Random Access

When Norma Nicholson was asked recently to recall her most memorable moment in nursing, she had absolutely no hesitation. In fact, putting her thoughts down in writing about the experience recently was a cathartic experience for her.
She was working at Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto many years ago and was just about to get onto an elevator with her colleagues to go to lunch.
When the elevator door opened, there was the father of a nine-year-old boy whom she had looked after for hundreds of hours as he battled leukemia.
"Norma, I have brought him to give to you," said the father, handing the lifeless body of his precious son to the nurse.
"He had been diagnosed for a cancer for which there was no cure," recalls Nicholson. "We has sent him home to be with his family."
When the boy died, his father took him to the hospital — not stopping at the lobby but bringing him right up to the eighth floor where he had been cared for so long.
Nicholson carried the boy into a nearby room, pulled the alarm and called the chaplain and the appropriate authorities.
When she talked with the grief-stricken father later, he simply explained that he could think of nowhere else to bring his son: "Because he's your child too."
The experience was devastating at the time but the more Nicholson thought about it, the more she realized what a significant tribute that father had given to his son's caregivers. "It still amazes me that someone could think that much of the care that child had," she says.
A Mississauga resident for 35 years, Nicholson seems to have been born with the ultimate nurturing gene.
Her extraordinary "caring" career began when she came to Canada at age 17 to be a nanny to six children in a Toronto family.
The family obviously recognized her potential and suggested she go back to school. She picked up her Grade 13 at Harbord Collegiate.
She became a Registered Nursing Assistant at Sick Children's, where she ultimately worked for 16 years. Half-way through that stint, she got a bursary through the hospital and took her RN qualifications at George Brown College.
When Credit Valley Hospital opened in 1985, she started a five-year stay there as a pediatric nurse. In 1987 she went back to University of Toronto to get her BA in sociology and psychology.
She realized you needed a BA to be in management, teaching or research in nursing, all of which intrigued her.
While working at the then-Etobicoke General Hospital, (now William Osler) the mother of one and step-mother of four went back for her master's degree because she had a special interest in elder care. She then worked for Toronto Homes For The Aged until 2004 when she joined West Park Health Care Centre.
During all of this time, Nicholson taught regularly and mentored whenever she could. She was nominated for the Florence Nightingale Awards in '05, '06 and '07.
But after years of leadership in her profession, Nicholson became just another statistic last year when her job was restructured.
"It was very traumatic at the time," she says, "but now I think it was for the best."
For one thing, it gave her even more time to devote to her duties as president of the Peel Association of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO). Under her leadership, Peel has been named the "chapter of the year" for the past two years.
She's also president of the Peel Alzheimer's Society, an active member of her Long Branch Baptist Church, helps serve the homeless at the Salvation Army kitchen and is a "nursing ambassador," who talks about the profession to middle and high school students.
At 61 years of age, she has now found a new calling. She starts Monday as manager of health care with the Ministry of Youth and Community Services for the new Roy McMurtry Health Care Centre on the site of the former Vanier Centre for Women in Brampton. She will manage a team caring for the health of youth who have been in trouble with the law.
At the RNAO's upcoming annual meeting, Nicholson is to receive the HUB award. It's a $2,000 award sponsored by HUB International insurance which gives Nicholson a chance to have a one-week placement with RNAO Executive-Director Doris Grinspun.
Nicholson, whom you could describe as nurse-poster child for lifelong learning, says the award means a lot to her, especially after the ups and downs of the past year.
"I am honoured and humbled to receive this award," she says.
As for retiring, Nicholson will hear none of it. She plans to continue working as long as the passion remains.
And the passion definitely remains. A family at her church was having recent difficulties caring for their father, who has Alzheimer's. They were struggling to figure out how they would care for him while their mother went into hospital for surgery. Nicholson told them to provide care Monday to Friday. Norma volunteered to provide the care on the weekend.
Once a nurse, always a nurse.

Mazo de la Roche certainly wasn't the first famous person to make her autobiography a work of fiction.
But, in the wake of news that she is finally to be honoured with a memorial plaque, some 32 years after she was designated "a person of national historic importance" you have to wonder if she wasn't punished in reputation for her habit of obfuscating the facts to suit her obsession with personal privacy.
Word has come down that Mazo is to be honoured April 12 with a plaque to be unveiled at Benares, the historic home of the Harris-Sayer family, which may or may not be the home on which her 16-book Whiteoaks of Jalna was based.
There has been some behind-the-scenes fussing among various factions of those who are Mazo-fascinated about where the plaque — the first national historic marker ever erected in Mississauga and only the second in Peel — should be appropriately placed.
Ultimately it matters not, because the important thing is that she is finally being recognized.
And why not Benares? Since de la Roche loved to swirl her life story in intrigue (you can almost see her stage left cranking up the dry ice machines as she writes her biography) and controversy centres on the role of the house on Clarkson Rd. N. as the fictional model of Jalna, isn't it somehow terribly appropriate that the home should be where the federal government's official recognition is made official?
Mississauga Museums Manager Annemarie Hagan, who will speak to de la Roche's historical legacy when the speeches are made a week from Saturday, notes that in reading de la Roche's biography, the author fails to mention the date when she was born. Hmmm.
She also fails to mention that she adopted the "de la" artifice for effect; as in Mazo de la literary-sounding-don't-you-think?
The critical fact is that she did write much of the critical first novel, Jalna, at Trail Cottage which was part of the original Benares estate. She may only have spent four summers writing at the tiny cottage in Clarkson, with her beloved dog Bunty rushing hither and thither, but they are arguably the most important four literary years of her life. Those years were the genesis of the series that would capture the world's interest and make her a rich, international literary figure.
