The Storyteller -

by Ann Thurlow for Red-The Island Storybook Vol. One

“Come on right into my house” says Mary Cousins as she holds the door wide open. “Come right in and sit down”.

I was first drawn in to Mary’s circle because I worked for CBC and did a story about her and her remarkable friendship with folklorist Sandy Ives. Mary came to Sandy’s attention because she knew the songs of  her district – songs made about things like the O’Halloran Road and Uncle Dan Riley.

But Mary also knew the stories of her area – the hamlets and settlements around the mid-part of the western shore of PEI. By the time I met her she was well into her seventies, and had told those stories hundreds of  times – so many times that their edges were burnished and smooth. And it occurred to me as I sat at her table that it wasn’t me she wanted to see. Not really. What she wanted was a new audience.

Being Mary’s audience offered ample rewards. As well as being a consummate story teller, she was a generous hostess. You would not arrive at Mary’s small house without getting a large meal. By the time I knew her, her health was flagging a bit, but her will was strong – fierce, even. So at some  point in the afternoon one, and sometimes more, of her nine children would show up bearing a pie or a pan of squares and, once, a huge roast turkey.

This is how it went: we ate, Mary talked. I’d say something like “Mary, tell me about Uncle Dan Riley”. And she’d take a napkin and partly unfold it and smooth it on the table. “Well,” she’d begin “Uncle Dan was actually a relative of mine,” all the time folding and smoothing the napkin.

Can a story be a mantra? Because by the time Mary finished telling one of her stories, we had all undergone some sort of fundamental transformation. The stories usually had a sad part, “and of course Dan passed away – he never married.” And everyone at the table would be downcast, heavy hearted over their turkey and pickles and cherry pie. But then Mary would say brightly, “but of course he wrote so many good songs and people will always remember him for that.” And we’d all laugh, relieved.

Mary was more properly called Mary Elbridge — her husband’s name was used to distinguish her from the other two Mary Cousins in and around her community of Campbellton. “People marry for many reasons,”she began, as I asked about Elbridge, “but I married for love.” And as she began talking about her husband, so long gone, her face took on the aspect of a girl. She told me about the big man who teased her when they first met. She told me about his deafness, endearing stories about the way she stopped people who tried to take advantage of that. She told me how Elbridge fished in the summer and went to the lumber woods in Maine in the winter, leaving her in a small house with nine kids. “But Mary,” I said, “wasn’t that difficult?”

“Of course it was,” she said, putting my daft question in its  proper place, “but there was no time to think about how hard things were, and no point.”

Mary told me stories about other singers in the community, how they’d come to visit in the evening and how they’d entertain. She told me stories about telling stories – about how a good story teller was “as good as anything you’d see on television.”

What she would not tell me was any story that contained a whiff of scandal. Was she a Pollyanna? Absolutely not. You can bet she knew what was buried under every rock from Seacow Pond to West Point. But, in the elaborate etiquette of Mary’s life, I was a relative stranger. Certainly, the hardship and loneliness of life in her area yielded it’s own share of tragedy, but she would not tell me about that. The best I got was a cluck of the tongue, a shake of the head and a cursory “Oh yes, that was bad.”

That, however, did not stop her from trying to get information out of me. We had a few mutual friends. And every visit included what appeared to be casual musings. “I always wondered why he never married” “I wonder does anyone ever see her in Charlottetown”

All these questions had a dangle at the end – an expectant look at me.

But, truthfully, I think if I had answered these questions, I might have slipped in Mary’s estimation. It would have been gossiping and Mary Cousins was not a gossip. She was a story teller. She was a person who, through words and music, kept the threads of her community knit together. She understood the relationships, and the comings and going much better than any sociologist or historian ever could.

In some ways. her story was typical: the wife of a fisherman who went to the woods; the mother of nine; an avid church goer. What set Mary apart was her ability to turn everything that happened around her into a story. She knew how to set a mood, how to draw her listeners in, and how much to reveal and when. Had she been born in another place and time, she could have been a novelist and would probably have won a Pulitzer Prize.

Instead, she lived in a time and place where the ability to tell a story was prized over all. And for a few happy years, I was her occasional audience, her devotee, her fan.
All of us at the Preserve Company appreciate David Weale & clan for their harvesting and sharing the rich bounty of life stories that Prince Edward Island provides. They have done such a wonderful thing in creating a publication called RED – The Island Storybook. Anyone wishing to subscribe or order an issue to be mailed to their address of choice best contact David and the team through http://davidweale.com/red-the-island-storybook/.

RED – THE ISLAND STORYBOOK – CONTEST

We are pleased to give an annual subscription and three runner-up prizes to RED – The Island Storybook to our readers and fans through a contest on our blog and our Facebook page.

Contest Details: One Ballot will be awarded to everyone who posts a comment about this story on this blog. Another ballot will awarded to those who join us on Facebook, and share the story with their Facebook friends, as well as make a comment either on the blog or our Facebook page. In essence you could earn two ballots.

First prize a annual subscription to RED, the 3 runner up prizes will be a copy of the issue in which The Story Teller story runs. Volume 1. The draw will be made on March 30. All the best, and have some fun.

This story was submitted by David Weale. Thank you David!

I had heard from friends up-west that I really should go to see her. That I must. And as I walked away from her door after my first visit every remarkable thing I had heard about her had been confirmed, and more. I was amazed, and strangely moved.

Evelyn Christopher of Northport/Alberton is a phenomenon: a seventy-nine pound, ninty-four year old force of nature. She takes no medication, wears no glasses or hearing aids, and lives alone in her little house where she prepares all her meals on a wood stove.

