Dad’s wish to reconnect with family fulfilled

By Lethbridge Herald on April 22, 2023.

LEAVE IT TO BEEBER
Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald

I don’t know about any of you but life seems to be getting way too seriously lately. There is so much conflict in this world that it seems we are constantly bombarded with negativity from every angle.

I try to be an upbeat, positive guy but sometimes I have to admit my smile is forced and fake and my temper is on the verge of letting loose. It happens to us all from time to time and I think a big part of it is because we are all overwhelmed by the stresses of daily life.

Stress takes a toll, no matter our age, our health or financial circumstance. None of us is immune to it.

I did lighten up a bit on Thursday with a disastrous effort to be funny on 4-20, the big day for the stoner culture.

I gathered some snacks and leisurely on my basement sofa tried to do my daily video by casually tossing bags of Cheezies onto the floor and a can of Coke theoretically onto the ottoman right beside me.

I missed the ottoman and the Coke can exploded when it hit the carpet so I had to jump on it like a soldier onto a grenade to prevent peripheral damage. 

Oh well, it was worth the effort. And worth a laugh.

Last weekend I left the pressures behind and focused on laughs by welcoming to southern Alberta a cousin I apparently had never met, who came to Lethbridge with her husband and daughter – a cousin who never before met any of her Alberta family.

Penelope Oshatz is the daughter of my dad’s late sister Margo Patrick and husband Charles. Margo was the daughter of my grandpa Harry Bieber and his first wife, Amy Athalia Newell whose ancestor was the first Caucasian woman to set foot on Sable Island.

 The couple produced three children including Margo and her sisters Dorothy and Caroline. One of Dorothy’s daughters, to go completely off-track here, was Marie Antal who many in southern Alberta will know because she and her husband Dean farmed/ranched near Whiskey Gap for years and Marie worked in the Cardston hospital before eventually moving to the Bigelow Fowler clinic here. I still owe her daughter Nicole for the many losses in bets I made picking my Chicago Bears over her Green Bay Packers, which might be fodder for another column. And a belated condolence to Dean here on the recent loss of his brother.

Penelope’s grandmother Amy died  at 30 of cancer in 1921, leaving Harry a widower at the age of 29. The young nurse who attended Amy in the Bassano hospital was a woman named Mary Elizabeth (Molly) McEwen and as Amy lay dying she asked her nurse to take care of her daughters, as I was told once by Molly, who was my grandmother. Molly met Harry – sounds like a movie title, doesn’t it? – through her work, I’m guessing and as fate had it, she ended up marrying the Canadian Pacific Railway station manager in Bassano.

She raised Amy’s daughters as her own and produced two more kids with Harry, their daughter Elizabeth Anne and my dad Bill, who I’ve often written about here.

We occasionally visited the Patricks on family holidays to B.C. in Kelowna –  where Charles was general manager of a radio station. Dad was close to his family there, especially in Vancouver  where he spent many summers with his cousin Doug Macleod.

Before he died dad wanted me to track down Penelope who he’d lost touch with decades ago.

 He had a watercolour painted by her mom he wanted to return and a special place in his heart for his sister’s daughter and trusted me to find her. 

Well, I did and in recent years we’ve communicated by phone and text and on Saturday I finally got a chance to meet her when she made her first visit to Alberta with her husband since 1965. 

Penelope and Steven are artists based in Eugene, Oregon, while Tanya is in the dental field in Seattle. 

In their 80s, my cousin and her spouse could pass for people in their 60s. They’re youthful, vibrant and just an absolute joy to spend time with. Tanya , who is in her 50s, could pass for 30 and like her parents is a bundle of vibrancy and energy.

In the two days our families spent together, it was like we’d been friends all our lives.  The DNA connection runs deep.

Penelope has a soft spot for my German Shepherd Rio and wanted to see the ailing dog while he is still alive and the two bonded so beautifully. 

She has a full page of photos dedicated to Rio on her phone and tells everyone she knows about him. 

And he loved the attention both from her and Tanya, one of the rare people he’ll roll onto his back for belly rubs.

While she has long been in the U.S., since moving to Los Angeles for art school in about 1961, Penelope has always been known to the family because photos of her and her parents were always on Molly’s piano in her Bellevue home which was our family’s version of social media. 

Through those photos, Molly could keep all of us informed about how our cousins, aunts, uncles et cetera were doing. And Penelope was always on her mind along with the rest of us.

While on assignments in the Pass in the late 1980s and ‘90s, I always stopped in to see her in Bellevue and on every visit she would take me to the piano to show me the latest photo crowding it. Or would give me updates on everyone. 

On Sunday for the first time since she was four years old and the piano was in my grandparents home above the CPR station in Bassano, Penelope touched those discoloured ivories. 

I can’t describe what the moment meant to us all but I know we will never forget it. I really felt at that moment like Molly was with us, watching that connection. It was so ovewhelming.

The bonds we made last weekend not only made up for lost time but will last a lifetime. And I’m looking forward to making the return visit to Eugene so we can create more memories.  And I can watch my favourite college football team – the Ducks – live.

While here, they got a chance to see  – and learn about – the city we call home and Steven  – born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles – was especially impressed with what he felt was a progressive community. 

They were all huge fans of the Galt Museum where we spent a couple of hours on Sunday. 

My plan was to also take them to Casa but there’s only so much time in a day so we spent it in a way that was quality for everyone – including Rio who I’m sure was worried about all the extra attention he was getting since it came two days after a trip to the veterinarian who has some concerns about a growth below his tail.

I wish I’d had time to write this column last week so my cousins could read about themselves as they enjoyed a coffee here. But late sometimes can be better than never. And this visit hopefully will be just the first of many more with my American cousins…Now that sounds like a movie, too.

NOTE: I want to apologize for this column being so sporadic of late. With my new duties, finding the time to write one every week has been challenging but I’m doing the best I can.

I appreciate your support of my work – and even the criticism – because we all have to take the bad with the good in life. 

It comes with the territory of being a journalist because if we were making everyone happy none of us would be doing our jobs properly.

Follow @albeebHerald on Twitter.

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