Diane’s warm smile welcomes the writer to her room at the Manitoulin Centennial Manor in Little Current. Introductions had been made a week earlier and now Diane was ready to share some of the highlights of her life. “My husband Bill just moved from our home in the Rockville area to Little Current to the new apartments where the furniture store used to be. He still has a lot of unpacking to do and that includes our photos.”
The following week, both Bill and Diane were at her bedside. A delightful moose, a gift from youngest son, Jim, is covered with flashing lights as he stands guard at the door. Inside the room Bill has spread out on the bed an amazing array of their life in photos.
“My mother was born in the English countryside. She was just two years old when she arrived with her older sister and her parents Margaret and Harry Brailsford to Port Colborne in southern Ontario. Her father had driven a locomotive in Liverpool prior to immigrating to Canada. In Port Colborne he worked for INCO. My maternal grandmother died quite young, after an appendix operation. The surgery team had forgotten to remove a pad and she died of infection. She left my grandfather with a four-year old and a two-year old.” Harry eventually remarried after his cousin introduced him to Edith Cooper in New York. Edith was English too.
“My dad’s family, the Grahams, came from Scotland and settled in the Owen Sound area where my dad was born. My paternal grandfather had been adopted so we didn’t know too much about his family. My dad would have five siblings.”
“My maternal grandfather worked on the boats of the Welland Canal in Port Colborne while his family lived in Owen Sound. My parents met in Owen Sound when my mother came for a visit to see her librarian friend in that city. After my parents married, they moved to the Port Colborne area where my dad, a tinsmith, worked for Maple Leaf Milling Company.”
Diane was born on August 8, 1940 to Jack and Ethel (nee Brailsford) Graham in the local nursing home, the same place her brother had been born five years earlier. The woman who ran the home was a friend of the family. The nearest hospital was in Welland. Dorothy Diane was named after her maternal aunt Dorothy. To avoid confusion, her parents called their daughter Diane.
“In later years my mother worked as a secretary for my brother who was also a tinsmith. He maintained metal systems and built metal items including screened windows for boats. He would embark at Thorold on the canal and replace the windows or do maintenance work while in-transit back to Port Colborne. He also installed and repaired furnaces in homes.”
“My first memory, at four, was my aunt Dorothy coming home on leave from the Air Force, during the war. Her visit was a real highlight in our lives. She looked so regal in her uniform. Sometimes she would bring friends and they brought little gifts for us.” Other fond memories were of family picnics at the crowded Lake Erie beach. “I still recall the warm sand on my feet, the cool water and my brother teasing me. We all drove in my grandparent’s car and sat under our umbrella to eat lunch.”
Diane had to do extra chores for her one-dollar allowance. These excluded cleaning her room and doing dishes. “We always had extra duties as assigned and we enjoyed helping out. I was a bit of a hoarder with my money but I spent most for family birthdays and Christmas. Some was allocated for Saturday afternoon movies. Roy Rogers and Superman were two of my favourites.”
Classes began for the young Ms. Graham at the ‘Vimy’ School named after the famous battle. Grades one to six were housed in three classrooms, two grades in each. Grades seven and eight had their own rooms. “I remember Mrs. Longwell who had a pleasant outlook. I liked reading, writing, arithmetic and spelling.”
At recess the young lass played baseball, marbles and skipped rope with friends. ‘Knitter-natter’ consisted of twisting yarn around four finishing nails emerging from the top of an empty wooden spool. Yarn was pulled over the nails with a crochet hook or just your fingers. The ‘snake’ emerging from the bottom of the spool could be fashioned into a decorative items like a pot holder. “I also saw Princess Elizabeth when I was a Brownie, age eight. That was my first celebrity and I was quite thrilled.”
Diane took a secretarial course at Port Colborne High School. “I was on staff for the yearbook and helped write those optimistic little verses under each student photo. We tried to make them prophetic but funny too.” The teen loved volleyball, basketball and singing in the Glee Club. Dances were a highlight as well.
Like his bride, Bill went to a small rural school before attending the same high school. “We had four classes and our teacher was also the principal.’ He still remembers playing an innocent prank on his teacher. “We usually gave valentines to all our friends. One time I gave my teacher a valentine, a funny one that displayed a lady with a wart on her nose. She caught me putting it into her mail box but she didn’t say too much.
Two coincidences made it possible for Diane to meet Bill Trayner. He was a neighbour and he was her brother’s best friend.” At first, Bill was much more of a friend than a beau. One day Bill’s sister couldn’t use two tickets to a dance she had purchased, due to other commitments. She gave the tickets to Bill and Bill asked Diane if she would go with him. She said yes. “At first he was rather shy and quiet with me but in time we grew to be quite close,” Diane shares. Bill says of his first meeting with Diane, “She was just a baby, five years younger and she lived across the street. She was the sister of my best friend.” Four years passed before the couple decided to marry. Bill was finishing his geology degree at Queens University in Kingston.”
