… whatever the word is about walking on the same stage where my grandmother performed some 95 years ago.
She was Ivy Cooper, a well-known singer in her day who performed at some of the best theatres with some of the best artistes of the period and a few years ago my cousin Sandra found a press cutting of a performance she gave at the Allen Theatre (now the Winnipeg Met).
And so I came to see the theatre.
In July 1918 at the All Saints Church she had married a musician from Winnipeg, and I finally tracked down the church this afternoon too. But it’s closed for renovation (as you might expect) so I couldn’t get to see the marriage register.
Her marriage was short-lived however. In November 1918 there was the Spanish Influenza epidemic that carried off half of her husband’s family, including him himself.
He is buried in the Elmwood Cemetery in Hespeler Avenue, one of the largest and certainly the most famous of all of the Manitoba cemeteries. All of the rich and famous of Winnipeg’s glorious heyday are buried in there and of the thousands of graves, only a handful don’t have headstones.
And you can guess who is one of those. It took me and two employees of the cemetery over an hour to track down the plot in which he is interred.
My bed last night was surprisingly comfortable – so much so that I lay about in there much longer than I had intended. But once I was up and about, I had the medication and breakfast, and then completely stripped out the Kia.
It took me ages to sort through all of the paperwork and the rubbish bin is now like Mount Kilimanjaro, but at least that’s one task out of the way.
That took me all the way up to lunchtime so I sallied forth in search of bread. Nothing whatever in the vicinity but I did find a can opener at a democratic price.
And then I hit the road.
Back here I crashed out for an hour or so and then made tea. Tomato soup with pasta and it was good too, But I’m not hanging about. I’m off to bed for an early night.