When I visited in late September the kitchen was piled high with firewood, and scattered with pots and pans, and bags, buckets and trays, all filled with the vegetables from her garden. And there was soil everywhere.

Evelyn’s longevity and fitness are certainly not attributable to the easy or pampered life she has lived. She has been a hard worker all her life, and is still working – everyday. Her garden, on the old family homestead in St. Felix, is immense, and every fine day of the summer you can find her there with her seventy year old son, Wilson, planting, weeding, thinning, hoeing and harvesting. When I visited her between the rows she looked as though she had been there all her life, and, of course, she has. As I watched her I was struck by the thought that, no less than the plants, she was a creature of that garden, and a friend told me recently that when you hug her, “she smells like the earth.”

If there is such a thing as an earth mother, I have seen her, and her name is Evelyn.

When I commented on the unusual looking corn hanging on the wall. both Eveelyn and her son Wilson were proud to inform me that theyr are still growing an ancient variety that has been in the family for more than hundred year, “my mother brought it from Nova Scotia when she came over from Nova Scotia in the early 1900′s,” said Evelyn, “and she had it from her mother who came from Holland in 1872 or “73.”

“We used to grow a variety of blue potatoes called ‘Early Rose’ that we so long – oh! eight to 10 inches – that you could carry a bunch of them in the crook fo your arm, and in the cellar we used to stak them,just like we stacked the firewood.”

Interviewer: “Did you like gardening over the years?”

Evelyn: “It’s how we stayed alive, so you had to like it.”

“It’s all fast work today, no good work.” (Evelyn)

Interviewer: “So Evelyn, you worked in the garden in St. Felix pretty much your whole life?”

Evelyn: “That’s right boy, that right, and I am still here.”

“She (Evelyn) asked me one day if I had put in my garden. When I confessed I wasn’t putting in my garden she grew puzzled, and asked me very serioulsy, Well what are you going to ear this winter?” She is still of that old frame of mind that to get thorught the winter you have to grow a big garden and put away aenough vegetables to keep from starving. And her garden is still huge.” (June Gaudet, friend of Evelyn)

When were talking about growing potatoes Evelyn recalled a vidid image from when she was young, in the days before commerical fertilizer. She said she would put potato set in the mouths of herring, then line head to tail the entire length of the drill before they were covered.

“The fisherman’s boats is all tied up at the wharf, the factory is closed, there’s no work. I said where  are you going to ring boy, tell me this. If you didn’t have a garden where would you get a bite to eat? You go up here to Hardy’s to buy it, but how much spray is onto it. The day will come when I have to eat it I suppose, if I don’t die quick. Boy, it’s no good…and you…can’t…go…back!” (Evelyn)

The rest of this story is in the current copy of RED, the remainder of the story is hilarious.  We will be giving away some copies over the next few weeks. Details will be posted here on the 26th.

All of us at the Preserve Company appreciate David Weale & clan for their harvesting and sharing the rich bounty of life stories that Prince Edward Island provides. They have done such a wonderful thing in creating a publication called RED – The Island Storybook. Anyone wishing to subscribe or order an issue to be mailed to their address of choice best contact David and the team through http://davidweale.com/red-the-island-storybook/.

RED – The Island Storybook – Contest

We are pleased to give an annual subscription and three runner-up prizes to RED – The Island Storybook to our readers and fans through a contest on our blog and our Facebook page.

Contest Details: One Ballot will be awarded to everyone who posts a comment about this story on this blog. Another ballot will awarded to those who join us on Facebook, and share the story with their Facebook friends, as well as make a comment either on the blog or our Facebook page. In essence you could earn two ballots.

First prize a annual subscription to RED, the 3 runner up prizes will be a copy of the issue in which the Evelyn story runs. Volume 3. The draw will be made on March 10th. All the best, and have some fun.

I love this photo of David, Evelyn and Rooster.

by Susan Christensen

Although I have dabbled in art most of my life, first in drawing then in printmaking, my artistic career began in earnest in 2004. I attended a workshop and painted the Hibiscus painting shown.

I was impressed by what I had discovered within myself as a painter; it inspired me to become more serious about a career in art. I now consider the Hibiscus painting, my first acrylic painting, to be a self portrait.

In my eyes, the bud represents the artist in me before, while the flower represents the artist in me now as I have blossomed in my artistic career.

When I first began to paint, my primary subject was flowers. I enjoyed combining my new found passion for painting with my lifelong passion for flowers.

Many of the flowers in my paintings are from my mother’s flower garden. As time and my skills progressed, I began to paint the Island landscape, which is another of my lifelong passions.

I have frequented the shores and hillsides of my home, Prince Edward Island since childhood. In my twenties, I bought my first 35 mm camera and paid homage to the beauty of my Island home through photography.

Although I continue this practice, I am pleased that I am now able to celebrate Prince Edward Island’s beauty through my paintings.
I would have to say, my three greatest artistic influences have been Georgia O’Keefe,
Emily Carr, and Lawrence Harris.
It is not so much their style of work that has inspired me, although the work of all three I greatly admire, it is their spirit of exploration and determination that I admire in each one of these people. They are each able to continue on and take their art further and further down the road of discovery.

Recently, I set up a seasonal Art Gallery/Studio in Cavendish on the north shore of Prince Edward Island. Visitors to the gallery have the opportunity to watch me paint. I really enjoy talking about art with people and showing them how I approach my work. It is incredible to be able to share my passion for the arts as my career.

If you want my advice, do what you love as a career, it’s worth it!

www.susanchristensenart.com