Her major sins were that she was far too commercially successful, wrote in a popular soap opera style and guarded her privacy far too zealously. For this, she has been condemned to decades of neglect by the Canadian literary and academic establishment.
She certainly has her defenders. She has won the acclaim of such heavyweights as Robertson Davies, whose famous quote about de la Roche, is prominently featured on the web page of the Mazo Society at www.mazo.ca. When Mazo died Davis noted that, "The creation of the Jalna books is the most single feat of literary invention in the brief history of Canada's literature."
Now her books are back in print, thanks to XYZ Publishing of Montreal; the National Film Board is apparently interested in making a documentary of her extraordinary life; and a plaque will rise at Benares.
When I asked Fran Goddu, president of the Mazo Society earlier today how he thought Mazo would react to these events were she still alive today, he showed his innate understanding of her character.
"She would probably say, 'Oh, you guys are being silly,'" he said. "But in her mind, she would be ecstatic."

"The land is there to speak to us."
It is if we know what to listen for, and if we have a sound interpreter to guide us — such as the man who spoke those words a couple of weeks ago.
Thomas McIwraith spent 40 years at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), as it is now called and Erindale College, as it was formerly called, teaching geography to successive generations of students.
At a recent "Lunch and Learn" session at the university, the now-retired professor provided a fascinating photographic tour of the cultural history of the land on which the campus stands as part of the its 40th anniversary celebrations.
The photo above, provided to UTM by Grant McGill, shows one of the four original farms that were originally acquired to form the campus.
The swale in the foreground is, appropriately enough, where Wilson Pond, the large man-made pond in front of the South building, is now located. The barn on the left is about where the Kaneff Centre stands and the faculty lounge, where the lecture was given, is about where the second floor of the main house stands, pointed out McIlwraith, one of the province's foremost authorities on rural landscapes and the author of several books on the subject.
The next time you turn from Mississsauga Rd. into the UTM north entrance road, take a look at the property just to the north. It is the original home of the O'Neil family, who owned a quadrant of what is now the campus. The house and the foundation of the barn are built from Credit Valley stone. The mail box on Mississauga Rd. is mounted on top of a wagon wheel, a vestige of the past.
O'Neil Gate and O'Neil Crt., to the north near Mississauga Rd. recognize the family. They were built by Iggy Kaneff, a major benefactor of the university.
In no particular order here are some of the little gifts of historical context that McIlwraith highlighted for his attentive audience:
• the other "founding farm" properties of Erindale were the Sproules and the Schreibers. Fay Sproule is a well-known local artist who has painted a replica of the iconic elliptical bridge featured in the pond on Principal's Rd. among her many local landscapes.
• Charlotte Schreiber is the famous artist who lived in Lislehurst, the historic Credit Valley stone house which still serves as the principal's residence. It was once owned by the family of Sir Isaac Brock and passed down through his descendants.
• the old chimney that stands not too far from the pond on the east side of Principal's Rd. is the last vestige of Mt. Woodham, another Schreiber house which stood on the site. The famous portrait of her sitting working in front of a fireplace, working on a canvas, was painted there.
• the portraits of the old Dundas Rd. and St. Peter's Church done by Schreiber were actually drawn as fundraisers for the new church.
• at one point there was a third house on the property, called Iverholme believed to have been built around 1913-14. Parts of at least one of the departed houses were used in put an extension built on Lislehurst in what was obviously a "Grow Smart, Grow Green" prequel.
• the intersection of Dundas and Mississauga Rd, or Streetsville Rd. as it was originally called, was considered "Dangerous" and signs were posted to that effect. Wallace Oughtred, who owned a property nearby, kept his tractor handy, with a first aid kit in it. When he heard a crash, he would head down the steep hill, "to haul the remains of another car out of the river."
• the wooden entrance sign to Ivor Woodlands at the southwest corner of Mississauga Rd. and The Collegeway, which bears the shamrock logo of the Erin Mills Development Corporation, is constructed on the remains of the stone markers for the gatehouse of Glen Erin Inn, yet another heritage building made of Credit Valley stone.
• Ivor Woodlands is named for Roy Ivor, who operated the Winding Lane Bird Sanctuary in Sawmill Valley just west of the campus for many years. Ivor died at age 98. His remains are buried in the Methodist portion of St. Peter's, overlooking the campus.
• that odd-looking half-moon that lights up outside the " lunar labule" on Principal's Rd. recognizes the fact that the first moon rocks analyzed in Canada were examined in the lab there and then displayed at the college. Former Principal and renowned geologist J. Tuzo Wilson, had the pole and the half-moon constructed to remember the occasion. "Of course, there's no such word as labule," noted McIlwraith, marking the obvious affront to the language by adding, "It's an Erindalism."
• along the Five Minute Walk, there is a tree dubbed the "blasted pine" by McIlwraith, the author of Looking for Old Ontario (1997.) "I was walking by it one August day in 1982 and was about 30 ft. away when the tree was struck by lightning. The tree sizzled and there was a huge crack which bubbled with sap." The tree still stands, although its top was blown off by the wind last year.
• Dr. Donald Putnam, the dean of English-speaking geography professors as he was called in one obituary, spent nearly 40 years at U of T, several of them at the end of his career at Erindale. He died in 1977. Showing a photo of the tribute to Putnam on an office door in the North Building — now barely visible beneath other signs that have been plastered over it — McIlwraith said, "these things will work their way into a setting, and we can lose them too."
