George Martin said “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.” This is the story of the life of our favourite reader, Sandra Lynne Smyth, as written by Terri, Lorraine and John.
Prologue: Born Sandra Lynne Knowles, Mom was the tenth and last child of William and Eva Knowles of Byemoor Alberta. She was part of a great clan including her brothers George, Leo and Herbert and sisters Lillian, Betty, Shirley, Wilma, Nora and Karen. In an ingenious survival tactic, Grandma Knowles paired elder children with younger ones so Mom had both sibling parents as well as sibling playmates. Their adventures together constituted the first chapter of her life.
Chapter 1: Caragana Soup and Rhubarb Umbrellas : By contributing author, Aunt Karen (Knowles) Hogg
We had an idyllic childhood, with grand play houses and school houses in the basement in winter or an empty granary in summer. There were rooms divided with hanging blankets or sheets, a stove, dishes, cardboard refrigerator, cupboards and lots of children to care for. Memorable ones were the brown-eyed Barbara Ann and Edwin, a boy. The life size rag dolls Aunt Ethel made, called Audrey and Gloria, and teddies got special attention. Sometimes we got to sleep on the veranda and giggle until Dad roared, “Less Noise!”
There was always a litter or two of kittens to dress in doll clothes and haul around in a buggy. We travelled hundreds of thousands of miles in an unserviceable vehicle parked by the house, always with a load of children (kittens and dolls). It was important to be nice to Leo’s black cat, Bones, as he would sit by Leo’s side at meal time and tattle on us. Then look out. Leo would bring baby bunnies rescued from the farm equipment which we kept in a wagon box to fuss and worry over until they died. A bigger, mean one, named Thumper, survived long enough to be set free.
Spring was welcomed! We went tramping in the gooiest mud trying to get boots as big as Uncle Jontie’s. Someone would inevitably lose a boot causing a rescue operation that didn’t add to our popularity. Easter meant a new dress for church and egg coloring. It was exciting to dump left over color in the stream by the oil shed and watch the colors change. We were also very busy making soup, mud pies, etc. with caragana pods. Later, rhubarb umbrellas were stylish.
Christmas was always magnificent – firstly, the big kids came for holidays from wherever, with presents!! Aunt Martha (Lillian) would usually sew us new outfits by recycling. Particularly popular were the dresses made from dyed parachute material which we wore to the Coulthart Grandparent’s 55th wedding anniversary. Then in January while the sales were on, Mom travelled to Calgary to spend a month with Grandpa and Grandma. It was a gruesomely long month waiting to see what she brought us. Mom would come from the Greyhound with her brown suitcases stuffed with treasures. Barbara Ann, Edwin and two teddies were some of those treasures.
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Eventually we were big enough to be considered useful so our fun times were replaced by chores: weeding the garden, driving tractor for haying, hauling grain, housework and cooking. For Sandra, Herbert and I, this included painting the house colors like mauve and yellow with orange trim. Sandra started school in Byemoor, receiving awards for her excellent marks. Then she went off to Wm. E. Hay in Stettler for Grade Twelve. Throughout her school years, she always had a boyfriend or two – namely Gary, Wayne and Leonard. After Grade Twelve, she started studying at the University of Calgary, but I think Bill Smyth was more interesting than that endeavour.
Chapter 2 : Sand, Dust, Sky
Mom married our Dad, Bill Smyth, in 1965. They built Sandusty Farm, a name originating from the three primary elements there, sand, dust and sky. They started with a bare quarter and expanded the operation to include approximately 2000 acres and 130 head of cows. One of Mom’s most prized accomplishments at Sandusty was an impressive shelterbelt of several rows of poplars, spruce and carriganas. Anyone who knows the growing conditions in the Craigmyle area can appreciate that this was no small feat involving much watering, replanting and endless rototilling. Mom was a true partner on the farm and she particularly enjoyed summerfallowing, calving season, and preparing tailgate meals during harvest. She also spent much time restoring antique cars with Dad and keeping the yard immaculate. Repainting the fences was an annual summer job and Mom established a celebratory ritual when the task was done. She let us stay up late so that we could dance around a bonfire, burning our paint clothes, chanting, and banging spoons on the empty paint cans. Mom was a farmer first and foremost and she maintained an active interest in agriculture after leaving the farm. She worked for the Western Canadian Wheat Growers for a few years and always sought out opportunities to talk farming. Mom’s heart remained at Sandusty and she asked that some of her ashes be scattered in the shelterbelt there.
