Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Reta was my favourite aunt when I was a boy. She had a blue VW beetle in the early 60s, and always kept a little notebook of her mileage because it had no gas guage. Her notes mustn’t have been quite perfect because I remember her squirming one time to turn a little lever with her foot. It was the extra gas reserve. She needed it to get home! I still smile and remember her when I see one of those old VW bugs.
In an era when women rarely lived alone, Reta lived as a successful independent woman in an upstairs apartment on Botsford Street in Moncton. She was a professional Stenographer. She qualified by taking a battery of Federal Civil Service examinations in typing, dictation in shorthand, filing and organizing. It was a time when being a Stenographer was still a valued skill. She had a significant and successful career.
Then, she met the love of her life, Bob McQuinn. If you see her wedding photos, I am the little boy standing beside them holding a cushion. I was ring bearer. My Uncle Bob came with a love of Penobsquis and was a builder. My cousin Brian soon followed. They lived in Sussex for a while and then Bob built a lovely bungalow adjacent to the McQuinn family farm. Bob came from a farming background as did my own dad, so his values, stories and infectious laugh fit our family culture. The distance between Gunningsville and Penobsquis and the age gap between Brian and myself were just a little too much for us to be very close, but I envied his easy access to outdoor adventure. Brian was much loved by Aunt Reta and his dad. I know there was a flock of McQuinn cousins who grew up with Brian and made him a loved part of the Penobsquis crew.
Time and tragedy struck Reta’s life in the most cruel way. She lost her husband Bob, the love of her life, to time and early decline. Then she lost her only son Brian in a terrible accident. Being the youngest of her MacLean family siblings, she also had the sadness and grief of watching her beloved brothers and sisters pass away before her. Despite occasional drama, they were a close and loving family. Reta, like my mother Ann, both loved their brother Earl and mourned his death at war. I heard stories of young Reta travelling out west to visit Violet in BC. She made pilgrimages to Bartibog Bridge to dote first on her mother, then on Andrew and Barney. I remember her at polite family dinners with Aunt Gertrude in Moncton. One of Reta’s many quiet accomplishments was following her brother Harry into Masonic Orders. She was a Past Matron of the Order of the Eastern Star. Reta could always be counted on to have neat precise records, to show up with beautifully typed versions of papers or letters. She even typed the tags on presents and had typed labels on boxes of letters and personal things around the house. Aunt Reta cooked the same MacLean family recipes as my mother Ann. She and my mother laboured over their dark and light fruit cakes months before Christmas. The cake had to age. Both their cakes always turned out almost exactly the same. That my mother and Reta could giggle and laugh like schoolgirls was always a wonder to me as a boy because they were both otherwise always so proper.
Reta was a bubbly social and even giggly Auntie at times, but she was also smart, gracious and polite in that early-mid 20th century well-brought-up style. She knew how to serve proper tea and had a mastery of that whole school of etiquette. There are photos of her looking like a 1950s model, with curly blonde hair and a very fetching smile. I know she made her way in Penobsquis and Sussex society and must have had the love of many kind friends. When I last spoke to my Aunt Reta in her late 80s, she still had a Miramichi accent. She must have been the last person I ever heard to use the word “wee” to describe things, particularly me. She referred to me as “wee Ian” decades into my adulthood. Reta naturally inspired love and affection. Bob McQuin was a good man, and a very lucky man to have built a life with Reta, as she was so lucky to find him.
Time and life’s pressures happen to all of us and I did not pay my loving Aunt Reta the attention and care I might have as an adult. I know she was loved by people around her, certainly by me. Her family, friends and neighbours loved and respected her too. The McQuinns, the kind folks at her homes in Apohaqui and Sussex, her church friends, and even the young friend who did her sad duty by looking through my Aunt Reta’s notebooks to call me this morning. These were all people who I know loved and respected her. I am sure there are so many more. Thank you for loving my Aunt Reta and caring for her and about her.
Reta, Bob and Brian are together now. No more loneliness. No more pain. This summer I will pass by Penobsquis and stop to shed some tears and pray, thankful that I knew my mother’s sister as well as I did.
Being the last of a large and close family must have been difficult. Losing and missing Bob and Brian must have been the most painful thing possible for her. Reta dear, your sojourn here is done. God bless you Aunt Reta. Godspeed on the way to be with the ones you so loved.