At the end of his tour, the long-time Sheridan Homelands resident referred to a "mysterious attic" on campus where old records, photos and other "junk" resides, including information about the long history of the Toronto Argos practice facility on campus.
"There's a huge archive there we have yet to explore. It's important that we recognize ourselves as a university community and that we share ourselves with the community of which we are part."
As nothing demonstrated more clearly than Professor McIlwraith's charming presentation.

For a guy who claimed never to have seen the Junos before, Russell Peters proved a very accomplished host at the annual televised Canadian music awards last night.
You could tell things were going to be a lot different right out of the box when Peters opened by saying "I've never actually seen the Juno Awards, to be honest with which I guess, makes me Canadian."
It apparently wasn't just posing either, according to a preview story on canoe.ca wherein Peters said he shared equal ignorance of the nominees in all categories, be they rap, country, roots, classical, pop or whatever.
"Nope, not a one," Peters said. "Anne Murray, I would say I'm a fan of her. But that's about it. None of that other (bleep) impresses me at all. So that's why it's fun for me to do this, because I'm not going to be in awe of anybody."
He proved a man of his unimpressed word.
Whether leering at Avril Lavigne, dirty dancing with Jully Black or country cross-dressing in buckskin and Stetson with Jann Arden, Peters was a satisfyingly irreverent host.
He pulled down his fly on national TV, ridiculed the empty oil drum décor ("What, the price of oil has gone that high?") and dissed local hero Chad Kroeger by joking that the lead singer of Nickelback, recently convicted of drinking and driving, was his designated driver.
Peters is the next-best thing to an honourary Mississaugan since he was born and raised in Brampton. Every time he performs at LAC, the venue has to add more shows.
Most of Peters' humour is based on a cultural clash course (or is that coarse) on the brown experience in Canada. His head-wagging impression of his father on the phone dealing with a service representative who doesn't speak very good English, ("damn immigrants" he says in his sing-song accent) is priceless.
I think Peters was trying to tell us how much he admired Anne Murray when he called her "a living legend" in his opening monologue. Then comes the pause and the zinger for the singer: "I think I may have been conceived to her music."
And so it went all night.
The show itself was the usual unsatisfactory snatches of different styles of music, which is inevitable under the circumstances. There was nothing as sublime as k.d. lang's 2005 love letter of Helpless to Neil Young, who was recovering in a New York hospital at the time instead of hosting the Junos in Winnipeg as he was scheduled to do.
One strange thing that did happen last night was that I found myself watching the show right to the bitter end.
Only one possible explanation for that — the what-will-he-say-next Russell Peters' factor.
Here's hoping everyone was offended enough, and entertained enough, to let him host again.

Mississauga South Liberal MP Paul Szabo thinks there will be a federal election "before the summer."
Asked how much longer this amazing minority government of Stephen Harper's can continue to breathe, Szabo issued a sigh down the telephone line from the House of Commons this morning and said, "It's hitting a critical mass."
He was referring to building concern about issues such as the war in Afghanistan, new immigration rules, the Mulroney-Schreiber fiasco he has been monitoring as chair of the Commons ethics committee and the Chuck Cadman vote-buying schmozzle.
The 15-year veteran said the impacts of the slowing economy are beginning to show in the critical provinces of Ontario and Québec and are only likely to get worse in coming months.
"I like our team," says the chartered accountant turned politico. "As far as I know, our platform is very solid."
Didn't mention his leader, by the way.
Election timing is all about good guesswork about what lies ahead. "You have to be anticipating in this game," said Szabo. "You have to throw the ball to where the receiver's going to be."
Sounds like good advice for the government side when you think about Mississauga South. To extend Szabo's analogy, the Conservatives had better get in the huddle pretty soon and approve a nomination date so that their candidate can at least suit up in time for the game.
• • •
Every once in a while a proposal comes along that just makes absolute perfect sense.
Such as moving the archives of the Streetsville Historical Society from the tiny little room where it was stored in the Kinsmen Centre (the former Streetsville town hall and the original Streetsville Grammar School) to the historic Leslie Log House.
Seems that when some renovations were done by the City last summer on the Kinsmen Hall , a new wheelchair accessible washroom was constructed in front of the door to the archives, which were housed in a storage room.
The upshot of the glitch was a review of the need for fresh storage space and a suggestion by Museums of Mississauga Manager Annemarie Hagan that the renovated Leslie Log House be considered.
It was saved on its original site in 1994 and moved to the Pinchin Farm, on the east side of Mississauga Rd. just north of Highway 403.
The City has now set aside $117,000 to refurbish the log house, built by John Leslie in 1824 at the north-west corner of Mississauga and Derry Rds. According to the latest newsletter from the Streetsville Historical Society, Robert Leslie collaborated on the construction of several other famous houses in the area which are also for preservation, such as the Barber House (now a restaurant) on Queen St. S., the Oliver Hammond house on Hammond Rd. in Erindale and Benares in Clarkson.
The log house now looks like it will also become a home for the Streetsville Historical Society itself. That venerable group which is gearing up for the town's 150th birthday, holds its last meeting Thursday night in the Village Hall. That structure is also scheduled to get an upgrade by the City.
A power point presentation about the Leslie Log House will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
To add the final touch to the mix, Harold Leslie, now in his mid-70s and visiting in town from his home in Alberta, will be on hand to talk about his ancestral home.

