Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Thompson, My Mimi

My Mom’s mom left quite an impression on me. How do you describe someone and catch their essence?  It is so much easier to feel who they are by seeing them on video.  However, that wasn’t available in those days so I’ll just have to tell you about her.  For all the admiration I had for her, I learned from my Mom that she wasn’t totally motherly, if at all.  But that aside for now, I’ll tell  you what I thought.  

She was very pretty.  As far as I could remember her, she had thick, white, white hair, always perfectly coiffed. She was extremely feminine and carried her petite frame with dignity and class.  I thought she walked like she was treading on raw eggs.  So gentle.  And Mimi was very intelligent.  She could engage in good conversation, but she did not curse.  One day I said, ’damn’ and she cried.  Her profession was Social Director at big hotels like Chaffant Hadden Hall Hotel in Atlantic City.  Her marriage to a Hotel Manager lasted for 15 years and ended in divorce, which was outrageous in those days. She never remarried. Her husband, my Mom’s dad, died with cancer at 46. He was a heavy smoker and that  must have contributed to his demise.

Mimi was an excellent bridge player.  We were impressed when someone in the 50’s bid $100 on her hand!  Our love for cards comes from her for sure, but the gift didn’t come with it, unfortunately.

Mimi retired in Ottawa and lived in an apartment with her old friend, Nel Rae, on Somerset near Elgin in Ottawa.  It was an old Victorian house which has since been torn down and replaced with condos. I visited her often there.    

At the end of  her life, she got dementia. She was in the hospital for a while and I used to visit her on the way to my job as a bunny at a night club.  I carried with me a little Samsonite suitcase for my bunny outfit.  When she saw the suitcase, she would insist I stay over. I’d counter that she didn’t have a bed.  I think she thought she was in a hotel and I could get a room or at least a bed.  She’d reply she had a hide-a-bed.  I’d ask ‘Where is it?’ and she would say, ‘You can’t see it, it’s so well hidden.’  She was so cute.  One time her nighty strap fell over her shoulder.  She coyly cooed, ‘That’ll be 25 cents please.’

She died within 2 years at the age of 66. She was well missed.

All my grandparents died of smoking related illness:  Mimi with artereol-schlerosis, her husband, cancer, my Dad’s dad, Herbie, with emphysema and my Dad’s mom, Grammy,  with a heart attack. None of them saw 70.  Their 3 boys outlived them by a long shot:  John presently 92, (2015) Shaun 78, and Ian passed at 87 in 2011.

Carleton

Carleton years, 1966-1969

University was a challenge for me. I was afraid to go and then I didn’t want to leave. But go I did and I did leave as well when the time came.  I had to work hard for my marks.  I didn’t care for the multiple choice exams for psychology.  I felt they were grossly unfair and only existed because they were easy for the teacher to mark. I much preferred essay answers where I could explain myself and my logic.

I wasn't much of a party person.  Kids then were getting into marijuana and it didn’t interest me.   I dated and went out with Krish for a while, a Trinidadian student. My family didn’t approve and this began a reputation I was to have of picking the wrong men.

I was in residence the first year.  This is where I met Shirley Keen, who was to become a very good friend as well. Her parents had died when she was younger, leaving her two brothers to take care of her.  I got the feeling that they tried to put her to one side so she wouldn’t be too much trouble.  They committed her and she was branded schizophrenic.  She would go for shock treatments.  I didn’t see anything wrong with her.  She had a heart of gold.  She was a smoker and I started to nibble on them with her. I still have visions of the day in the cafeteria when she lit up a cigarette and accidentally lit her hair on fire.  She wasn’t aware of it but we jumped on it and put it out in good time before it did any damage.

For my second year at Carleton, I rented a room and in my third year, I rented an apartment. That apartment was $80 a month.  It was on Bank Street over a bakery and a camera shop.  I shared it with three other girls.  I can remember it being so hot in the summer  that one night I woke up, drunk with the heat, and wrapped myself in a wet towel. This saved me from dying from the heat, I’m sure.

I can also remember surviving on the pastries in the bakery.

Deirdre was one of my roommates.  I was studying at Carleton and she was studying to be a nurse. She eventually left and married Rick Guthrie.

However, It was in this apartment on Bank that I met the handsome Don Murray whom I was later to marry and stay with for 25 years.  He arrived at the door one day with his dashing friend, Brian Dunn, looking for Deirdre. Don at the time, was taking his flying course with the air force, in Gimlie,  Manitoba, with our mutual friend, Dixon Kenny. Dixon  suggested Don look up his sister, Deirdre, in Ottawa.  And so it was that there Don was at my door, dimples and all.  Deirdre was out. I served them tea.

Aside from meeting Don, a couple of interesting things happened while I lived in this apartment. The men downstairs in the camera shop recommended I represent the Glebe Business section in the Ottawa Winter Carnival as a Carnival princess, which I did. After this they nominated me to run for the Tulip Festival Queen. I was an Ottawa Tulip Festival Princess.   

Then it was Miss Canada. This time I was lost.  I just didn’t know what to wear and was overwhelmed.  My mother was in Town of Mount Royal in Montreal, far away from my dilemma. So, under protests and admonitions of the organization, I quit. A girl I knew at Carleton won the title that year. I often wondered how my life would have been different if I had made a different choice that day.

This was 1969, my final year at Carleton. This was the Spring I miraculously bumped into Mac Prescott in the hallway.  This was the summer I worked for the B&B Commission in Northern Ontario and saw the moon men land on the moon on a TV in a store window.  This was the spring I met Don Murray.

Chapter 7