Chapter 3 : Learn to Do by Doing
This is the 4-H motto and one Mom adhered closely to. She was the founding member of the Victor Swinging Stitchers in the 1980s which later evolved to become a multi-club, the 4-H Menagerie. Mom was both a general leader and project leader, teaching sewing and public speaking skills to a generation of kids in the area. Some of these skills were less outwardly endorsed and included learning to endure the humiliation of her ill-conceived skits and the disapproval of teachers for unsanctioned absences for 4-H trips. Mom also kept busy with other activities in the community and was an active participant in the Victor Hall group and the Craigmyle United Church Women. After moving to Red Deer, she was welcomed into the Waskasoo neighbourhood. Her most recent volunteer pursuit was with the Alberta Council on Aging and she particularly enjoyed the opportunity to come full circle and host a community engagement session in one of the first places she called home.
Chapter 4 : Costumes and Cakes
Mom’s willingness to go to the end of the earth to satisfy a special request was legendary. Rain remembers her staying up all night to finish a pink satin track suit she had requested to wear to the school track meet the next day. When she couldn’t find the perfect grad dress, Mom buckled down and made exactly what she envisioned. We all enjoyed customized birthday cakes; the popular bear cake made many appearances and there were also minivans, horses and special birthday pies. Mom devoted many hours to making original and authentic costumes for her kids and grandkids. In a crowd of stereotypical princesses and ghosts, we were everything from Andy Capp, to Kermit the Frog, to a Hershey’s Kiss.
Chapter 5 : Speaking of Halloween….
Halloween was Mom’s favourite holiday. She always took us kids and several others in the neighbourhood out for Halloween “tricking” when the mission was mischief not candy. In the interest of subterfuge, Mom would park the car a half mile away and we would sneak into people’s yards, playing pranks like cutting the power so that we could release a live chicken into Bob and Eileen Smyth’s darkened house. Terri has fond memories of the great sprints down the gravel roads to the safety of the car. Don and Bev Hall were other regular recipients of those Halloween pranks and one year Mom went to elaborate lengths to dupe them into believing they were getting an oil well. Bev, Don, still too soon?? Later on, Mom loved participating in the legendary Lynn Valley Haunted House. When it was too cold for anyone else to go outside, she would dress up as a wolf in her fur coat and mask and lie in the cold ditch for hours waiting for unsuspecting trick or treaters. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew would be in the warm house waiting for her notification of new arrivals. Mom was fun and she loved a good practical joke at any time of year. When Rain started to cave in to her conscience during an elaborate phoney income tax audit she initiated for Patrick’s birthday, Mom encouraged her to hold fast and make him suffer “just a little bit longer” knowing full well that he would do the same to her. I guess she was still remembering the year Patrick called her in the middle of the night to tell her their house had burned down. She didn’t believe him at first, but she fell for it when he said that Rain was choked about losing all her shoes.
Lorraine, Patrick, and Marin
Chapter 6 : Ripping into the Rig Pig
Of all the gifts that life has to offer, a loving mother is the greatest of them all. Psychologists believe that secure attachment to a parental figure is the foundation for mental health. Rain has told us of stories of working with clients whose struggles originate from the denial or loss of this attachment. One client in particular asked for Mom’s address at the end of their work together. She wanted to send a card to Mom to thank her for giving Rain the foundation she needed to help her. Rain didn’t generally provide that kind of information but in that case she did, because she believed Mom gave her what she needed to be of service to others. John has also talked about how he has benefited from Mom’s encouragement and protection. The day of his very first hockey practice, John forgot his skates. Already feeling intimidated by his friends who had been playing for a few years, he was tempted to pull the plug. Mom wouldn’t let him do it and scrounged around for another, far too big pair. He stuck it out that day and not only learned the importance of following through but also gained a lifetime of benefits from playing hockey on renowned teams like the Delia Flyers and his current one, the Morning Blues. On another trip to hockey, a man jumped out of the ditch at the car. Mom let him in; he explained that he was run off the rig he was working on. In awe of this rough looking man, John was amazed when Mom started in on him, lecturing him about the risks he took to jump in front of the car, how he scared her son, etc. until the hitchhiker turned and looked to John for potential refuge in the backseat. That was the night John learned the extent of Mom’s protective instincts. Terri feels Mom provided her with the knowledge and strength to be independent. She is thankful that Mom shared her talents with cooking and sewing with her so she can carry on the traditions of making special birthday cakes and outlandish costumes. Like Mom, Terri takes her projects to the extreme. According to her, you don’t just organize a golf tournament, you need to include all sorts of extra challenges and activities and of course, costumes. She definitely learned this from Mom who tackled all projects with unbridled enthusiasm. Mom often told us that we are good parents but if this is true, it’s only because she was such a good role model.
