I am invited in to the apartment at Tegler Manor. Marion makes me tea in a fancy tempered glass teapot that has a flexible tea strainer which dips the tea into the pot and then lifts it up under the lid, out of the way.  The teapot is a gift from her son Leroy, who bought it when they were out for dinner. It has a unique charm for both of us as we enjoy Bentley’s Orange Spice tea, and chat about her life.

Marion, who will be 90 on June 11, 2010, has lived at the Tegler for over 20 years. Her home is filled with pictures of her family, and, in particular, a photo of herself at the age of 16 helping her mother with a class of preschoolers in Montreal.   The picture was taken in the basement of the Union United Church of Canada, which was served by a black minister to a black congregation, and is now over a hundred years old.   It shows Marion at age 16, leaning over a group of students who are playing with blocks, while her mother is playing the piano.

 Marion was born in 1920 in Montreal. Her grandfather came to Montreal in 1910 with his two sons, Marion’s father George Damon De Shield and her uncle Morris.  Her parents came from Bermuda, though her father was born in New York. 

 He was an electrician who later, in World War I, was trained as an electrical engineer.  Marion and her family, including her brother George and her sister Juanita, moved several times in Montreal.  Marion finished high school in the proper and strict Montreal High School for Girls, and then progressed to night school courses to train, so she could assist her mother teaching preschool classes.  In 1928, after her mother died, Marion stayed another half year in Montreal, and then joined her sister Juanita in Bermuda.  She was preparing to move back to Montreal when World War  II broke out.

The government declared that everyone who was not born in Bermuda had to register. But when Marion gave her name as a De Shield, and that of her aunt Addie Jones, the officer said, "Of course you are a Bermudian. You are as Bermudian as you can get. You have got the right relatives; you can stay as long as you want."

She stayed there until the end of the war and came back to Montreal in 1945, mostly because she had a broken heart.   The guy she was in love with didn’t work out because he was an American at the training centre in Bermuda, and had to go back to his ship and into combat after his training.  Bermuda was then a base for training naval police and for night flight training.  Ships also anchored in Bermuda to wait for other ships, so they could move in convoys that Marion could see from an upstairs room in her Aunt Addie’s house.  In the early morning she could see a whole stream of ships heading for England.  Many never made it.

Her aunt, who owned a general store, had contacts in Boston and New York, where she put in orders for goods with manufacturers that were then shipped to Bermuda.  In wartime her orders, and sometimes the ships too, were sunk, and the goods were never received in Bermuda. Aunt Addie never said a word, but she knew what was going on.  

 By this time, Marion’s sister Juanita had moved to Montreal, and encouraged Marion to come there.  Marion did, and trained as a practical nurse. She worked for Children’s Aid, in charge of toddlers, then infants, as part of her workload.  She did private nursing as well.  Then she met her partner, Kenneth Leroy Russell and moved to a farm north of Cornwall, Ontario in 1953.  Marion and Kenneth’s children are: Leroy, Reva, Alana and Rolland.   Kenneth worked on the railroad, so was away much of the time.  There was a hired man and his wife to run the farm – a good thing, since Marion was no farmer’s wife.  She told Kenneth that, in fact, she was scared of animals.  But it was his dream to own a farm, so that is what he did. As Leroy got older, he began to take on the chores too.  

With her husband away, working with the railroad much of the time, Marion felt stranded in a situation she could not control.  She had violent daydreams of Ken going over a bridge and crashing.  One day her dream included the kids in the car with her husband, and she knew she had to leave that farm with her children, or she would lose them.  She packed them up and went to Montreal to live with her sister Juanita.  At this time, Marion was in her 50^th year.

 Juanita later accepted a position teaching at the University of Alberta, and Marion and her children followed her there.   Marion invited Kenneth to come to Edmonton too, and give up the farm, but he was unable to do that.  He wanted her to come back, and bring the children with her, which didn’t happen.  Marion attended Grant MacEwan College, started training as a library technician, until her professor suggested she change to an instructions assistant.  He saw her as a “people person,’ who would do well in helping university students upgrade their language skills so that they could enter university.   Later, when undergraduates took on that task, Marion returned to doing child care.

Marion and her children came to the Unitarian Church of Edmonton because it was close to where the family lived. UCE member Bill Brown helped Marion get a job in the Jewish Talmud Torah School as an assistant to the Grade 1 and 2 teachers. In the morning, students received instruction in English, and in the afternoon in Hebrew.  Marion taught, did supervision, marked papers and copied curriculum.   She ate kosher food, and interacted with other staff.  Since she had previously worked as a private baby nurse in Jewish homes in Montreal, and worked with Children’s Aid there, her placement at Talmud Torah School worked out well. 

Marion thoughtfully expressed what the most important part of her membership in the Unitarian Church of Edmonton has been over the years. She said, “At the beginning, it meant a lot to be accepted, period!   All of a sudden a single mother, and becoming part of a caring group of people at UCE.   Here and now?  I am proud of our ability to have a new church building, and a church that is also branching out more in Canada, with more recognition of the diversity of our nationalities and lifestyles.”

Marion is an independent, cosmopolitan, friendly and flirty 90-year-old youngster with the laugh of a person who has lived well – under adversity, she’s capable and determined; under pressure, courageous.  A thoughtful humanist with no axes to grind, wearing her fancy hats and contemporary fashions with the aplomb of one who knows how to dance to her own tune.

[Interviewed in 2010]
Photo courtesy: Audrey Brooks