"It's not about the flash, it's about the content," says jazz Everyman Bill King, in explaining why he thinks Mississauga's Nancy Walker pulled off a surprise win last night at the National Jazz Awards at the Palais Royale, where she was named Keyboardist of the Year.
King is a long-time Walker fan, whose known her for years, since she used to jog upstairs at a Toronto health club and he used to play basketball downstairs.
"She was just a fan of the music then but she got actively engaged as you could see by how actively she threw herself into it. She has a tremendous passion for it," says King, who is an accomplished performer, record producer, photographer, festival organizer (Beaches Jazz) show producer (The 2003 tribute to Oscar Peterson at LAC, the JazzFM91 annual concert series) broadcaster and publisher (of the now sadly-defunct Jazz Times.)
A Mr. Everyman of jazz, King also established and runs the NJAs, which have given jazz a national profile, despite the frequent criticism that they are too Toronto-centric.
So when King was looking through the early returns for this year's on-line balloting for the awards, he could see that Walker was doing surprisingly well, given the veteran, talented pianists who were also in her category, i.e. David Braid and Dave Restivo and the talented young lions Robi Botos, and David Virelles.
"I saw the numbers coming in and I could see this was going to be the surprise," said King.
Walker was truly surprised, and delighted. She may not match up technically with the rest of the muscle in the final group of pianists in the NJAs, but she plays with a captivating lyricism.
If Oscar Peterson's playing was a torrent or a waterfall, Walker's is a swirling eddy, subtly changing colours and textures.
"I think it's the sensitivity of her playing that people really gravitate to," said King. "She always uses a lot of harmonic colouration."
There's not much chance that the well-grounded Walker (she's a gardener don't you know) will let this honour go to her head.
She celebrated by driving home from the Palais Royale to Port Credit and went wild by dropping into Rabba to pick up a chocolate bar. Her husband, bassist Kieran Overs, another under-appreciated top-flight player, was in Seattle last night playing in Sophie Millman's band. Millman, fresh off her Juno win for Best Vocal Album for Make Someone Happy on Mississauga's Linus Entertainment label, will be at LAC Fri. May 2.
In the old days, winning a NJA or a Juno might have been a launching pad to a deal with a major label. These days, it's back to business as usual.
Walker's newest self-produced, self-financed record, Need Another, came out in October but still hasn't been distributed everywhere across the country and just got onto iTunes a couple of months ago.
In the tough new world of independent music production, you put the award on your mantle and try to figure out how you are going to raise the funds for the next CD.
Anyone who was lucky enough to be at the Mayor's Valentine Tribute to Oscar knows all about the magic that Walker can weave.
She and her Port Credit neighbour and friend Carol McCartney did a superb job of the striking ballad More Than You Know, in tribute to the Ella-OP version. Although she says she was extremely nervous for the event, it certainly didn't show.
Walker's own composition, Sweet Longings, was a highlight among many highlights that night in what must surely have been a career high-water mark, given the occasion. Sweet Longings was like a personal poem to Peterson, full of reverence, revelation and respect.
It's more than time Nancy Walker finally got her proper due.

A rummage through the Britannia School House and Britannia Farm file yesterday proved informative and instructive, on the eve of yet-another historic announcement about the future of the property by the Peel District School Board.
The file begins with a May 12, 1971 front-page report in The Mississauga News which explains how the Town of Mississauga has leased the farm from the school board for $1 in hopes of proceeding with a massive recreation area.
A year before the town had submitted a report with proposals, "for a stadium which the town and the school board will require sooner or later, mass picnic areas, a bridal path, numerous fields for soccer, baseball diamonds and even a ski hill which in the summer could be used as an amphitheatre."
Fast forward to 1986, when then-director John Fraser waxes poetic about the potential of the still-stunningly green 200 acres of land smack dab in the geographic and demographic centre of Peel.
"One could imagine a children's place, a large tract of land, in the centre of one of Canada's most-densely populated areas, dedicated to the education and development of the child, enriching their lives. The plastic artificiality of Canada's wonderland or the commercial trappings of the West Edmonton Mall are no substitute for the natural foundation that underlies our history in southern Ontario."
Among the potential uses Fraser foresaw: a replica pioneer village with a demonstration farm, an art park, a Christmas tree farm so students could cut their own trees and continuation of the "sugaring operation" in the maple sugar bush, which used to be a highlight of March break activities.
"If this project could capture the imagination of our community, we could have, for our children and for future generations of children, a place dedicated to them; a place in the midst of commerce, industry and asphalt where a child could stand in a quiet pasture and feel the soft texture of grass on bare feet," concludes Fraser.
They don't write bureaucratic reports like that anymore, alas.
Other blips along the way to farm non-development included the Britannia Golf Centre (designed by world famous golf course architect and Erindale Secondary School graduate Thomas McBroom) which was abruptly driven into the rough by a highly-indignant Education Minister John Snobelen.
In 2002, there were plans for an office building and convention centre at the corner of Hurontario and Bristol Rd. In 2004, the board approved a three-storey, 60,000 sq. ft. building there for the Centre for Education and Training.
In view of the past history, it's no wonder that Board Chair Janet McDougald was the first to admit at a session with local reporters last night that just because the board is announcing yet-another approved plan for the farm, does not mean it will necessarily happen.
This one, though, really does feel different. It has the smell of something — money not manure — that hasn't been associated with many of the past endeavours.
The board hired an experienced commercial broker-consultant in DTZ Barnicke to guide them through the process and had nine firms on its long list, including some of the province's and the country's major players.
