I made it up to the Snow place late yesterday. I love going up there, the bench affords a
panoramic view of the grey Pacific and the scattering of islands that shelter
this part of the coast. The Snow house
sits at the top edge of the plateau with acres of stone fences fields and pastures
running down a gentle slope before the land falls off a rift created millennia ago
during one of the great earthquakes that regularly visit this coast.
The Snow house is grand in a soft, organic way that makes it
part of the landscape despite its imposing dimensions and features. The gables and stone chimneys—there are seven—make
it look like an illustration out of an child’s book of fairy tales. There is a wraparound porch, covered of
course so it can be used even when the rainy season sets in. One of the Snow patriarchs, John Snow’s
grandfather I’m told, designed it and supervised local carpenters to build
it. They were all ship builders, but
they knew how to shape and fasten wood well enough to create boats that could
withstand Pacific storms, so they could certainly build a solid house. It is a house that has sheltered Mrs. Snow and
her husband and their family for 70 years.
I should tell you a little about Mrs. Snow…Bertie to all of
Midden Harbour. Her first name is Bertha
but she insists that people call her Bertie.
She was the wife-now widow--of John Snow, the grandson of
the Snow family patriarch who built the first fish processing plant in Midden
Harbour. Bertie had met John while they
were both in college back east. The two
had a college mixer organized by her school
to allow their sophomores to meet appropriate young men from the nearby university
in a chaperoned setting. The attraction
was apparently immediate and mutual. However,
when Bertie found out she was expected to move away from the comfortable life
she had known, and set up house in a fishing village thousands of miles away,
her ardor cooled. But John was a
persuasive man and passionate about his life and home in Midden Harbour. He won the day and Bertie’s hand.
They had two children—Sheila and Jason. Sheila was the older of the two, but sadly
died in a boating accident as a young woman.
Jason had been on that boat as well, but through blind luck had managed
to survive by clinging to the very half submerged log that had sunk the
boat. He had tried to hold onto his
sister but he was too small and the water too cold.
Jason left Midden Harbour soon after, enrolled in an
exclusive, residential boys school by parents who understood his need to get
away. He has gone on to become
successful in business, something to do with real estate.
Bertie integrated into the community like she’d lived in a
village all her life. She became known
for her welcoming smile and her strong will and for befriending everyone she
met.
For decades, she wrote the Good Neighbour column for the
Shoreline. It was a column comprised of
newsy gossip about who had their in-laws visiting from Boston, or who had just
returned from a holiday abroad, or who had just gotten a promotion at the mill,
or whose son was marrying a girl from the city, or which family was struggling
with the passing of a loved one. It was
a must read for locals and a glimpse into the soul of the community for
visitors.
Bertie is a walker, or at least had been until the last few
years when she had become more frail. Used
to walk down from the bench every day, no matter the weather, to do her
business in the shops and chat with the people she bumped into. “Bumped into” is an ironic phrase in this
case.
One of the great pleasures for Bertie was commiserating with
young mothers out walking with their children.
She especially loved babies, and was drawn to strollers like Butkus to
Tom’s butcher shop. The irony is that Bertie’s
walkabouts—and almost her life--were brought to an end by a mother pushing a
stroller. A new mother, running behind
one of those hi-tech, mega-wheeled, all terrain jogging behemoths had come
round a corner at speed and crashed into Bertie at full speed. The broken leg was bad enough for a woman in
her late 80s, but it was the concussion that had us all really worried.
But being Bertie, she pulled through with her spirit
undiminished. Her mobility, however, was
extremely limited, and it seemed her mind was never quite the same. The Doctor told me confidentially that she
had given Bertie a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s a year earlier, and that the
slowness was probably going to have happened anyway, but still, the accident
didn’t help.
Anyway…
Have run out of time to write about my conversation with
Bertie. And I won’t be able to do it
tomorrow either. Am heading out in the
boat to catch as much of this fading summer weather as I can before it’s gone
and the rain sets in. Tomorrow I’ll be
catching rays and salmon and not thinking about writing.
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