Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 08/99) - The first time I met Theresa Crane was about two years ago, when I put Northern hospitality to a bold test.

I had bought a used kayak. More than anything, the purchase demonstrated an astonishing lack of foresight, since I live in an apartment and had no place to keep the kayak. In a desperate attempt to solve the problem, I walked down my street to the nearest house on the water. Theresa was in the yard, tending her garden.

I explained who I was, where I had come from, talked about the fine weather, mentioned what a wonderful yard it was, and finally asked if I could keep my boat behind a little fence near her house.

Theresa said I could, that it was public land, but added it would probably be better to keep it next to a fence on her lawn. She would check with her husband, Dennis, just to make sure it was OK. I was invited back to meet him.

I left that first meeting feeling very fortunate to have found a place where I might be able to keep my kayak. During the many times we've paused to chat as I went to and from my boat, I've realized that the real luck that day was meeting a person like Theresa Crane.

Last week, she agreed to tell me a little more about herself, in order to let me introduce her to you.

Like many long-term Yellowknifers, Theresa, then Theresa Aubrey, arrived here with a plan to leave in the near future. Then, the near future was 1970, when her term as a teacher at St. Pat's was to end.

"I'd been working for 10 years as a teacher before that," she recalled. "I thought that was long enough that I could go. In those days if you went from job to job every two years, people would think there was something wrong with you."

Actually, there was a little more to it than that, but Theresa did not want to go into it.

"Let's just say I lived and taught in a religious community before that," she said. The fact of the matter was that in addition to beginning a new job, at the age of 34 Theresa was beginning a new life.

"At that time in my life I wanted to be teaching another culture. I applied to several different places and Yellowknife came through first and it looked good and I came."

Crane got exactly what she wanted. Teaching Grade 1, her first class was composed of 14 Dene students, two white girls, and two Italians, one of whom interpreted for the other.

"I loved teaching, being able to pass on to someone a love of learning... I think there's certain niches for certain people and I chose the right one for me."

The summer following that first year, Theresa bought a Eurail pass, packed her bags and did a solo whirlwind tour of Europe.

"I visited 11 countries in two months, from Spain on up to the Scandinavian countries. At that time a lot of people asked why I was going travelling by myself. My answer was why wouldn't I?"

At the end of her two-year term, Theresa was invited to stay as a music teacher for another two years. She agreed.

"I was also involved community-wise at that time," she said. "Alex Czarnecky asked me to do some musical productions. One of the first ones I was involved in was Oliver, and we also did Fiddler on the Roof, The Thirteen Daughters (a history of Hawaii), and Two Hands and Forever (a history of Yellowknife)."

Following a teaching conference here in 1971, at a gathering at The Hoist Room, now the Bistro, some fellow teachers introduced Theresa Aubrey to Dennis Crane.

A consultant working on changes the education board was making to its industrial arts programs, he invited her to accompany him to some of the open houses that teacher's held following the conference.

"Dennis had been in Yellowknife since 1969 and it was strange that we hadn't met until then, because the population was probably less than 5,000," noted Theresa.

In fact, Theresa had only seen Dennis for the first time during that conference, when he made a presentation.

"It was nice to put a face to the name. I had a girlfriend -- we're still good friends -- who was also a consultant, and she talked about him often. I wondered at the time why she didn't set her cap for him."

That was February. In May they decided to get married.

"Yes it was fast, but we both knew it was right," said Theresa.

Theresa offers up her wedding as an example of the spirit that pervaded Yellowknife in those days.

The two had decided to have a small gathering of about 11 people for the wedding and a party the next day.

"We had to have attendants. Dennis's best man was his good friend Bob Jenkins, and my maid of honour was a good friend and colleague at school, Helen Blonski. They decided to surprise us.

"They kept everything very secret from us, and yet when we arrived at the church it was full of people, and they literally put on an old-fashioned wedding."

In 1973, Theresa gave birth to a son, Stephen. The family moved shortly after from Fraser Tower apartment to the place by the water, which was a long way from where it is today.

The two bought the house during the winter. Because there was only one heater in it below the livingroom floor, they waited until summer to move in. The owner, a diamond driller from Giant Mine, agreed to rent it back for the remainder of the winter for $100 a month.

"When we moved in we didn't have room for anything because he had left everything -- everything, even the shoes under the bed," recalled Theresa.

With Dennis's sense of organization and analytical mind, the two transformed their humble house into a home, renovating and expanding, adding a greenhouse and a workshop, a dock and a dry dock for the boat they bought and used to cruise on the East Arm.

As planned, the evening of that first meeting with Theresa, I returned to visit her and Dennis. He was tall and fit and had an easy smile. Over glasses of homemade wine the three of us chatted -- about the North, about the lake, boats and winter.

Though I had just met them, I couldn't help noticing how devoted Theresa was to Dennis. That devotion undoubtedly ran both ways, but it was more apparent in Theresa, because of her barely containable energy and animated manner. With his dignified and reserved demeanour, Dennis was her perfect complement.

"I've asked myself what made everything go so smoothly and I think it was because we were both mature when we met," said Theresa.

That devotion was particularly apparent one cold fall day in 1997. Driving up Old Airport Road, I saw Theresa walking slowly with Dennis as the midday traffic whizzed by. He had been laying low after suffering two heart attacks and a stroke and was staying at the hospital. He died the last day of that year.

Two weeks before he died, doctors knew there was no chance for a recovery. Theresa lived at the hospital for those final days, with friends visiting to help her keep a vigil, but the forewarning did little to lessen the sense of loss that followed.

"You just feel totally bereft, as though there's a big hole there," Theresa said.

She has spent most of the last year coming to terms with the loss of Dennis.

"Things can not be the same. That's the reality. My life will unfold, grieving is different for everybody. Some take one year, some take two, some never do it. Some people never allow themselves to feel that pain."

Through the process she has had a lot of help from friends and family and books, gifts from friends, offering guidance on how to cope.

Theresa talks about the tasks that are part of grieving, accepting the fact that the spouse has died, allowing yourself to feel the pain of that loss and learning to live in an environment without your spouse.

It's been a huge adjustment, but Theresa said she is getting there.

"I began experiencing -- some time before Christmas -- there was joy in my life again."

A help during this time has been Theresa's volunteer work, at the hospital and with the church and at Aven Manor.

"(The death of a loved one) is a topic that's difficult for a lot of people. And for a long time it was difficult for me.

"The more you talk about it the better it is. If someone who is fairly comfortable with talking about it can let it be known that it's good to talk about these things, maybe it will help others."