today, would be MOM’S 100th BIRTHDAY

My mother Tina would have celebrated her birthday today, June 4. She has been absent from her family since November 2007. Time passes and memories blur in spite of the best intentions to remember. It is photographic images that arouse the recall. 

What an interesting woman Mom was. Born in Saskatchewan in a farming community, living in Waldheim and Hepburn, she had a grade nine education and she began to work hard at an early age. She was industrious from the start, knowing how to sew, how to bake and to cook. She did unskilled work, clerking and switchboard operator. She married Edward Richard Unruh, but soon their lives were interrupted by WWII and my father’s enlistment into the Royal Canadian Air Force. The post war years began with them teaming to start and to run a Coffee Shop in Hepburn. Soon however, Dad felt that opportunity for employment and a future existed in Ontario and the family, Dad, me, and a pregnant Mom moved to St. Catharines ON.

They rented accommodation for many years, a condemned two room shack, then a downtown St. Paul St. third floor apartment, then a full house in Rosedale Gardens, a suburban subdivision on the outside of St. Catharines, then a large house on Clark St., then to James St., and finally when I was twelve, and Mom was 37 we moved to the first home Mom and Dad owned. It was a 3 bedroom bungalow with unfinished basement on Bunting Rd., well outside downtown St. Catharines. 

During all of those years, while her children grew, Mom did housework for other women, some occasional sewing of garments. She was hired to sew costumes for the local skating club. She worked in her church, Calvary Church, always in the kitchen. It was what she knew best to do, and what she became known for. In fact, over time, she operated her own Catering Business, and prepared grand dinners for large gatherings of corporations and families. Wealthy people hired Tina Unruh. Her happiest employment was as Day-time Food Services provider for Ontario Paper head office. She even prepared a cook book of her many recipes and those of others, and had my brother Neale and I design some art work, then self published 1000 copies and sold them all. 

Perhaps her greatest personal fulfillment was found as she worked with the local church women’s group, took on a leadership roll, and became recognized as a woman of integrity, of spirituality and was elected eventually to the presidency of the entire southern Ontario region. She had to lead meetings, give talks and presentations, and while humbled and sometimes terrified, she amazed herself that she could do this and that her leadership was valued. By this time, her three sons, were each of us in some form of Christian ministry ourselves. She would say over and over that we were a constant source of joy for her. 

She was a much loved mother and grandmother and great grandmother.
See also, an archived tribute from 2011.
See entry for November 2011 on a fourth anniversary of her death.

I’LL BE DOWN TO GET YOU IN A TAXI, HONEY.

My brother Murray and I Facetimed today and he told me this.

My Dad was 92 years old and he was over the moon because he was going to a Christmas Dinner with his favourite girl. Mom had been in long-term care for one year while dad lived alone in an adjoining apartment facility. It was December and Dad's apartment neighbours were scheduling an annual Christmas Dinner. Mom's meds were balanced and she was feeling better than she had in a long time. Dad asked my brother Murray, "do you think it would be okay if I took Mom to the dinner?" Murray replied, "I don't see why not." Murray made the arrangements. The caring staff promised to have Mom's hair done and a lovely dress ready to wear. Mom could be seated in a wheel chair and if she grew weary during the evening, he could leave with her. Murray sensed Dad's excitement as the date grew nearer.  Murray had Dad's suit dry cleaned, and Dad had a favourite tie to wear. Murray said he would accompany Dad to Mom's room to insure all was well. Dad was noticeably pumped about this evening. His face and his mood told Murray that Dad was going on a date, a special evening with his sweetheart. They took the elevator to the first floor and as they walked down the lengthy corridors, an enthusiastic Dad surprised Murray by breaking out in song. The tune was unfamiliar to Murray as Dad sang heartily the words to 'Darktown Strutter's Ball' a landmark 1917 recording by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Upon finishing it by the end of the corridor to Murray's utter shock, Dad jumped off the ground and clicked his heels together.

I'll be down to get you in a taxi, honey

Pick you up 'bout half past eight

Oh honey don't be late

I want to be there when the band starts playin'

Remember when we get there, honey

Two step, we're gonna have a ball

I'm gonna dance out of my shoes

When they play the Jelly Roll Blues

Tomorrow night at the Darktown Strutter's Ball

Got my new threads ready

And they're really something

With you in yours we'll look a smash

We're gonna make a splash

And when the band starts playin'

Baby we'll start swayin'

Remember when we get there honey

We're gonna dance the night away

And things are gonna hit the roof

When they see the way you move

Tomorrow night at the Darktown Strutter's Ball

Mom and Dad have been gone since 2007 and 2008 respectively, and Murray, Neale and I cannot help thinking about them occasionally.

