Crafty Canadians
A loving husband’s tribute to his wife and her talent
My life truly began when I moved to Canada; I knew that I had found a home in this vast beautiful country. I immigrated to Canada from Hungary in October 1957 and worked on the farms in Saskatchewan for two years. In October 1959, I moved to Red Lake, Ont., and it is here in this small mining town that I met my wife Helene.
She was a beautiful young woman from Belgium who spoke Flemish and French. Neither of us spoke English but we made it work. She arrived from Belgium on April 4, 1960, we met on April 14, I proposed on May 10 and we were married on August 6, 1960. Both our families thought it all was a little too fast and that the only reason could be a baby. It wasn’t— it was true love and eventually the babies would come. Together we loved Canada and knew we wanted to become citizens as soon as we qualified. Helene gave me our two beautiful children, a daughter Lorraine in February 1962, and a son Jozsi in April 1963.
This isn’t about our love story or myself, however; it’s an opportunity to honour my wife and her beauty as an artist, while I still can. Time passes, memories fade, talent and skills start slipping away but traditions shouldn’t. The present is essential for the past to be passed along, and it is through my family’s generational inheritance that my wife’s artistic talents will be remembered, even after she is unable to.
When God asked everyone to stand in line to receive his or her talents, I believe Helene linejumped a few times. She is an amazing wife, mother, friend and hard worker. But her talent as an artist surrounds me in the home she helped to create for us.
When Helene arrived in Canada, she came with a diploma in seamstress textiles and design. Her dream was to work in the textile industries in Winnipeg and Montreal, but with marrying me so hastily, she followed my career and we settled in Kamloops, B.C.
Our quick trip to the altar meant I was to discover her talents as the years went by. Wow, did she amaze me! Helene received her first sewing machine from our best man as a wedding present. It was tradition in those days for many women to make their families the necessary clothing to survive the Canadian weather.
Yet Helene had the background and talent that allowed her to indulge in her “crafts” as she called them, creating and designing wedding gowns for local young brides, as well as bridesmaid and graduation dresses.
While her focus was on our family, she also worked managing a pharmacy and later as a receptionist for two doctors, so her crafts became her creative outlet. The smiles of the brides and happy moments created by these one-of a-kind pieces were her reward.
She diversified her skills to include knitting and embroidery; she had the ability to take a design from a piece of wrapping paper and use it as the jumping-off point to create works of art. She was a quick study and soon learned crocheting, lead glass painting and tole painting. She often outshone her instructors, producing works of art that even they were in awe of.
As an artist, she radiated happiness and excitement over a completed piece as she proudly displayed it in our home or passed it on to deserving friends and family.
In 1990, we retired here to Nanaimo, which gave Helene all the time she needed to follow her passions. More wedding dresses followed: gowns, veils and trains all embellished with lace and embroidered with details that she designed.
Recycled materials were the inspiration for diverse canvases upon
which she created beautiful painted West Coast Canadian scenes on old milk cans. These art pieces displayed a vast diversity in scenery and multiple cultures.
As her family grew and aged, she tried to pass on her skills and talents to her daughter and grandchildren. They, like many of us, were often too busy to make time for these moments to sit and learn from the artists among us. With the diagnosis of Helene’s Alzheimer’s, however, time became more precious and everyone wanted to learn what is locked up in Helene’s mind. Her diagnosis saddened the artist inside her but allowed everyone else to take a step back and reach out to that artist to learn from her the joy of a paintbrush or needle and thread. Grandma’s art, once taken for granted, became a sought-after treasure.
One specific piece cherished by Helene is a tablecloth with intricate details inspired by the flora and fauna in her garden. This tablecloth is painstakingly slow to complete, as it requires a lot of time and energy to repeat the pattern the length and width of our large family dining table. The tablecloth has become symbolic in ways beyond what she first intended. It is nearly complete, not just by Helene’s hands but now those of our daughter as well. Thankfully, Helene’s gift—her art—will remain. n