Annabelle and Maurice Bourgoin, the joint recipients of UCE’s 2010 W. H. Alexander Award, and members of the Unitarian Church of Edmonton since 1965, are an extraordinary pair! When it comes to flexibility about their spiritual lives, they are, in my opinion, eligible for a second award. For these two are members of two churches. How could that be, you ask.

Well, for starters, they live in two provinces: from May to October in Québec and for the rest of the year, in Edmonton. In 1994, the organist at the Anglican church, St. Peter-on- the-Rock in Québec, appointed Maurice as her successor and, as Maurice wryly put it, “That tied us down a lot! We had to go every Sunday.” (Before that, they had the freedom to attend when they wanted.) Maurice’s older sister, who had a Toronto Conservatory degree, had taught him how to play the piano. By Grade 12, he had passed the Western Board Grade 8 level in music.

With humour and candidness, the two of them outlined some differences between their two churches:

I loved the warmth and humour in the Bourgoins’ stories. But at least, they only have to go to church in July and August as those are the only months the Québec church functions. However, it is a special church, on the steps of which Maurice once had his photo taken with our former Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson.

Serendipitously, a couple of years before that service, Maurice and Annabelle met Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralston Saul wandering on the public dock at the front of their house. The conversation that evolved had Adrienne laughingly reporting that, two years before, they considered knocking on the Bourgoins’ front door and asking if their house was for sale. Annabelle and Maurice were surprised and delighted about how the Governor General made herself so accessible to Canadians—especially coming to talk to them. As for their house being for sale, it wasn’t!

Maurice’s liberalism dates back to 1912 when his French-speaking grandparents came to farm in Alberta from rural Québec, and converted from Catholicism. In 1921, Maurice’s father studied at McGill Presbyterian College in Montreal and came as a student minister to Bonnyville. He then taught French at a French Protestant residential school and his mother attended as a student there. After recovering from TB in a sanatorium, his mother and father decided to move to Bonnyville where it was drier and healthier. He then taught French, English and music at Glendon High School from 1948 to 1963, where Annabelle (17) and Maurice (16) met and went to dances together.

Annabelle’s grandparents and uncles farmed in Saskatchewan and her grandfather on her mother’s side was a red-headed Icelander! When Annabelle’s mother was 10, her mother died so she didn’t learn about mothering.  As the eldest of four children, Annabelle mothered her mother and babysat her siblings starting at a young age.

Her schooling constitutes an extraordinary story in itself. From age 7 to her Grade 10, in Marneau Lake School, Annabelle did all her education by correspondence courses as they did not have the proper teachers to do otherwise. Talk about learning how to be self-reliant early in life! After graduating from high school in 1953, she qualified at the University of Alberta’s Junior E. Program for elementary school teaching. Over the years, she taught school, took night school and summer courses and finally, in 1974, gained her B. Ed. Her last degree was a School of Library Science Diploma and she became a teacher librarian.

Maurice and Annabelle have two children. Aimée Suzanne is a nurse specialist with her Masters in Nursing and works at several hospitals in Edmonton. Their son, Samuel Winston Aaron, is an architect who followed the family tradition of first being a student at McGill University and then studying architecture in Halifax. In fact, it was because of their children that the Bourgoins first started attending the Unitarian Church of Edmonton in 1964 in the old Presbyterian Church, shortly before it was torn down. They wanted a Sunday School for their children.

It was the mid-sixties and Maurice was teaching at Eastglen High School with colleagues who told them about UCE. The church was an obvious match for their liberal attitudes but, as Annabelle put it, “You have to know what other people know.” She liked the openness that allowed them all to learn about other religions. The O’Briens first took them to church, joking with them that they would tell them when to kneel and when to stand!

When they moved further away from the church, they stopped going for quite a period.

Maurice was the first French-speaking public school French teacher in Edmonton beginning in 1958. At that time, they gave him quite a grilling to ensure that he wasn’t Catholic! (He had graduated with his B.Sc. in Chemistry and then earned his B.Ed.) In 1991, after Maurice’s retirement, they returned to UCE.

When they became grandparents, Annabelle continued her caring for family, often babysitting her two grandchildren, Carson and Emily, when they lived in Calgary, sometimes for weeks at a time. They love having their children and grandchildren visit them in Québec. A relative of Maurice’s left one house on the St. Lawrence River to their daughter in 1974 and another to Maurice and Annabelle in 1976. Although the inheritance has required significant renovation work, they loyally (Alberta-Québec Loyalists?) return to live during the warm months every year. Several of us UCEers have visited them on their beautiful peninsula. (See photo below)

Below are the details of the many activities and generous contributions of skill and time that this endearing couple have given our church. As the Alexander Award nominations committee wrote: “Both of them have spent countless hours helping with our renovations and continue to make our church a home we share”.

But Maurice emphasized that this was a mutual benefit, claiming UCE as a home for the two of them.

[Interviewed in April 2010]
Photos by Lorne Pendleton