JUNE 4 IS MOM'S BIRTHDAY

On this fourth of June, I am on a return flight from Toronto to Vancouver having been away for five weeks. We have been in Wales and England honouring my wife Christine as she celebrates her seventy years.

As I fly I am remembering my mother Tina, for whom this day was a birthday. She lived to celebrate 88 of those birthdays and she has been away from her family since November 2007.

We miss her still yet time passes quickly enough that the blurring of memories occurs in spite of our desire to remember. It is photographic images that arouse the recall.

What an interesting woman Mom was. Born in Saskatchewan in a farming community, living in Waldheim and Hepburn, she had a grade nine education and she began to work hard at an early age. She was industrious from the start, knowing how to sew, how to bake and to cook. She did unskilled work, clerking and switchboard operator. She married Edward Richard Unruh, but soon their lives were interrupted by WWII and my father’s enlistment into the Royal Canadian Air Force. The post war years began with them teaming to start and to run a Coffee Shop in Hepburn. Soon however, Dad felt that opportunity for employment and a future existed in Ontario and the family, Dad, me, and a pregnant Mom moved to St. Catharines ON.

FATHER'S DAY 2011 - EDWARD RICHARD UNRUH

My dad was a good man. He was easy to love.

I can remember him being angry only a couple of times. Once it was with a man who was troubling my mother. Another time it was with me as a youth and I deserved his annoyance.

Edward was his name. Edward Richard. English names bestowed on a Mennonite boy born on the prairies of Canada. His father Cornelius, a more common Mennonite name broke with custom. Only the oldest son carried the father’s name and it was Anglicized as well to Neale. The middle brother was Harry. Three sons, the eldest five years older than the second and eleven years older than the youngest who was my dad.

Dad and mother Tina had three sons, me Ronald James (the eldest) and I am five years older than Murray Dennis and eleven years older than Neale Bryan. In the early years of his fatherhood Dad wanted us to be thoroughly Canadian, hampered in no way by any hang-ups derived from the heritage. Little could he know how important the connection with our family history would be to us when we were adults. He and Mom spoke the Low German dialect at home with which they themselves had been raised in their Saskatchewan homes of Hepburn and Waldheim. Since I was almost five years of age before Dad and Mom moved to Ontario, I was familiar with the dialect, understanding much of it but not able to speak it. For years I did not let on that I understood what they were saying when Mom and Dad spoke privately using Low German.

Our Dad never struck us as a complex man. He was intelligent, interests in politics, current affairs and sports. He completed grade eleven, had no skilled trade but worked at available manual jobs. He was enlisted in the Canadian Air Force, never saw overseas action but was posted in the Yukon. Following WWII, our Dad, a hard working man, began a lifetime of work in factories. He was in love with his wife, committed to the care and provision of his three children, appreciated his church and what the Sunday lesson gave him for the week ahead.

He was not an ambitious man. He respected himself yet he may not have understood how well he was liked by others. He was friendly, helpful, kind. He never owned very much yet he shared what he could. He was satisfied easily. A day’s work and a day’s pay, and supper meal, and a newspaper, a nice place to sit in the back yard, a car to move the family around, a couple of weeks of summer vacation, a small pension at the end of a long time with the company.  He expected no more than that. God was good to him.

I respected him very much. As a young man if I was tempted to do anything that was at all wicked, my esteem for him, held me back. Of course he was much younger then, and most of our memories are of him advanced in years, still with a wonderful sense of humour and a pleasant spirit and endearing love for our Mom. I miss him a great deal. He died at age 93 and that was three years ago.

June 19 Addendum: Father's Day came on Sunday and I was asked to preach at our local church. I chose to speak about "God the Father" and I used the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6. The prayer begins with "Our Father who is in heaven..." Christine had prepared a light lunch and my son's and daughter's families came. After dinner I took my five grandchildren for a long walk to the school yard to play on the apparatus and then to the corner store for a slurpy. We hung around until early evening snacking on lunch leftovers. We enjoyed a good family day. I like that.