishap, unloaded their lumber and secured a good supply of provisions for themselves and their livestock. This occupied considerable time and when they reached the ice field for their return trip one of the men, Thomas Phillips, father of F. W. Phillips, speaker of the House, had failed to join the others. After waiting on the shore for nearly an hour they decided he must have gone on to Summerside to spend the night at the home of a friend.

Already the sun had sunk to rest behind a great cloud bank, and a strong gale was sweeping across the country. There was every indication of a big storm. Now the farmers pointed to the sky, spoke of the wind, and the dangerous spring-holes that lay along their route of travel. On more than one occasion these spring-holes, often too wide for the horses to jump, had to be bridged with the bottom of their sleds or anything they come by. More than one unlucky traveller had plunged into the cold waters, and more than one valuable horse had perished in this manner during the height of a storm. Before half the distance had been covered the blizzard burst upon them in a maddening rush that promised to scatter them like Autumn leaves. “Better rope the sleds together,” advised Price, “then we can let the horses have a free rein and trust to luck.”

The animals were used to crossing the ice and their owners had the feeling that, left to themselves, they would be able to keep the trail. But they had not reckoned on such a storm, and after bravely facing it for a time, even the faithful horses became hopelessly confused, lost their way and went around in aimless circles. Not a man among them could tell one direction from another. Finally, they decided to camp where they were.

It would be sure folly to risk their lives as well as the lives of the horses on such a night. So all hands got busy. The loads were placed in such a position as to form a circle and chained together to prevent their being blown apart. Now the animals were taken from the sleds and led into the circle.

The wind meanwhile, tried to demolish them root and stem. The snow came down in great white blinding masses that fairly sucked the breath from the men’s lips and bullied the two twelve-year-old children till they cried loudly.

In spite of the barricade the party spent a hectic night of it. In order to keep the children from freezing a considerable quantity of hay was twisted into long thick ropes and put to the torch. The twisting was to keep it from burning too fast.

At last the dawn broke. Over fifteen inches of snow covered the landscape. The wind had not abated and the air was thick with its white madness. Not till noon did they get their bearings. The land which poked its head above a mound of snow they recognized as Low Point.

Towards noon the wind suddenly ceased its wild play, and the little group of adventurers were able to reach their homes in safety, though twenty-four hours late.

Thomas Phillips had not gone to Summerside as his neighbors thought. He was delayed in getting his load which happened to be seed grain, so when he came to the shore and found the others had pushed on he decided to do the same thing. Into the teeth of the storm he ventured but finally he too was obliged to give up. He decided to take refuge on one of the small islands in Richmond Bay. But unlike the others he had no shelter and after tramping around in the deep snow for a couple of hours – it was too cold to remain long in one spot – he hitched up his shivering steed and again pushed forward. Lady Luck was with him and he reached home safe and sound. But when the women-folk of the tiny settlement saw his ghost-like form approaching through the drifts their hearts skipped some beats. And no wonder, for they thought the others had perished.

This story was sent in by Sanford Phillips of O’Leary who informed your correspondent that the last survivor of that ice episode, Mr. Thomas Burleigh, passed away quite recently in his late 90’s.

History passing

Meadow mushrooms

In my 1970s rural PEI childhood, fresh mushrooms were a seasonal thing that we gathered ourselves; winter mushrooms came from cans.

Every autumn I would go with my parents to Ellerslie to pick meadow mushrooms in a pasture near the farm where my father was born and raised. Dodging cow pats, we would harvest the little white mushrooms, checking they had soft pinkish gills underneath. That was the only mushroom we knew to be edible, and I assumed or was told that the “toadstools” (ie. every other type of mushroom) would be poisonous. That turns out to not be true, but we didn’t need to be adventurous as the meadow mushrooms were plentiful and we could pick what we needed, never putting a dent into the crop that was in the huge field.