“Our wedding on December 26, 1958 was a beautiful evening service and still stands out clearly as a major event in my life,” Diane offers, smiling at the memory. “Candles decorated the St. James Anglican Church in Port Colborne. Mostly close friends and family, about 40 people, shared the ceremony with us. Snow was falling softly as we left the church to head for the reception at my parents’ home. Bill’s mother had made our cake.”
When the couple left the reception, Diane’s brother Robert followed them. He had some jovial prank in mind but luckily they managed to lose him when he ran out of gas. The couple headed for the nearby honeymoon capital of Niagara Falls and they spent the weekend at the vacated apartment of Bill’s brother. Then Bill had to get back to his classes at Queens.
The couple rented a small apartment in Kingston. “I couldn’t get a job for the short time we would be here because we were planning to move as soon as classes were over in late April. For Bill, it was challenging to get a job in geology at the time so teaching became a good choice for him.” Bill’s first job was in Iroquois Falls where he taught math at high school for a year. “We were there for the cold part of the year, arriving in September and leaving in June after school was over, so we didn’t really appreciate all Iroquois Falls had to offer.”
The couple had three children, Judith, John and Jim. Judy was born in Port Colborne, John in Newmarket where the family moved after their stint in Iroquois Falls. Jim was born in Sudbury. “When John was four we visited my brother Robert’s cottage,” Diane relates. “John was fishing off the dock beside his uncle when he suddenly fell into the water. His head went under the murky water but Robert quickly pulled him out and placed him upright, back on the dock. The youngster stood there, somewhat stunned, still holding his fishing rod. Apparently that precious new item was invaluable and had to be protected at all cost.”
Something similar happened to Jim much later when they bought their cottage on Manitoulin Island. He was three. “We were all standing in the front yard talking about the cottage. Jim had run to the water and with great excitement he ran right off the neighbour’s dock. The water wasn’t deep and he was quickly rescued, still wearing his glasses when pulled out. He was subsequently restricted in a ‘coral’ in the front yard. His favourite game was throwing his glasses and hitting the cabbage patch. As Jim got older he got to be our neighbour’s, Mr. Kelley’s, apprentice, helping him fix things at the cottage.
The Trayners stayed in busier, bigger Newmarket for seven years. Bill was teaching high school students. Diane joined the Eastern Star, the curling club and she volunteered for the Cancer Society. She enjoyed learning how to knit and began to make hats, mitts and sweaters for the kids. Bill curled too and spent quite a few evenings coaching the basketball team and accompanying them to various neighbouring cities on the school bus.
After seven years of teaching, Bill decided to try his hand in geology and found he liked this type of work too. “We moved to the Onaping area where I was employed with Falconbridge,” Bill explains. “My job as Project Geologist for underground work had me managing specialized tasks to facilitate the flow of production for the miners. This was very rewarding work.”
Diane was pregnant with Jim and the family lived in a rented cottage right on the mine road bordering on Moose Lake. “I remember being out on the lake with Bill in a canoe we purchased for recreation. I was about eight months pregnant. We had to pass through a narrow tunnel or culvert at one point and bending down to get through was particularly challenging with my rotund shape, but we managed.” Bill adds, “Another time, a beaver swam under our three-foot-wide canoe. You could see his head on one side and his tail and back feet on the other side. We were impressed with his size.”
The family moved into the town of Onaping to a rented house three weeks before Jim was born. Diane was taken to Sudbury for the birth. The family stayed in Onaping, an hour outside of Sudbury, for 27 years. Both enjoyed curling and Diane volunteered with the Brownies and at the school library.
When the children were still young, the family took a trip to Disneyland in Orlando. “We stayed in a motel with a pool so they could swim. The kids loved the rides, Donald Duck, Snow White and other Disney characters. Our youngest, Jim, insisted on a restricted diet. When we went to a fancy restaurant, he would not consider budging from his favourite meal of fries and a burger.”
“We bought him a Donald Duck hat and I can still see the hat bobbing on a sleepy head as we returned on the train. He totally missed the fireworks,” Diane continues. “When we checked out of the motel and told the management how much the kids enjoyed the pool, they seemed surprised. ‘If we had known you would be swimming, we would have heated the pool,’ they insisted. “I guess the kids were used to cooler Canadian water.”