The short version of the deal is that the board hacks 31.67 acres off the southwest corner of the farm, with highly-desirable frontages along Hurontario St. and Bristol Rd. W. (outlined in red in the aerial photo) and leases them to a developer (Osmington Inc. partially owned by the Ken Thomson family) for 99 years. In return, the board gets a huge upfront one-time payment for the development rights as soon as Osmington has received approval for five to eight office towers from the City of Mississauga, expected to be one to two years.
The board puts the money in a reserve and uses some for capital improvements on the farm (perhaps a visitors' centre, upgraded walkways, a student science-environment centre along Cooksville Creek, revival of the sugar shack, or whatever else works.)
The money is also used to upgrade the board's beautiful but underused two northern field centres, namely the Jack Smythe and G.W. Finlayson Centres.
It's not too hard to follow the rationale here. You do something you don't really want to do — create a wall of office towers along Hurontario and develop a corner of the farm — to gain a greater good, resuscitating vital outdoor education programs that have been sadly neglected for far too long, and for which there is virtually no provincial funding.
McDougald freely admitted that she couldn't answer a number of critical questions about the venture at this point, for various reasons.
For example: How exactly does one determine what fair market value now for development over a period of 99 years?
The height and size of the buildings will be determined by the municipal review process.
"The board has not discussed what will be done with the revenue, but we will be responsible with it," the chair said.
There will obviously be a temptation of future boards to dip into the farm fund to pay for other needs, such as the crumbling schools that there is never enough money to fix. The board can put guidelines in place to try to prevent that, but there is no guarantee of what future boards will do.
The exact location and role of three heritage buildings that must be moved is not known, although the developer will pay for the move and upgrade the buildings so they are useable again. (The student demonstration farm visitation program that used to be run at Britannia had to be abandoned because the buildings didn't meet building code and safety standards.)
Maybe the biggest question of all is: Is this just another in the long line of promising but ultimately failed proposals or will something finally happen on the Britannia farm?
As noted here before, retaining a huge piece of pristine green property in the midst of our nearly-mature city, with nothing on it but fox, deer racoon, skunks, sugar maple trees, hop-hornbeam, red oak, white birch, black cherry, American beech, blue beech, Witch-Hazel (not the one at City Hall), aspen, a silver and red maple swamp and even a provincially and nationally rare viburnum called a Southern Arrowood, wouldn't be the worst option in the world.

It's no wonder that the working title for the documentary that director Maya Gallus wants to make about Mazo de la Roche is entitled, "The Mystery of Mazo de la Roche."
Gallus, a principal in Toronto's Red Queen Productions who has already made well-received documentaries about author Elizabeth Smart (By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept), the Dionne Quintuplets and skating legend Barbara Ann Scott, was there filming at the ceremony Saturday at which a first-ever plaque in Mississauga from the Historic Sites and National Monuments Board of Canada was celebrated.
After decades of benign neglect of her incredibly popular Jalna series, de la Roche is enjoying an unprecedented revival.
Her books are in print in English again in Canada for the first time in years (Interestingly, they were never out of print in Québec), a new biographer has stripped away more layers from the trail of red herrings she created in her "autobiography" and now she may become the subject of a documentary by Red Queen, which would be financed by both the National Film Board and Bravo Television.
As Museums of Mississauga Manager Annemarie Hagan outlined in a brilliant evocation of the intentionally unfocussed de la Roche persona at Saturday's event, "it's important to realize that confusion about her personal life is exactly what Mazo always intended — after all, she once listed 'privacy' as her only hobby." This is a woman who managed to write an autobiography that did not give her birth date, changed her name from Maisie Roach to the much more literary-sounding Mazo de la Roche and, "took great care to throw shadows over many aspects of her own, real life," as Hagan put it.
This obfuscation actually made aid in her storytelling exercise, says Gallus, because much of her film will involve peeling back the numerous layers of gossamer that de la Roche drew across her trail.
The subtext of her complex relationship with her lifelong companion and cousin Caroline Clement is yet another fascinating sidebar to the main story. It was Clement who supported the two by working at the Toronto's Fire Marshal's office while de la Roche spent her days writing madly in their "ridiculous little cottage within its beautiful silver birches and pines, trailing arbutus and other wildflowers" in Clarkson.
De la Roche is a "walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction" as the songwriter might say. She suffered frequent bouts of depression and was deeply wounded by negative reviews, yet was far ahead of her time in handling her own business affairs and demanding her fair due from publishers.
"She was very comfortable in what was largely a man's world," says Gallus, at a time when women were still treated largely as babies. "She had enormous courage and great faith in herself."
She had an absolute compulsion to write and was "driven" to write the Whiteoaks saga, creating in the process, one of the truly great characters in the Canadian literary canon in Granny Whiteoaks.
Ultimately, as Hagan pointed out, it all comes down to the books. It doesn't matter whether Benares, or other houses, were the models for Jalna because the family she created in them is still so real. "The real Jalna and the real Whiteoaks do exist. They really do," said Hagan. "They aren't even hard to find. Mazo handed them to us on a silver platter - or perhaps I should say - between the covers of the 16 books she wrote about the Whiteoaks."
Maybe there's so much speculation about which house was Jalna, adds Gallus, because the way Mazo draws it up, "the house of Jalna is actually one of the characters. She is so very contemporary in her writing as well, in the deep connection she makes with nature and animals," says the Toronto movie-maker. "Nature always plays a big part and each scene always includes a detailed description of the trees, the plants and the weather." No doubt, her experiences in the wild woods of Clarkson contributed there.