We had a summer cottage on the land where we now have a year-round house. We would stay at the cottage until after Thanksgiving, which was always a huge family gathering with lots to eat and a big roaring fire in the fireplace. I would walk our long lane each weekday morning in September and October to catch the school bus and, on my way back in the afternoon, would pick the meadow mushrooms that occasionally popped up in our yard for my mother to fry to have with our supper.

This morning I put sunflower seeds out for the blue jays and chickadees, our year round friends and neighbours. I picked four lovely meadow mushrooms (Agaricus campestris, iNaturalist tells me) that popped up overnight, and cooked them for my mother to have with her supper. I gently moved them around in a bit of butter, and they were soft and tasted of the past, when the labour that went into such a treat meant they were regarded as precious gifts.

Quilts of Valour

My mother, Vivian, received a lovely gift last week from a group of quilters in Kensington. The women are part of a volunteer program called Quilts of Valour where quilters donate their time and money to create quilts for military veterans to honour their service and provide comfort.

The program started in Edmonton in 2006 and nearly 24,000 quilts have been distributed in Canada since then. My mother is now one of the few Second World War veterans left on Prince Edward Island, and it was so thoughtful of them to honour her in this way.

Both my mother and father served in the RCAF during the Second World War. They only wore their medals on Remembrance Day and then would put them back into a cardboard box in their dresser. It was only recently I realized their medals had been mailed to them. They had filled in a form, mailed it to Ottawa, and their medals, ribbons, clasps and pin bar was sent to them. There was no presentation ceremony like you imagine from Hollywood movies, no generals, no salutes or photographs.

In contrast, this quilt presentation was a touching and personal event. One of the quilters came to our home and, in that PEI way, she happened to be someone who had gone to my high school a bit ahead of me and who had also later gotten to know my mother as they swam at the same fitness facility; she was thrilled to be able to do the presentation and we were equally pleased to see her again after many years. She explained the origins of Quilts of Valour, told about the women who had created the quilt, and then asked my mother to stand so she could wrap it around her.

My mother was amazed to receive such a beautiful gift and touched by this unexpected kindness. The colourful quilt has a soft, flannel backing and radiates the love that was put into every stitch.

A hug from a grateful nation.

102

My mother, Vivian, turned 102 today. She is still very much as she has always been: disciplined, cheerful, engaged, inquisitive, generous. She lives in an apartment attached to our house, and gets herself up, makes her bed, gets dressed, and makes her own breakfast and lunch. She reads daily and weekly newspapers, cooks a little, does daily devotional readings, bakes a little, and knits a lot, giving the output of both her baking and knitting away.

If asked, she will tell you that she has lived as long as she has because she never drank, she never smoked, and she worked hard, which is all true. She also maintained strong social networks, became involved in her community, thought of others, and adapted well to change.

She is tired, though, and not sure why she is still alive, but makes the best of it and trusts that God has a plan for her. She noticed yesterday that the heliopsis outside her window turn to face the rising sun in the east and by the end of the day are facing west. She delights when the birds and butterflies pass by, notes the colour and movement of the clouds, watches the oyster fishermen speed off to their leases and arrive home for lunch. I learn something new from her every day, and helping her through this phase of her life has been rich and rewarding most of the time, frightening and exhausting some of the time, but always interesting. Towards 103.

Canso

When I heard that a restored Canso airplane was going to be visiting the former air force base in Summerside, I switched a few things around so I could take my mother to see it.

My mother was a clerk in the Royal Canadian Air Force (Women’s Division) during the Second World War, serving from April 1943 to January 1945. She was posted to the RCAF base at Torbay, Newfoundland for 13 months and would have been there at this exact time 80 years ago.

Seeing a Canso, loaded with bombs and depth charges to hunt German U-boats, would have been an everyday thing for her then, nothing special, but today was certainly remarkable. She was interested to see one again, and thought it was smaller than she remembered. This Canso looked very different as it was painted as a water bomber, which was its last role as a working aircraft, and not as a military plane. She found it difficult to believe that 80 years had passed, thought a lot about all the friends she had made, now all gone.