Chapter 7 : Too Much Pepper
Mom was an accomplished cook and seized every opportunity to feed others, offering to provide for crews working on John and Carol’s house and supplying the bulk of the food at our family gatherings. We all had our favourites: Hudson and Geneva loved her roast beef, Moneza her cabbage rolls, Terri her chocolate cake with brown sugar icing, and Marin her lemon meringue pies. Mom considered pepper to be its own food group. As the grandchildren grew up and began to formulate the idea that they didn’t like it, we tried to suggest to the cook to make the food she was always giving us less spicy. Her conviction being so strong, she could only bring herself to merely limit her use of pepper. Although many of her recipes were closely guarded, we are so relieved she relinquished her homemade Oreo cookie recipe to Shelby.
Chapter 8 : No Hats at the Table
It didn’t matter what you wore to the table but you had to take your hat off to eat. Mom was such a big support when Patrick’s Dad was hospitalized in Toronto for several months. She made meals for the freezer, was always available to listen without judgement, and frequently stayed with Marin at the house so she wouldn’t have to miss school. One such morning, she asked Marin what she wanted most for breakfast. When Marin replied “Pancakes, Smitty’s pancakes,” Granny didn’t hesitate, not even to get changed, and the two of them drove to Olds to eat Smitty’s pancakes in their pyjamas. However, as John and Patrick well know, if either of them had been there, she wouldn’t have allowed them to wear their hats. After mornings mowing together, John and Mom would discuss if they had worked hard enough to deserve lunch. Invariably, it had been hot, windy, cold or even mild enough that the answer was yes. John would suggest some fast food joint, Mom would always say she felt like Thai or Indian food, and they would end up at fancy restaurants in their grubby work clothes. She seemed to take perverse pleasure from being the worst dressed in the best of restaurants.
Chapter 9: Menopause and Mens Rea
You know that person in the class who asks too many questions, does twice as much work as anyone else and makes the rest of us look like slackers? Mom was that mature student. Terri can attest to this because she and Mom were at RDC together working on their Education degrees. Terri benefited by letting Mom read all the material and then just reading the parts Mom highlighted as important. It annoyed Mom to no end that Terri got As for doing only a fraction of the work she was doing. A voracious reader who genuinely loved to learn, Mom was happiest with her head buried in a textbook or debating philosophical questions. After leaving the farm in 1988, Mom started her post-secondary tour completing classes at Red Deer College, the University of Lethbridge and the University of Saskatchewan resulting in a degree in Education and a certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language. She taught for a number of years at RDC on both the Rocky Mountain House and Red Deer campuses. Her early retirement gift to herself was yet another return to school. She completed a degree in Law and Society at the University of Calgary and then, because she felt she still didn’t know enough, entered law school at the age of fifty-five. Even in such a competitive academic environment, Mom was generous with her knowledge and support and she made many valuable friendships. During her time in Calgary, she worked with the Alberta Civil Liberties Association and developed a passionate interest in human rights legislation. Her belief in a more collaborative approach to dispute resolution led her to pursue certification as a chartered mediator with the ADR Institute of Canada. She worked in this capacity as a coach, with Collaborative Edge, in her own business, Muddy Waters Mediation, and on the civil court roster. We loved hearing her stories of mediating disputes between neighbours over fences, customers and contractors over unfinished jobs, and employers and employeesover fair compensation.
And for those other lifelong students in the crowd, mens rea means the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime; it’s an element of criminal responsibility – a guilty mind.
Chapter 10 : Gathering the Troops
The youngest of ten, Mom had the clan mentality. She believed in keeping the family together and took on the role of planning and communicating family events. She paid particular attention to reaching out to relatives and bringing them into, or back into, the fold. She made special connections with several nieces and nephews including Marilyn, Sheryl, Shelley, Gregg, Spencer, Ian, Pat aka “Turnip”, Tanya, and Leo among others. Before the end of each event, Mom would already be planning the next one. She could always be counted on to supply the ham, even if she had to blow it out her own nose!