Mazo would have loved Saturday's event as the winds whipped, the rain fell and there was a distinct chill in the air, as she symbolically was given a long-overdue, warm embrace by the Canadian establishment.
One of those attending Saturday was Helen Wilson, now 85 and a museum volunteer. She grew up in Bayfield, Ont. and remembers that, because she was so tall for her age as a child, she could get into the "adult" section of the nearby Clinton library and check out the Jalna books.
"They were so delightful," said Wilson, who now lives in Port Credit. "I've just been rereading them, all 16," she told the museum historian with a delicious little laugh as she left the ceremony. "This time, I get it all."
The books remain compulsively readable. That may be the only reality of true consequence, when it comes to reviewing the life and times of Mazo de la Roche.

As Gabriela Nowakowska walked out of the back door of The Mississauga News this afternoon and into the bright spring sunshine that finally seemed to offer the promise of a summer, she sighed and said, "You know what? This would have been a wonderful day to take Rambo for a walk."
Well, Gabriela didn't get to take her dog for a walk today but it was a very good day, nonetheless. For the first time since that fateful Dec. 25 when she let him out in the backyard of her Kingsholme Dr. without checking to make sure the gate was closed, she got to see, hug and play with her pet.
It was the debut of the experimental Dog Prisoner Pound Visitation Day at the Mississauga Animal Control Centre and the 20-year-old owner of Rambo, the alleged pit bull, took full advantage.
Gabriela obviously likes playing with her dog a lot more than going to court or talking to reporters.
The shy young woman was much chattier than usual outside the control centre after her half-hour visit.
The visit was intentionally low key so staff could evaluate how things went.
The only one who didn't get the low-key message, of course, was Rambo who got understandably rambunctious after being reunited with his owner.
In a thoughtful presentation last week to City council, Selma Mulvey of the Dog Legislation Council of Canada (a regular Random Access commenter) pointed to research that suggests keeping dogs cooped up without much human contact for several weeks or months can have physiological and behavioural side effects, making dogs fearful and aggressive.
"When the owner finally does regain custody of their pet, there can be a lot of work for them to do to rebuild the relationship," Mulvey said in her deputation.
Council decided to allow today's visit to see how things went and to get an evaluation from staff before considering a visitation policy for the future. Very sensible under the circumstances, especially since there are unlikely to be a lot of other cases where a dog is held for months on end while the legal wheels grind on.
(A cynic would add: unless, of course, Gabriela wins her case.)
Think of today's visit as a little fuzzy toy thrown out to those among the public who still believe politicians are all heartless animal haters.
• • •
"Who has learned to garden who did not, at the same time, learn to be patient?"
So said gardener and writer H.L.V. Fletcher. That was before he met my helleborus, of course.
Maybe Fletcher was lecturing my hellebores under the winter snow this year — or perhaps it's the fact that there WAS some winter snow this year, but darn if the things don't look like they've caught on after lo, these many years, of simpering. (See below for proof.)
The hellebores always put on buds in the fall and give the promise that maybe they will actually be the "Christmas rose," as advertised, but then appear wan and wizened in the spring when the snow melts and do nothing.
But not this year. This year they are sitting up pretty and showing off their dapper yellow centres.
Now, too bad the guy in charge of the garden didn't plant the white one between the two, darker maroon specimens.

You'd think peregrine falcons, if they had any sense, would prefer the luxury of a made-to-order nest box, nestled on the shores of Lake Ontario, to the cold hard ledge of an apartment building.
Not so, apparently, at least judging by the pair of peregrines who settled last year on the superstructure of Lakeview Generating Station. They managed to set up housekeeping there, despite the best efforts of officials from Ontario Power Generation and the Canadian Peregrine Foundation (CPF) to dissuade them with nets.
The building was to be demolished and nobody wanted any raptor fatalities on their consciences. The nest was unsuccessful, as it turned out, so the careful planning of a potential move of the chicks from a ledge high atop the power plant to the nesting box didn't have to come into play.
This spring Mark Nash, the voluble executive director of CPF, has been keenly watching the 120-ft. nesting box that OPG provided to protect the vulnerable raptors, who nest on cliff faces in the wild.
While the male returned to the site and showed lots of interest in it, the missus apparently doesn't hold with such new-fashioned digs. The pair of potential Lakeview tenants has now shown up on an apartment building ledge on Mill Rd. in Etobicoke, where detective work carried out through the binoculars by CPG officials has confirmed it is the same pair. CPG is now madly working with the condominium board and management there to make sure that the birds can build a nest and raise a brood.
"It's the first time in our recollection that a pair have established on a residential building in the heart of the city," says Nash.
But that doesn't mean that all is lost at Lakeview, he quickly adds. "We're still keeping a close eye on it. Many of the birds don't return until the end of April. A lot of the migrators have yet to come back to their territories. They're still far down south in Colombia and Southern and Central America.
If they find an undefended territory, like Lakeview, there's still a good chance a male will set up shop there "and try to claim a gal," says the group's executive director.
Meantime, things are progressing well at the other two nests in Mississauga. The year-round inhabitants of the Mississauga Executive Centre at 1 Robert Speck Pkwy. have successfully mated and a hatch should be upcoming in a few weeks.
At St. Lawrence Cement, a long-standing nesting site where some staff have been keeping a watchful eye for years, the birds "are down on eggs." They have moved house, to a different elevation in the huge complex, which is almost impossible to observe. Probably something to do with privacy regulations.
