Wish I could have met her: (Rosalie ) A Rememberance by Marcel Coumont-Beissig: Mary slipped from this world after a year-long painful and courageous fight with lung cancer. She did not complain, she took it in her stride and faced it head on like everything else in this life. Mary was a fighter. She left behind at home to mourn, Art, her husband of 27 years, their daughter Lena, their son Bill, her dog Cindy and her cat Daisy. Also left to mourn are her father Frank Chaplain of Bellingham, Washington and her brothers Frank Jr, John, and Chris of Boston, Massachusets and Bob of Phoenix, Arizona. I will always remember Mary for her hard work before and during election campaigns. One could describe her as a one person computer campaign. She was at various times the computer guru in Burnaby-Willingdon, New Westminster and New Westminster-Burnaby. She had served as membership-secretary on both the Burnaby-Willingdon and New Westminster Constituency Associations. She had been a member at large on the executives of the old federal riding of Burnaby and more recently served in the same capacity on the executive of the New Westminster-Burnaby riding.Her service as Provincial Council Delegate for New Westminster was cut short in the spring of 1993 by the discovery that she hadcancer. Mary was a social activist for all of her adult life. Though she came from a US Air Force family,she became very active in the anti-Vietnam war movement, participating in the 1967 and 1968 marches on the Pentagon. She was quite conscious of the Democratic' in New Democratic Party and could always be depended upon to defend the basic tennets of democracy. In 1987she organized an NDP Forum at Simon Fraser University featuring free speech advocates and the pro censorship faction of this party. In the fall of 1992 she along with another democratic stalwart of the NDP debated with a couple of local politicians and their syncophants the advisability of ratifying the Charlottetown Accord which politicians of all stripes were trying to ram downour throats. Mary's proudest moment was in 1986 when she and a group of collegues went into a local liquor store and began smashing bottles of South African wine.For this she was fined $50; the judge refused her a jail sentence. She was also forced' to appear on the evening TV news. These news clips were again shown on TV shortly before Mary's death during the leadup to the South African elections. I had only known Mary since early in 1988. We immediately became friends upon meeting. She was a very close and understanding friend. Mary was the nearest I have ever come to having a sister. What immediately struck me about her was her kindness, her friendliness, her warmth, her approachablility, and her sense of humour. She was always willing to lend a helping hand. She never found any favour too great to be asked of her. It was impossible not to like Mary. We had a common background, although from different sides of the continent. We were both survivors of that appalling experience: Catholic high schools in the sixties. Her kitchen skills were on a par with mine. That is not a laurel I hand out willy-nilly. I will always remember her cooking, her leg of lamb basted with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary. She made a terrific endive, asparagus and blue cheese salad. New Year's eve will never be the same without her gazpacho and salsa. While we are on the subject of New Year's eve, she so far holds the unique distinction of being the only person to walk out of one of my New Year's eve parties. That was because I had given her the choice of smoking on the balcony or in the bathroom. (The balcony was too cold and the bathroom was too smokey)! I will miss those long convoluted conversations with Mary playing the devil's advocate. No more trying to convince me that Gershwin was a composer equal to Bach and Beethoven and that Mozart only wrote pretty melodies. I will probably never forget the adrenaline rush of riding in Mary's big orange van down Kingsway at rush hour with her lighting a cigarette with one hand, fastening her seatbelt with the other hand and through a cloud of smoke that would do a forest fire justice saying: "It's ok Marcel, this van has very good steering." What I shall miss most of all is the lightning of her smile. Nevermore; Il balen del suo sorriso D'una stella vince il raggio! Those of you who did not know Mary missed a real treat. If there is a heaven above I am sure she is up there right now debating with God or organizing the Angels for the next celestial general election (in the smoking section of course).=
“An unguarded minute has an accident in it! Wrap that rascal!”
“Bag it before you bag her!”
“Keep your swimmers from getting to the deep end of the pool.”
“No bag, no shag.”
~
SavvyAnsley 