MONTREAL DIARY
Small Talks with musician and mom
Small Talks is a portrait of Montreal drawn through conversations with fellow Montrealers. This is for those of you who believe that it is our differences that make Montreal the irreverent city we love. This week: Katherine Stern, 75 Katherine Stern is a former cellist with Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain, a cancer survivor, wife, and mother who has lived through the death of a child. She manages to be serene despite all she has endured, and is the kind of person brings peace to those who come near her.
Q Tell me who you are:
A I am the mother of — well, that’s difficult because I lost one of my children two years ago, so I was the mother of five, (and now) I am the mother of four. That’s very hard. I was a musician and I am now taking courses in (visual) art, which I’m enjoying enormously. It’s sort of like a form of meditation. Oh yes, I’m also a grandma (of seven grandchildren).
Q If someone walked by you on the street, they would describe you as:
A Tall.
Q What do you like most about our city?
A I like the diversity, I like the French/English, I like the mountain and the river. And these days, I like that it’s peaceful, it’s friendly. I love Montreal.
Q What’s changed the most in your lifetime?
A Montreal has become much more of an international place, and I feel that it’s an important city in the world, something to be proud of … we are very lucky.
Q What do you wish you could change about Montreal? A Nothing.
Q What is taking up your headspace right now?
A I find it very upsetting what’s happening in Syria and the refugees. My parents in a sense were refugees, they came here (from Germany) in ’39, they escaped having to go through the war. … I wonder why there’s so much cruelty and evil in the world.
Q Is there a single event that deeply affected your world view?
A The Holocaust. I mean, my father was Jewish-German. It’s so unfathomable, but it’s sort of like what ISIS is doing now.
Q What is the hardest thing to talk about in your own life?
A Well, actually, I like talking about Peter (the son who passed away), because it brings him back. He had three brain tumours in his life: at birth, at 25, at 45. … And he got Crohn’s disease at the age of 12 and had a stroke at the age of 12, too. Yes, one of these lives. … But he volunteered five days a week at an old-age home, so I was very proud of him. … So, what was the question again?
(But) one thing that’s hard is that my father was Jewish, my mother was Protestant and they both became Catholics, so I was brought up as Catholic. Most of my friends are Jewish, my husband (who’s a Polish Catholic), all of his friends, are Jewish. So that’s sort of a hard thing to talk about: I just wonder why my father converted during the Second World War … you wonder why he couldn’t have waited.
Q Is the world becoming a better place or not? Why?
A No. I don’t think so. I mean maybe I thought so before all this happened. But it’s just the same: there are good people and there are … are they bad or are they crazy (people)?
Q Who do you admire?
A There was a woman in the States called Dorothy Day, who opened her doors to homeless.
She came to Montreal and came to my parents’ home, and I remember that she started to talk to me and I felt that I was just as important as my mother, my father, as anybody else. I was another human being — not a kid, not my father’s daughter — another human being. It was this extraordinary respect.
Q If you died tomorrow, what would your last thought be?
A My last would be I’m so, so glad that I had my children because they have nourished me and made me feel that I’ve done something.
They’re the most important thing that I’ve ever done, and I’m close to them.