As exciting as word of the successful new nests is, Nash is even more revved up these days about a thoughtful corporate donation by Mike Reynolds, product manager in the systems security group at Panasonic Canada in Mississauga.
Earlier this spring, a camera that was a decade old at the Sheraton Hotel peregrine nest in Toronto died a natural death.
You might not think that the reality TV of peregrine voyeurism would get big global ratings but this version of Falcon Crest apparently resonates far and wide.
When the camera died, "I had 200 e-mails by the end of the day," says Nash. "By the end of the week I had 1600 e-mails, some of them very irate. Some were from places and countries that I didn't even think had electricity," he laughs.
At 2:30 a.m. in the morning, a frustrated Nash sent off an e-mail to Panasonic asking for assistance for the volunteer organization, which has no budget for cameras.
By 10:15 a.m. the next morning, Reynolds wrote back offering demonstration models that are going to bring web-cam viewing of the nesting sites — including the MEC locale in Mississauga — to a whole new level.
The old analogue system with its computer software and myriad potential breakdowns has now been replaced with a network IP camera. "It has two wires, one goes into the power and one into a network connection hooked into a high-speed line. We can now have real-time streaming live right to our web site," says Nash. "For us it's like going from the horse and buggy to an automobile."
Best of all is that people like Nash no longer have to jump into their cars in the midst of a frigid winter and drive up to 90 minutes to a nest site just to reboot a computer and get the cameras working again.
Reynolds says, "if Pansonic can help and it benefits everybody, why not?"
Of course, it didn't hurt that Nash invited Reynolds to a banding at the Sheraton Centre last year where the Panasonic executive could see the little balls of fluff, which seem to be all beaks and claws, get their travel identification.
After you see the squawking vulnerable babies up close and personal, it's hard to resist them, admits Reynolds. "I guess I'm a little soft at heart."

Looks like Gabriela Nowakowska's visit with her beloved Rambo, seen above in a recent picture in his play area outside the City's animal control centre, passed the sniff test.
The dog showed no ill effects of being cuddled and pampered by his owner for 30 minutes Tuesday. (Quelle surprise!)
It's quite likely that when an evaluation comes back to City councillors, Gabriela will be allowed to visit her pooch behind bars again. Depending on how that goes, it's possible that the visits could become weekly.
One very good consequence of the visits is that Nowakowska lawyer Anik Morrow will no longer have to ask for bail for the mutt, an unprecedented move which would undoubtedly have taken a lot of court time — none of it devoted to the core issue of whether Rambo is, or is not, a certain breed of dog that may, or may not exist. The three-day hearing for the charges against Nowakowska of owning a prohibited dog under the legislation now looks like it will take place in mid-May.
According to Ward 6 Councillor Parrish, the evidence is growing (see photo above) that Rambo is not a you-know-what. "You should see him now. Very tall and lanky. Very unpit bull-like," she says.
Experts for the crown and the defence will undoubtedly enlighten us in great detail on the characteristics we should be looking for in determining if Rambo is substantially similar to the banned breed.
• • •
All the fuss this week about whether the 5 per cent surcharge City councillors floated in November was a trial balloon, who was responsible for it if it was and who is the one doing the old political flip-flop all misses the essential point: it's still the right thing to do.
Infrastructure renewal is the invisible elephant in the room that no municipality wants to talk about.
Give Mayor Hazel McCallion and council credit for talking about how we should prepare to replace all of the roads, culverts, community centres and arenas that were built in a surge of development and are going to have to be replaced in a surge of capital spending.
If Mississauga, a relatively young city, is going to have these kinds of problems, imagine what Toronto's are like?
It's good to see Ward 6 Councillor Carolyn (she's everywhere, she's everywhere) Parrish has become a convert to the cause of infrastructure renewal. There was a time when, as an MP, Parrish was quite convinced that the City had hundreds of millions of dollars in "slush funds" and didn't really need federal help.
Those funds are all committed to replace public works that must be renewed and the list of additional needs and costs is much longer.
If the province and the feds don't step up, and it's unlikely they will ever be able to fund all municipalities' needs, cities will have to step up to the plate and ask property taxpayers to foot the bill. Yes it's regressive but a responsible municipality has no other choice.
If only council had started his infrastructure retirement planning a little earlier. Instead of giving ratepayers a tax holiday for a decade in relatively good times, council should have been collecting a surcharge of 1 or 2 per cent annually and putting it in reserves for the rocky post-development levy times to come.
• • •
Jazz fans are in for some fine upcoming local treats.
Sophie Milman, who records on Mississauga's Linus Entertainment label and who topped off the mayor's tribute to Oscar Peterson Valentine's Day concert with a rousing version of Sweet Georgia Brown is coming Fri. May 2 to LAC (more on that in a blog next week.)
Two local churches are also jazzing it up.
At Erindale United in Erindale Village on Sunday May 4 at 3 p.m., superb jazz saxophonist Mike Murley tops a nice triple bill with ragtime and blues pianist Bill Westcott and David Mott, who will be performing that great jazz instrument, the baritone sax. Tickets are $15.
Next weekend, the Church of Holy Spirit on Tynegrove Rd. near Burnhamthorpe Rd. and Golden Orchard Dr. holds its jazz weekend, starting with a launch of the new CD called New Every Morning by Reverend Tim Elliott Friday night. Elliott conducts his seminar Clarity and Courage on Saturday and things culminate Sunday with Elliott and a four-piece combo consisting of front-liners Perry White on sax, Brian Barlow (father of Emilie-Claire) on drums, Scott Alexander on bass and Mark Eisenman on piano.
