Dereen's Little Girl

 
 
It took a second for me to recognize the beautiful, young woman with the strong, friendly face who was walking towards me saying my name.
 
I had promised myself that I wouldn't cry, but I did. 

 
Meghan Hildebrand's late  mom was an artist in the Yukon and a good friend of mine.

And I hadn't seen Meghan, who now lives in Powell River, BC with her husband, since she was a child.
 
 
Today Meghan is a successful artist whose work is carried by Mayberry Fine Art which operates out of Toronto and Winnipeg.
 
(www.mayberryfineart.com)
 
 
This week-end she was in Toronto because two of her pieces were being shown at the Toronto International Art Fair.

 
My first reaction, which hasn't changed, was  "How powerful!"
 
There is an abundance of life and passion in these pictures.

 



 

I was pleased when the gallery owner brought out two more of her paintings and set them on the floor for me to see.

 

All I could think of was a day many years ago in Dawson City, Yukon.

 

I was talking to her mom while she worked and at the same time I watched Meghan who was using one of her mom's brushes to do her own painting.

 

She wasn't even old enough to walk.

 

 

 

 

She went on to study art at the Kootenay School of Fine Arts in Nelson, BC and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm someone who likes details. 

 

This is a detail from the picture in the bottom left.

 

 

(apologies for my bad photography)

 

 

She takes her themes from the quilt and the river.

 

You can read women's history and B.C. politics into her work or you can simply take pleasure in the intense joy of each picture. 

 

 

Here we are just before I had to leave.


It was a wonderful day

and I wish I could tell her mom all about it.

 

***

A Tale of Two Families

My great-grandmother, Mary McKay

One day about one hundred years ago an impoverished peddler knocked on my great-grandmother, Mary McKay's door on Ormond Street in Thorold, Ontario.

The McKays were Scottish immigrants who had come to Canada to help build the Trans-Canada Railroad through northern Quebec.  When workers were needed in the Niagara region to work on the Welland Canal they left Quebec and moved to Thorold.

The peddler, Mr. S., was so poor that he kept all of his wares in one paper bag.

My great-grandmother bought a table cloth from that bag because as she told my aunt later,

 "I knew what it was like to have nothing."

She was his first customer.

Mr. S. eventually opened a successful furniture store on Front Street in Thorold and he and Mary McKay  were friends for the rest of their lives.

Mary McKay's grand-daughter, who is my 96 year old aunt, still has a trunk that she bought at his store.

The odd thing about the story is that I have, on occasion, met the great-grand-daughters of Mr. S. even though they grew up many miles away in Toronto.

By co-incidence they are cousins of one of my closest girlhood friends.

I didn't know about the old connection between our families until my friend's father passed away a few weeks ago.

I happened to mention to my aunt that I was going to a funeral and she recognized the name.

My friend asked me to write the story down so that she could send it to her cousins.

So here it is, Wendy - a  charming story, not important to the history of Canada maybe, but certainly one of a million strong threads that weave us all together.