When Shelby was four, she was fascinated with tipis so Terri and Mom planned a camping trip in the Kananaskis so Shelb could have the experience of sleeping in one. That was the beginning of an annual tradition in which the female contingent of our family, with the notable inclusion of Hudson, camped around the province in various tipis, tents and cabins, the more rustic the better. These trips were very important to Mom and much time was spent talking, eating, having water fights, building squirrel traps and trying to stop Geneva from escaping from tents or throwing herself off high places. When night fell, we would tell ghost stories and recite Mom’s favourite poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” It wasn’t a true tipi trip until at least one of us was awoken by the sound of Grandma Bear’s snoring. Mom was teased so much about her snoring that one year she volunteered to sleep in her car. That year, like she had on several of our previous trips, Mom seized the chance to gush, telling us all in turn how proud she was of us. After listening patiently, Rain said “Yeah, yeah, we love you too Mom. Now go sleep in your car!” The family’s annual Christmas tree hunt was another important tradition. Every year, we would all, including Carol’s mom, follow in a convoy behind Dug as he led us to the far reaches of the earth. We would typically drive as far west of Caroline as the road would take us, passing several ideal spots along the way. Year after year, wearing the same blue coat, Mom would pull kids on toboggans (or more recently, Hudson would pull her) or balance precariously on the back of snowmobiles in our quest for the perfect trees. While Dug and Terri searched endlessly for the oversized Griswald specimen, Mom always chose a spindly Charlie Brown tree to nurture.
Chapter 11: Total Immersion
A common theme in our memories of Mom is her ability and desire to become totally immersed in a project, game, play or dinner. Whether she was helping with a school project, organizing a community dinner or just playing with her grandchildren, she devoted herself to the task at hand. Terri recalls the hours they spent making little Eskimos, complete with fur-lined parkas, northern lights and igloos, for a dinner at Victor. Hudson and Grandma could immerse themselves in games of Quick Call and Scrabble, negotiating their matches and word choices. Recently Marin and Geneva spent time with Grandma making Grumplings. Each one had to be unique and there were unlimited accessories to choose from. If you added all the hours that Mom spent playing “horse” with Shelby it would likely amount to a couple of years. Shelby would endlessly request that Grandma choose a stable of horses and then decide on their names and uses. They would then proceed to tell imaginary stories about what they were doing with their horses. Some of Mom’s friends from ACA learned of her ability to leap right in when they were going to a Mardi Gras party. Mom ended up dressing them all in sparkly pants and boas.
Chapter 12: I fought the lawn and the lawn won
With Linda’s help, John and Carol found their dream neighbourhood. As part of a combined house/business purchase, John acquired landscaping and mowing contracts. He subsequently established Sandusty Services with Mom as his partner and they worked together for the next eleven years. The fact that all the included equipment was John Deere was no small factor in her attraction to the company as it was an excuse for her to return to her former haunts, John Deere dealerships. John recalls their first visit to the one in Red Deer and her desire to get JD shirts and other memorabilia. Bargain hunters to the core, they purchased string trimmer line in bulk. John estimates that they bought fifteen years’ worth of line that first day and they always joked that they couldn’t retire until they ran out of line. They were the worst example of small business owners, turning down all new contracts and maintaining just enough work for the excuse to visit. As they worked together, Mom would share her mediation stories with John and provide her running commentary on the lives of Jim and Kevin at Jedco, people John wouldn’t know to see but of whose lives he was privy to intimate details. She also shared news from back home thanks to regular updates from Bev Bergman. In return, Mom listened aptly to John’s stories about the kids and their weekly events and encouraged him to groom Hudson as her replacement. At the end of their mowing sessions, both could look back with satisfaction on their work and their visit.
Chapter 13: Old Stories and Buried Bones
History and family lineage were growing interests and pursuits for Mom. She put a lot of time and effort into contributing to the Craigmyle community history book and was in the process of compiling a Knowles family history record that included much cajoling of family members to supply their stories, interviewing siblings, and transcribing and editing their accounts. Mom loved cemeteries and imagining the lives of the people who inhabit them. She and several family members were involved in the Canada Gen Web Cemetery project, a national effort to digitize cemetery records. She put a lot of thought into her choice of a final resting spot and considered it important to take her place in recorded history by having some of her ashes placed in the Smyth family plot in Craigmyle.
The Final Chapter: A Beer and A Book
Not everyone gets to have a storybook ending but Mom’s story ended just as she would have chosen. She died while reading a good book in the sun with a beer at her side. In one of her favourite novels, The Life of Pi, Yan Martel said: “To lose your mother – well that is like losing the sun above you.” We will always feel the loss of her nurturing light but we recognize that this is a loss for all of you as well. Thank you for coming to support us. You have our perspective on her story, now we invite you to share yours.