Elsa Marie Morris,
née Else Marie Mathilde Gjermstad,
October 7, 1917 to November 26, 2010
Favourite portrait, taken in 1981, at age 64.
Elsa came into this life in Sparbu, on the west coast of Norway, where her father, Harris Gjermstad, himself born in Chicago, had become a prosperous storeowner. The family’s good fortune was ended by the post WW I economic malaise that led to the Great Depression. There came a time when Elsa and a younger brother had to share the same pair of shoes. Elsa’s father departed the land of fiords, trolls, and Henrik Ibsen, for Canada, to Trail, British Columbia. He announced himself as a carpenter, and went to work for the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company (Cominco). After a couple of years of scrupulous saving, he was able to bring his wife, Olga, and two sons, Morten and Hans, to a small homestead near Rossland, above the Columbia River Valley in which lay Trail, and the Cominco smelter. Elsa remained with her married sister, Olga, in Trondheim, until 1934, when at age seventeen, she traveled by ship and by train across an ocean and a continent to join parents and siblings. Like other members of her family, Elsa began life in Canada by working for Cominco. As with many other immigrant families of that era, the Gjermstads in B.C. Canadianised their name, and became the Johnsens.
A true Norwegian, Elsa had pretty well grown up on skis. With Rossland’s Red Mountain as her practise hill, Elsa Johnsen very soon made her mark in the West Kootenays as a competitive skier, taking trophies at many ski tournaments, including the Western Canadian Championship Slalom and Downhill events in 1942. In that year Elsa married Arthur Morris, of Trail, and followed him to Brockville, Ontario while he trained with the Canadian Army. World War II ended before Arthur could fight in it. In 1945 the couple moved back to BC. Elsa gave birth to a son, Wayne, in Rossland, and the young family then moved to the University of British Columbia, while Arthur completed his degree in engineering (geology).
Once a working geologist, Arthur gravitated to exploration. Much of the rest of his life was spent looking for mineral deposits, or mapping the geology of remote areas, in the wilds of North America. He returned to civilisation and family to write reports, and be assigned to the next tract of wilderness. Arthur changed employers frequently, and the young family moved often. Elsa bore her second son, Christopher, in Kimberley, in 1950. She subsequently made homes in Campbell River (1954); Denver, Colorado (1955); North Vancouver (1957); Regina (1958); and Vancouver (1965), where Elsa continued to reside until her death.
Handsome family, Regina c.1959
Elsa was a passionate woman, unafraid to show her emotions. Yet she possessed a whole lot of common sense. She liked people, and had a profound respect for the autonomy of others. Throughout her life she participated in activities and organisations that involved social interaction and advancement of the common weal. At various times she was a member of the Trail, Rossland, and Kimberley Ski Clubs; headed the Regina-Moose Jaw Ski Club and ran its ski school; participated in the Voice of Women; instructed ski classes for the Sons of Norway on Mount Seymour; joined the Elizabeth Fry Society to be a visiting companion to inmates at Okalla Prison; was for many years very active in the Liberal Parties of both Canada and BC; was member of the civic party TEAM, and stood for election to Park Board; volunteered at the Vancouver Mental Health Association drop-in centre for ex-mental patients; became a member of the Marpole-Oakridge Area Council; was a long time a member of the Consumers Association of Canada and a volunteer on its phone help lines.
Elsa’s son, Christopher, became afflicted with schizophrenia in his late teens. When he finally got treatment he was in and out of Riverview Mental Hospital for a couple of years. His condition would improve when in care, and deteriorate when he was consigned to half-way houses. In 1974, while in Riverview, he tried to end his life by jumping through a second floor window. The fall broke his thumb, and many of his ribs. The broken bones tore up his lungs, and much of his brain died from lack of oxygen. But his life was saved. Chris lived another twenty seven years in extended care facilities, as a helpless quadriplegic. These events were a devastating tragedy for the family.
Beyond the constant sorrow seeing her son so badly incapacitated, remembering him as a healthy youth, and imagining the life he might have had, there are formidable stresses that go along with having a loved one who cannot speak for himself in the care of others. Communication with hospital staff and administrators must be handled with delicacy, despite the passions one may be feeling around any matter of concern. Elsa faced this situation with remarkable courage. She was Christopher’s chief care-giver advocate through most of his life as an invalid, and fulfilled that role with the thoughtfulness and tact needed to be effective, despite at times being frantic with worry. In the eyes of this writer, that aspect of Elsa’s time on this earth was her crowning glory.
Elsa and Arthur separated in 1976. Arthur died in 1984.
Elsa remained active until she was into her late seventies and the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease began to interfere. As she grew older, and spent more time around home, she became a friend to the street beggars of south Granville Street, stopping to make a small donation and chat daily, as she walked to buy her newspaper. On one occasion, walking by herself in the evening, she had a bad fall on the sidewalk. It was one of the street people who picked her up and took her home.
Christopher died in 2001. By this time Elsa could not retain the memory of his passing, and she suffered the grief anew many times, when reminded. Sadly, Elsa had to spend the last four years of her life in nursing homes. But despite the depredations visited on her by Alzheimer’s, her love of life, and the people, flora and fauna, with which she shared it, remained strong until her very last days. She was always attentive to the needs of others around her, and delighted to see her son, Wayne, on his nearly daily visits, as well as the caretakers that came regularly to accompany them on outings. Mother and eldest son had become very close over the last twenty years of Elsa’s life. No matter what the Alzheimer’s took from her, she was able to call him by name until the end, when pneumonia finally robbed her of breath, and life.
click on photos to enlarge
Elsa is survived by her son, Wayne, who resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, nephews and nieces in British Columbia and Norway.
Final summer, August 2010, with faithful outing companion, Ivy, and son, Wayne.
Desiderata
– written by Max Ehrmann, lawyer in Terre Haute, Indiana, circa 1920 –
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