As the children gained more independence in the 1980s, in Onaping, Diane decided to take on a new career. “My daughter Judy was taking the RN program in Winnipeg and perhaps that inspired me.” Diane took the RNA course, Registered Nursing Assistant, as it was called then. She soon began to work at Laurentian Hospital, driving daily from her community to Sudbury.
“The Registered Nurses always consulted us when they came on shift. We would let them know how each patient was doing. I liked people so this helping role was very rewarding. One day the girls at work decided to get together after their shift. Later, when I began to drive home, I was met with a blizzard. I drove very slowly and arrived at one o’clock in the morning. I hadn’t phoned home because I thought I would wake Bill up. This was a mistake. I soon realized he had stayed up all night worried that I had been in an accident. I should have phoned to tell him I would be late.”
Another stormy night threatened to close the road to Onaping. “One of the girls at work suggested I stay with her mother in Azilda. I set out with this goal in mind, but the snow was so intense I couldn’t see the road let alone house numbers so I just kept crawling along. It took a few hours more, but with my front-wheel drive Ford Fiesta, I got through the snow just fine.”
In 1969 the family bought a cottage in the Rockville area of Manitoulin. “That was the year my mother died and we decided that family time was precious. This purchase would give us more time with the kids. We have spent many happy times there,” Diane acknowledges. Bill adds with a grin, “I think our family spent our best times together in that cottage. We all loved to fish but now the kids can all out-fish me.” Bill retired in 1987. That meant no more commutes between Manitoulin and Onaping for him, and even more time with the family.
About 25 years ago, during the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations, Diane travelled to England and met the sister of her first maternal grandmother, Margaret Brailsford, at the time of her 100th birthday. “It was exciting to make that family connection with the relative of our dear departed grandmother.”
“Our daughter Judy took me to Las Vegas recently,” Bill adds proudly. “We saw the Red Rock Canyon in Nevada and Mount Scion on a beautiful sunny day. Judy also got us into a few shows. We saw Shania Twain, Donnie and Marie, Tim McGraw and his wife Faith Hill. Judy had booked Shania before our trip but the others were lined up at a hotel kiosk in Vegas.”
“We are most proud of our three kids. The boys are doing well in the mining field. Oldest son John is an ‘elite’ miner working at Vale maintaining their drainage systems in the North Mine. Jim was trained as a geological technician but made the choice to work at INCO as a miner when he realized he would have to move to the Northwest Territories to work in geology. Judy works with Bayshore, providing nursing care here on Manitoulin. Our family always had a strong work ethic and I am proud of that,” Bill stresses. “All three always put all their effort into tasks they took on.” Diane and Bill have seven grandchildren, all boys.
Retirement allowed more introspection for both Bill and Diane. “My strengths are staying happy despite having to sit in a wheelchair,” Diane muses, smiling. Her main concern is the Parkinson’s Disease and the obligatory movements that are part of the disease.
“I like people and I am told that I am a patient person.” She loves to knit and quilt, creating four quilts over the years. These days, Diane is painting with oils and acrylics. Diane points to an oil painting of a sea-scape with a beautiful wave cresting and spraying white foam. The work is expertly rendered and will make an excellent gift for someone. “I love landscape art.”
Bill feels his strengths are fishing for perch, lake trout and bass on Lake Manitou. “I would often take my little boat and manoeuver myself into the middle of a cluster of other boats. It was fun to pull out one fish after another until I reached my limit,” Bill adds smiling. It would seem the other boaters might have looked on wistfully during this episode. “As for my favourite time of the year, that’s fall. I love the leaves and all the colours, the crisp air,” Bill continues. “One of our best holidays was a trip to the east coast when Judy and John were little. We camped and saw so many interesting places.”
Diane and Bill both say there is nothing they would change if they could go back in time. Diane sees Bill every day and that is very important to her. She has her hobbies that also enrich her life. Her recipe for happiness is displaying good will and trust.
Diane and Bill have been wonderful hosts and Diane smiles as we finish her story. Her stuffed bear, Andy, another gift from son Jim, sits on the bed, his big red heart prominent on his chest. He seems to reflect the demeanour and congeniality of his owner who covets him as a prized possession.
“We have seen a good cross-section of Ontario and the Manitoulin area is definitely the nicest of all”, Diane concludes. “It is a great area for fishing. People are very friendly and we loved our euchre parties.” Bill injects that he still enjoys euchre tournaments with his son-in-law Brad Parkinson. “We play in Providence Bay, Tehkummah and Mindemoya and win our share of games. I like where I am living and I really can’t ask for much more.” Diane nods in agreement. We are reminded we are in the Manor when someone comes to the door saying it is time for supper. Time to stop chatting. Thank you Diane and Bill for sharing a bit of your life with us.
