The winter continued with family, work, school, and church activities in Ottawa. After their confirmations, the children took different roles at church. Cyn taught the youngest Sunday School class, 3 and 4 year-olds, and Linda took the next class up. The rector was now the Reverend Llewellyn Graham, a widower with a scholarly attitude, a love of England where he had studied, and a wicked sense of humour when among friends. The whole family enjoyed his visits and Charlie became an altar boy and helped during services.
In February, there was excitement in St. Vincent when the Queen and Prince Philip visited. Cec travelled too, to a conference in Texas. From Saskatchewan came the news from John and Sharon of the latest arrival to the family- Steven Moor- who was the first boy of the next generation, and everyone was sorry they lived so far away and couldn’t show off their baby. From B.C. there was a photo of Carman and Leona’s family, David, Robin, Philip, and Leslie. The Costain grandparents (who lived in Penticton near the Carmans) were coming to Ontario in the summer to visit and celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary, and we all hoped to meet the cousins if the western families came too.
Around Easter, Cec went to a meeting in Washington, staying with a scientist friend. Because the friend’s young brother had a part in the play, Cec saw Gielgud’s newest production Ivanov on its pre-Broadway tour when he went with them to see it, and actually met John Gielgud and Vivian Leigh backstage after the performance. Cyn pasted the Playbill into the scrapbook with the young man’s name highlighted: Miller Lide. Later, her mother would write about Gielgud and Leigh holidaying on Young’s Island in St. Vincent after the Broadway run had finished.
April was Cyn’s birthday, celebrated with a card from one of her New York cousins down visiting her mother in the West Indies, and, as the summer approached, it was the season for weddings. The scrapbook celebrates three: children of old friends of Cyn’s in England, and invitations from the young men in the Lab- Klaus Huber and Phil Bunker.
And at the end of May, the letters resume, and although not regularly preserved by Carol in St. Vincent, there are enough to give a more intimate look at the mid 60s, for which I am very grateful! The antics of the Golden Wedding that summer deserve a blow-by-blow description…
A Family History in Letters 