Helen Dacey Wilson
Author, broadcaster, public servant. Born on Aug. 21, 1927, in Wilson Cove, N.S.; died on June 15, 2015, in Ottawa, of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and dementia, aged 87.
Everything brightened when Hellie Wilson entered a room. She was a great listener and a fantastic storyteller, and her long, varied career as an author, broadcaster and aide to senior federal politicians gave her a broad perspective on life.
She grew up poor in Wilson Cove, N.S., the youngest of 13 children – eight girls and five boys. Her father, Kenneth, was a lobster fisherman; her mother, Mary, a domestic dynamo. Hellie wrote about her early family life in two best-selling books, Tales From Barrett's Landing and More Tales From Barrett's Landing. Both books emerged from comic stories that Hellie told as a popular radio columnist for CBC Ottawa.
Years later, she was delighted to learn that comedian Mark McKinney of Kids in the Hall fame had praised her work. When I contacted him recently to ask about that, he responded with enthusiasm. "I read Tales from Barrett's Landing repeatedly as a child," he wrote in an e-mail. "I longed to be one of that ragged gang and I am still searching for the drool-inducing improvised lobster meals, devoured after dangerously skipping school, in every five-star joint that invariably disappoints me. The book completely captured my imagination and it remains a truly hidden Canadian gem equal, in my mind, to Cheaper by the Dozen but with even more 'feral childhood' charm."
Perhaps because of her own youthful high jinks, Hellie had great patience for children. My family lived two doors down from the Ottawa home she shared with our aunt, her lifelong friend, Betty Zimmerman. My sister Fran, brother John, and I found in Hellie the rare adult who didn't view our countless transgressions as "teaching moments." Extraordinarily generous, she was the first one to laugh at our antics, overspend at our lemonade stands and finance our rickety schemes.
In addition to her books, and the cheeky articles she wrote under pseudonyms for magazines such as Chatelaine, Hellie had an impressive career in the public service. She worked as an administrative assistant to federal cabinet minister Judy LaMarsh, for the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, and as communications officer for Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
Hellie and Betty (who eventually headed Radio-Canada International) entertained a wide array of creative, politically minded, argumentative friends – feminists, activists, bureaucrats, journalists, social workers and artists – and often hired me and my siblings as servers, despite our lack of skill.
Although Hellie had high-tailed it out of Nova Scotia at 15, she was, at heart, a homebody. She didn't travel much from Ottawa except to visit family back home. After retiring in the mid-1980s, she read widely, exercised her green thumb, tended various neighbourhood creatures, and collected funky cast-offs at garage sales, at one point selling them at an antique store.
In her latter years, she endured numerous health issues and was cared for lovingly by her niece, Helen Foster, and Helen's husband, Elmer.
We'll remember Hellie best as the centre of lively, smart, liberal-minded conversations, fuelled by white wine and Chinese takeout. What luck for us to have known such a thoughtful, affectionate and deeply funny human being.
Kate Zimmerman is Hellie's "courtesy niece."