More information at www.holyspiritchurch.ca.

Despite appearances, I have not abandoned you.
Due to some changes in the newsroom, which find me in a (temporary) new job which is totally bewildering at the moment, blogging has dropped on the priority list.
Once I figure out what an interim assignment editor does, I plan to be back with you regularly. In the meantime, please be patient.
• • •
Do have some Rambo news, however.
City council today approved weekly visits by Gabriela Nowakowska to see her not-wannabe pit bull. That pretty well eliminates the need for doggy bail.
• • •

Speaking of bewildering, one of the things you learn quickly by sifting through the innumerable e-mails and story requests that come into The News, is the impossibility of covering everything that goes on in this huge city.
Take Earth Day, for example, which just happens to coincide with Education Weeks.
Every school makes a special effort to showcase its student talents in the same two-week period and there are a million story possibilities and two million photo opportunities, most of which are better than what is available the rest of the year.
Take, for instance, the one that popped up in this morning. Got a call from Ian Santiago of Credit Valley Public School.
The 28-year-old graduate of Corpus Christi and Father Goetz is doing a stint at Credit Valley as a "placement teacher" as part of his studies with the Medaille Teachers' College in Buffalo.
An initiative of his that started out as a variation of the Earth Day Grocers' Project for the Grade 1 class has burgeoned into something that involves the whole school, a local business which has become an enthusiastic partner and — come this Saturday — the broader community.
The school asked the Loblaw store not far away at Glen Erin Dr. and Eglinton Ave. for some outdoor yard-waste collection bags they could decorate for Earth Week and then sell to raise funds.
Rich Morel of Loblaw came through with, not only higher-quality bags, but with some 600 of them so that every student in the school could decorate a bag with a drawing and Earth day message.
The colourful bag banners are now hanging over the railings on the second floor of the Loblaw store so customers waiting in line to pay for their groceries have a mini-art gallery to enjoy.
Come 11 a.m. Saturday, Santiago and several teachers and 20 students will be selling the bags in the front lobby of Loblaw. Half the money goes to the school and half to the President's Choice Children's Charity.
Santiago says there are all kinds of cross-curricular currents going on here: students walking over to the Loblaws (phys. ed), educational reach-out from the school to the community, art, literacy and dare we say it, the thrill for the students of seeing their work on public display.
"It helps to empower the students to realize that, hey, listen your voice matters and you can raise community awareness," says Santiago.
The naked city is full of a million little green stories this spring and this was only one.

Part-time student. Full-time skyrocketing jazz star.
That's the story these days for Sophie Milman who rolls into the Living Arts Centre Friday night.
Milman has been trying to finish off her BA at the University of Toronto St. George campus while maintaining a touring schedule that will see her on the road for nine months between May 2007 and May of this year.
"It's insane," says Milman of her schedule. She was just another commerce student at U of T until her career took off in mid-term, so to speak, thanks in part to the tutelage of Mississauga's Geoff Kulawick and his Linus Entertainment label.
The singer has been traipsing across North America and Japan, touring to support Make Someone Happy, the jazzy-poppy-folky album that just picked up Vocal Jazz Performance of the Year honours at the Junos.
Milman is now following her dream, singing in the same halls as Sarah and Lady Day and Ella and Carmen McRae, the latter her personal favourite.
Despite her great success to date, Milman shows no signs of inflated ego disease, a common affliction in her trade for youngsters such as she (25-years-old) who take off very early.
"Why not be humble? Look who I'm listening to," she says referencing the aforementioned singers.
In order to finish her degree, the Russian-born, Israeli-raised Milman has been doing a half-year special study course in economics. She was allowed by her prof to get one credit in economics by doing six months of research and producing a 60-page paper. Yes, she aced it.
By the end of this year, her academic career should be over. Her singing one is already nicely launched.
The DVD of her concert appearance at The Montreal Jazz Festival, which was recently on Bravo Television, is now being edited for a September release. She goes back into the studio for her critical third album in the fall.
When we talked on the phone last week, Milman was still abuzz with the energy of the Ron Duquette-produced Feelings From The Heart: The Mayor's Valentine Tribute to Oscar Peterson, also at LAC.
Like all of the performers that night, she was extremely nervous in paying tribute to Oscar. Needless to say, she needn't have worried.
She sang Tenderly (both the song and the style) with the inestimable Oliver Jones (photo) and then closed the show with a rousing version of Sweet Georgia Brown with the all-Mississauga rhythm section of Pat Collins on bass, Sly Juhas on drums and Nancy Walker on piano.
Milman's touring band includes just about everyone on Make Someone Happy including Walker's husband, Kieran Overs.
"I still can't believe he's in my band. He's a Canadian legend, just a monster player," says Milman. "The rest of the band is a lot younger. It went so well in the studio we thought 'Why not ask Kieran to be part of the band?' But he had great teaching gigs and a lot of good gigs in Toronto so we didn't think he'd say yes. But he agreed and it's been an amazing experience.
"He has a positive nature and brings a lot of warm energy. He's really calmed things down," she says.
Walker, the recent winner of the Keyboardist of the Year award in the National Jazz Awards, is in Emilie-Claire Barlow's band. Overs is in Milman's. The Port Credit couple are clearly both front-runners in the Instrumentalist-Most-Likely-To-Be-Backing-The-Next-Diana Krall sweepstakes.
There won't be any losers in that contest.
You can hear Milman's take on all things jazz when she is interviewed by Ralph Benmurgui on Jazz-FM, Thursday morning at 8:40 a.m.