It was windy with rain threatening as I pushed her wheelchair across the tarmac towards the plane. She learned to march on a similar runway in Ottawa, marching back and forth, back and forth. They issued the women shoes that were one size too big because all the marching would swell even the daintiest of WD feet.

It was to that very Summerside runway that she had been headed one day, probably also in 1944, when the plane she had hitched a ride from Torbay to visit her family on PEI spotted a U-boat surface in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. They scrambled to get out of the area and radio the submarine’s position so bombers could be dispatched. She had been sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, so hopped out pretty quickly and the plane returned to Torbay. She never heard, or has forgotten, if that U-boat was sunk.

The Canso we saw today is one of only 13 remaining of the 3,600 built. My mother, once one of 17,000 WDs, is probably one of only a few still alive. Possibly one of the last people who saw a U-boat. My mother is still very much who she has always been – independent, generous, jolly, disciplined – but she has also morphed into being a living historical artefact, still able to tell her story at nearly 102. Rare birds indeed.

Celestial Awe

A total solar eclipse last month and a spectacular aurora borealis show on the night of May 10th have both luckily occurred during that sweet spot on PEI when the snow has disappeared but the biting insects haven’t yet emerged, when being outside is a pleasure.

I have seen the aurora on the northern horizon before, but between 11pm and midnight they danced and flickered dimly overhead and all around, something I’ve never experienced. We don’t live in a completely dark-sky environment, as there are a few yard and street lights dotted around, and the glow from the lights in the town of Alberton to the north can sometimes be detected, but it’s pretty close, and I got some nice photos.

It was only 4C on Friday night and I hadn’t dressed appropriately for the cold, damp weather, but I stretched out on the grass anyway to watch the show. Last night I was better prepared for another cool night, donning long underwear, heavy sweater, gloves, hat, winter boots and splash pants.

Alas, the northern lights stayed undetectable except in long exposure photos, just a glow on the horizon. So my careful preparation wouldn’t totally have been in vain, I recruited Steven to join me in a gimmicky shot to commemorate our month of celestial awe, but now looking at it, I think it also captured how we have moved through our life together over these past 25 years: arm in arm, heads up, finding each other in an infinite and beautiful universe, walking through the darkness toward the light.

Miami Beach, February 1964

60 years ago tonight, Cassius Clay beat world heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston at a match in Miami Beach. Soon after that fight, Clay would take the name Cassius X and then Muhammad Ali.

A few days earlier, the Beatles returned to England after a successful short tour of the US, the start of Beatlemania on this continent. They appeared three times on The Ed Sullivan Show, the biggest variety program on American television, watched by tens of millions each week. Their second appearance was broadcast live from Miami Beach on February 16.

It just so happened that my parents, Harold and Vivian, took their first vacation to Florida in February 1964 and were in Miami Beach on February 16. They were both 41 and had been married for 19 years. They had worked hard to build up their general store business, so were overdue some fun and relaxation. They travelled with my mother’s cousin and her husband. By all accounts, they all had a marvellous time soaking up the sun and seeing the sights of Miami and Daytona.

Harold and Vivian Phillips, Miami Beach, February 1964. They obviously had a snazzy TV in their room, but my mother doesn’t remember if they watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan on February 16. With few stations on the TV, my guess is they did, but she was more a Perry Como fan and never really got the Beatles.

Bill for nine nights at the Golden Nugget motel, Miami Beach, February 1964.

My father lugged his 8mm Kodak film camera with him, taking plenty of shots of palm trees, orange groves, alligators and swimming pools. He took some footage of BOAC and KLM airplanes outside a terminal somewhere along their Summerside>Moncton>Montreal>NYC>Miami route.

Their handwritten tickets listed their NY airport as IDL for Idlewild, except Idlewild had been renamed JFK in December 1963 just after the assassination of the US president, but obviously the change had been recent enough that no one was used to it.

Moncton to Miami $132.99 return via Tran-Canada and Eastern airlines.

