Feb 25, 2022
Cool People — Suzanne Blake
A Lovely Lady
Suzanne Blake, Whenever I think of her or see her photograph, I always smile. A very cool lady.
Sometime in the 1960s, I had decided to move away from the rather tacky area of town I had been living in. The two last straws for me had been a noisy and bloody knife fight in the alley behind my apartment, and some serious LSD episodes with some of the hippies I knew as friends.
I had met a couple of Mormon Missionaries who braved the neighbourhood for dinners with me and my best friend Anne. They all convinced me that moving away would be a good plan. The missionaries also convinced me that joining the Mormon church would be awesome for me. (You can read about that here https://medium.com/weeds-wildflowers/take-me-to-the-river-drop-me-in-the-water-1143d5b9da4d.)
Thanks to the kindness of my best friend’s Mom, I moved in with them. I was turning over a new leaf. Anne’s family were the nicest people ever but they had a small house, 2 young kids — a boy and a girl, and Anne, their big fluffy cat, Cat, and Anne’s German Shepherd dog, Peter. So, it was a bit of a squeeze at Anne’s place, fun but tight, so when I met a nice lady at the church (through the missionaries), who was looking for a boarder, I decided to move to her home.
Suzanne Blake was a lovely, serene lady. She had a small, detached two-bedroom home five minutes from Anne’s place and 10 minutes from the church. It was very handy to the subway so I would still be able to easily get to work. It was great that it wasn’t far from Anne’s place since we usually went to the horse boarding farm together.
Suzanne had a nice big garden where she grew assorted flowers and vegetables, and she also had a big tabby cat. The cat was, she explained, the reason she needed a boarder.
Evidently, her husband of 30 years had decided to take a hate to the cat, and had told her “Either the cat goes, or I go.” Suzanne calmly told him “The cat stays”. Mr. Blake immediately packed his bags and walked out without a backward glance.
Suzanne told me that he was a hardworking man who had been a baker all his life. He was also a mean, humourless and hard man and she was not sorry to see him go. She never said, but I suspect he did not like that she had joined the Mormon Church. They had a grown daughter who was married. So, the outcome was that Suzanne had a spare room and wanted to get a little cash to help defray expenses.
Suzanne never asked me to help with household chores, but I pitched in because she was so nice and I could see that she really appreciated the help. I also volunteered to help her with her garden. She did most of the cooking, but I would sometimes help out in the kitchen, making some Portuguese specialty for her. We liked one another's company and shared a lot of laughs. We slowly became good friends.
I found out that Suzanne was a retired social worker in Toronto. Suzanne was originally from Switzerland. She had made her way to Canada, gone to university to get the necessary credentials to be a social worker and had immediately begun to work for the city of Toronto. Her assigned district was in a very poor downtown area where a lot of drunks and drug addicts ended up. Working with those people had been no picnic and she said that she was glad to be out of social work and wanted to get that part of her life behind her.
We fell into a routine where I went to church with Suzanne on Sunday mornings. She made sure to introduce me to all the church VIPs (well, so they thought of themselves) and tried to get me involved in various church programs. I ended up being a “youth leader” which involved figuring out how to get an assorted bunch of kids between the ages of 8 and 12 to get involved in assorted activities such as plays. (You can read about that here https://medium.com/weeds-wildflowers/charlie-brown-christmas-catastrophe-cd6fa05e0676.)
I also got the job of being a Sunday School teacher with the same rotten little band of kids. Suzanne thought this was great and gently encouraged me to persevere when I expressed frustration in dealing with the kids.
Suzanne was a wonderful person to have as a mentor. She was very wise, she never talked down to me, or treated me as a lesser person. She was always ready to hand out good advice, comfort or support. She treated me like a daughter. Her own daughter, Ellie, despised me and seemed to feel that it was my fault her father had left, even though he had left well before I arrived on the scene. Ellie was very much like her father — mean, humourless and hard. Suzanne expressed sorrow that they were not as close as she had hoped. I thought Suzanne was amazing and couldn’t figure out why Ellie was so cold and mean.
