GETTING TO KNOW THE BAY
Lillian Crewe Walsh’s work lives on
Columnist Lila Carson writes about Glace Bay poet Lillian Crewe Walsh.
Recently I shared about Lillian Crewe Walsh’s tapestry at the library.
That inspired the librarian to research our own Glace Bay poet, and a display is forthcoming. Her second tapestry hangs in the Old Town Hall.
Born in 1883, Walsh passed away in Glace Bay in 1967, so though her physical presence is gone, she is by no means forgotten. Her spirit lives on.
Her poem, “The Lady Of The Loom” inspired our own Cape Breton “plaid” tartan when it was woven in 1957 by Lizzie Bell Grant (the Cape Breton Tartan ladies). Mrs. Walsh was bringing in a ‘scuttle of coal’ when the idea hit. “A lady sat beside her loom, With yarns of every hue; To weave Cape Breton tartan She only chose a few.
Black for the wealth of our coal mines
Grey for our Cape Breton steel, Green for our lofty mountains, Our valleys and our fields. Gold for the golden sunsets Shining bright on the lakes of Bras d’Or,
To show God’s hand hath lingered
To bless Cape Breton’s shores. As she watched the pattern grow, Then she could understand – Her shuttle had been guided
By the Master Weaver’s hand.”
But don’t think that poem is the only thing we know her for.
Have you heard “Kelly was an Irishman, There is no doubt of that; His mother’s name was Bridget, His father’s name was Pat?” That was one of her poems set to music. Who knew as you tapped your toes to “Piper Donald John MacPherson, Volunteered for overseas,” that it was another of Lillian’s ballad poems?
Lillian was born in Neil’s Harbour, lived on Scaterie Island and then Glace Bay. As the eldest in her family, she had to stay home and help out with the younger ones, so her nieces when interviewed figured she only had probably a Grade 3 or 4 education. She may not have had book learning, but she definitely had “the gift” for writing poetry and telling stories about things that were important to her, the ways of the world, and the people who lived in it. She told her friend, “I simply write in my own way about the things I know best.”
Never having children of her own, she always had someone living at her house, her first in-laws, her husband, his brother, her own parents and then her sister. When she got up there in age herself, her niece Ruth Beaton, was proud to have her favorite ‘Aunt Lilly’ come and live with her. She not only treated her nieces like her own, she used to write poems and place them in her store window (on York Street) so the school kids could read them when they came to buy candy.
Another of her poems, “The Miner” was so accurate that people almost thought she had been down in the mines herself. She probably got the intricate details from her second husband, just as she got details about the sea from her first husband, a fisherman. Some of her poems were written on pieces of brown paper bags. Her niece said there was always a scribbler on the dining room table. I actually touched and read some of them at CBU’s Beaton Institute. They used to be published in the Glace Bay Gazette’s “Poems of the Week.”
She took her poems to Brodie Printing Shop and got her books of poetry published. One run, she had 400 books. She probably gave about 375 of them away. Some she sold for $1 a book.
“It was just that she wanted for people to read her work.” Not only would she send guests home with, “Here’s a book for you,” she would meet people on the street and invite them over to get a book. I don’t know if anyone ever counted, or could count how many poems our prolific poet wrote and had published.
Lillian was known for her love of playing cards, cribbage and Auction 45 being her favorites. One verse of her poem, “Forty-Fives” says:
“Well! On Monday we went to the Table Head club,
On Tuesday we took in the game at the Hub;
On Wednesday we went out to Seaview to play,
And on Thursday we walked up to Chapel Hill way.
On Friday she said, ‘Are you feeling alright?
The Firemen are having Bingo tonite.”
This was pretty serious business, and not just for herself or there wouldn’t have been so many places to go play. I know my own parents used to play a lot of ‘tarabish’- the Cape Breton card game, and my mother, now 80, still plays 45s, bingo, and rummoli, and passionately tells the story of one night she won first place twice but they would only give her the one trophy.
I think Lillian must have been a very spiritual person as well, as many of her poems shared her faith and prayers. I would like to close with a prayer from her, “Let
Not Your Heart be Troubled.” “Let not your heart seem full of trouble, And your burdens hard to bear?
Take your trouble to the Saviour,
He will all your burdens share. For our Heavenly Father careth, For the creatures He hath made,
And he knows our hearts are troubled, And that we are sore afraid. Amen.”