YSU (Summerside) to YQM (Moncton) $14.00 return

One day, the four travellers hopped in their rented convertible and drove around the Miami area, my father aiming his camera at the passing buildings and advertising banner towing planes. When we watched this reel when I was a child, this short sequence would just slip by, but when I had the film digitized, I was able to pause it and have a better look, and quickly fell down a rabbit hole of early 1960s popular culture.

Miami Beach, February 1964, showing advertising banner towing planes, Sonny Liston’s training headquarters at Surfside, Florida, and Hotel Deauville with Mitzi Gaynor on the marquee.

I knew who Mitzi Gaynor was from her movie roles and appearances on television variety shows when I was a child. I looked up the Hotel Deauville and learned it was where the Beatles had stayed in Miami and where their second Ed Sullivan appearance had been recorded, a show that also included Gaynor. Then I read about Sonny Liston’s training camp in Surfside, just north of Miami Beach, and of him appearing on the Ed Sullivan show the same night as the Beatles, and the Beatles also meeting Cassius Clay and posing for a famous photo, and the February 25 boxing match. So much was going on!

The Beatles meeting Cassius Clay/Muhammed Ali at the 5th St. Gym, Miami

I’ve done a few presentations about my father’s film footage to local groups and have used this little clip to encourage people to look at their own photos and videos and to save, document and share what they have. It might take many years before something becomes important or interesting, but if you haven’t saved it, you’ll never know.

What my father filmed isn’t as important as footage of the Beatles or Liston or Ali or even Mitzi Gaynor would be, certainly, but he did capture a few seconds of a time in US history when the country was still trying to come to terms with the assassination of their president only three months earlier, square old Ed Sullivan was kicking off Beatlemania using the huge influence of his television program, and Clay/Ali was on his way to becoming an important sports star as well as a towering figure in the black power, civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements.

What do you have in that cardboard box in your attic or closet? Nothing much? Look again.

Suitcase Swan Lake

I picked up Steven at the Charlottetown airport last week. The Air Canada flight from Toronto was late. It had been deiced twice at Pearson. When it finally took off, I started my 100 km drive over snow-drifted highways, and the plane touched down just a couple of minutes after I got there.

I haven’t been in the terminal since before the pandemic. They’ve done a bit of renovating, removed the Cows Ice Cream cow that used to greet travellers in the arrivals area. A much more multicultural array of folks were waiting with me than in the past

Two children tried to find a place to hide so they could surprise the person they were meeting. A young man held a bouquet of flowers, shifting back and forth and looking at the floor, thinking hard. A Buddhist monk in orange robes and the biggest snow boots I have ever seen came in decked out in a couple of DSLR cameras. There were the pasty potato-faced people like me.

I was sitting on a bench far enough away that I couldn’t see the when the doors opened, but I knew a couple of seconds before they did because those waiting near the doors suddenly started to crane their necks to spot the person they were meeting. There are no jet bridges at Charlottetown, so people have to make their way across the tarmac through whatever weather awaits, emerging from the darkness at night.

The passengers trickled in at first, and then suddenly they burst forth, a flock of black four-wheeled suitcases with long handles, twirling and pirouetting across the bumpy tiles, click click click, a ballet of surcharge-dodging swans. Their human handlers seemed to have the most gentle of grips on them, just a couple of fingers, and that let them deftly maneuver around the people hugging babies and kissing grandmothers and out to waiting conveyances.

A few people carried those bags too tired to swivel or were reluctant to bump over the snow from the plane. A couple of my hens don’t like walking on fresh snow and will insist on being carried when they tire of the uncertainty of the puffy white, so I expect the bag owners faced the same thing.

In just a couple of minutes, the clattering cases were gone. The children were hugging a tall man, the youngest clinging to his leg so he sort of dragged her around, everyone laughing. I lost sight of the man with the flowers, so don’t know if the person he was meeting arrived. The monk was talking to a family with a young boy, no photos being taken yet. Steven grabbed his backpack off the conveyor belt and we stepped out into the drifting snow.

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