The two missionaries that had helped to convince me to move, and join the church, often dropped over to help in the garden and to have dinner with us. Mormon missionaries spend two years out in the field trying to get new members and they live very frugal lives. They are not allowed to date or be social with the opposite sex. It’s worth noting that they were both madly in love with Anne and were always trying to figure out how to get her to join the church. Even though it was breaking the rules, they would arrange to meet Anne and I for hikes with Anne’s dog, Peter, or to do their favourite winter sport of tubing.
Suzanne was aware of these goings-ons, but she liked all of us and did not rat on us, although she told us to be VERY careful to avoid getting into trouble with the powers that be!
Suzanne loved Anne. Whenever Anne would come by for a visit, Suzanne was always very happy and we would sit around drinking tea and snacking on some freshly made cookies. Both Suzanne and the Missionaries tried gently to get Anne to join the Mormon Church. A solid agnostic, Anne resisted.
The Mormon church had a program (maybe they still have it) called the Home visitors. This was a weekly visit that would be made by two of the church elders. Once weekly, they would visit all the families in their district and make sure they were doing well and of course, following church guidelines. (Like not smoking or drinking). They had certain evenings they could be expected. During my stay with Suzanne, we used to watch a little television after dinner with nature shows being our faves, but I introduced her to the rather naughty and sometimes slightly off-colour Rowan and Martins’ Laugh-in. Suzanne had a wicked sense of humour and loved the show. A few times the Home Visitors showed up while we were watching Laugh-In and Suzanne would turn up the sound and pretend she had not heard the doorbell. Her little bit of defiance and independence.
Suzanne was solidly behind me during the Big Blue bird incident, as she was after I accidentally backed into the car of a bad-tempered church member. (You can read about theBig Blue Bird incident here https://medium.com/weeds-wildflowers/big-blue-bird-9e7ad50249b7 )
The fashion of the day for girls was very short skirts. This really upset some of the Church people, and one particular senior entity demanded that I needed to dress more modestly, revealing less skin. Suzanne was directly responsible for my adopting a kaftan as a more “modest” dress style. The kaftan in question was bright red with large red and dark orange random patterns on it. “they can say this doesn’t cover you up” she said grinning evilly as we left for church. Suzanne had made the kaftan for me and had added a hood to it, making resemble a rather bizarre KKK outfit. The garish red and orange kaftan had the desired effect.
The main complainer was the “Bishop”. His son (a good friend of mine)later told us that the Bishop had apparently groaned and buried his face in his hands as Suzanne and I waltzed in... Suzanne later annoyed him greatly by looking him in the eye and saying “Well you can’t say that is immodest.”
Suzanne afterwards told me that some people are followers, and some are leaders. Then stated that only 2 percent are leaders. Then she smiled wickedly and patted my head and announced “It’s lonely at the top, isn’t it?”
Assorted “senior” church people were very keen for me to get married (perhaps feeling that I was a loose cannon, possibly as a result of incidents like the Christmas play and the red kaftan). A concerted and rather obvious move to “hook “ me up with suitable single male church members began. They ran assorted suiters by me with most being derailed by my loosey-goosey approach to life. Eventually, they dug up a shy chap in his late 30s who really needed to get married and have a family before it was “too late.” Their clumsy efforts at getting us together included always managing to seat us beside each other; pairing us off at activities; and persuading Suzanne to have him over for dinners frequently.
Suzanne did not really approve of him as a suitor, feeling that he was too much of a stuffed shirt for my hyperactive personality. (Anne felt the same way.) Ultimately she proved to be right, and although we did marry, and actually went through the Temple ceremony in Salt Lake City (dreadful and tedious experience), not long after the ill fated wedding, we split up and got divorced.
All through that particular drama, Suzanne was there for me. Never judgemental, always supportive and always my friend.
I kept in touch with Suzanne for a long time. She got to meet my one true love and partner, Bruce, and we spent some happy hours visiting with her. Eventually, she sold her house in Ontario and moved to Calgary to be near her daughter. We still kept in touch exchanging long letters and lots of photographs. I had hoped to pay her a visit in Calgary, but although the trip was booked, everything got messed up and we never did get to see her. So, sadly, I never got to visit her before she passed.
R.I.P. Suzanne, I hope you knew you were such an inspiration to me.
