Joan Czapalay-McCulley Cormier
Box 303
20 Sandbar L
Parrsboro

I found a hard copy of notes I made on Sperk, Mamie, Tessa, and others. A few of the wonderful women I have known. Barrington – 1969 to 1990.

Miss Viola Spirka, known as Sperk, lived in Barrington with her aged mother Spirka, and their even more aged indoor cat, Elizabeth, and the pet mouse that lived behind the baseboards in the kitchen. It ate the crumbs which Sperk put out daily on an antique china saucer. She loved all wild creatures.

On a nature hike which we sometimes took along the RR bed, we once found a feral cat dead with four live kittens beside it. Sperk adopted one, as did our librarian friend Mary McLean, and two other cat lovers. The kittens grew to be lovely indoor cats. When Sperk died in 1997 she left her estate to the local SPCA.

We shared an interest in birdwatching, botany, music, and mathematics. Because I like to cook and entertain, I sometimes invited Sperk and other interesting women in the community to join us for special family suppers at Thanksgiving, Easter, and other holidays. They all enjoyed getting together to discuss world events and to share tales of their youth. I once took daughter Ava to visit, and as she whisked us through the dining room to the study, she pointed to a painting, looked very stern, and abruptly asked Ava: “What is that?” Ava, who read a lot, answered: “It looks like Icarus falling.” “Right!” said Sperk. And she gave Ava a pair of little lace gloves, for which there were never occasions to wear.

Sperk was born in 1913 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and as a very precocious student she studied science at a prestigious university on scholarship. During WW2 she was recruited by the US military to work in Intelligence in Washington. I believe she was a code breaker, but she changed the subject when I asked about what she did. She loved puzzles of all kinds when I knew her years later. She had never married, and had a very poor opinion of her father who had put the family into debt. She did tell me it took her years to pay off his debts and save enough to buy the big house on Brass Hill. There may have been a brother from whom she was estranged, but I have forgotten his name. As she aged she became more and more eccentric. She was fascinated with numerology and spent hours on extending the decimals of pi. My son Randy did yard work and errands for her. I moved in 1990 and she never quite forgave me. In her later years, Jeremy Mullins and his family were very kind to her.

Mamie Harmon and Tessa Blakely were a delightful couple from Red Bank, New Jersey who spent their summers in Coffinscroft. They came to the Villagedale area because they were friends of the folklorist Maria Coffin Leach. I believe that for a time Mamie, Te, and Maria were all working at Random House in New York. Maria Leach wrote many books on folklore and the Funk and Wagnalls Dictionary of Folklore is well known to this day. She was related to the Coffins in Villagedale, but her health was not strong and I did not have time to know her, aside from her delightful children’s books. Tessa was the steady hand, who managed the house and property, and Mamie the artist and dreamer in their household. They were very much a happy couple, although no one ever said the word lesbian back then. They enjoyed their summers in Nova Scotia, making woodland trails through the woods, learning the names of native wild plants, and cooking delightful meals. And my visits were a great excuse for an afternoon tea with oatcakes, or a glass of Scotch. Both were well read, and Tessa was a great letter writer; I kept several of her letters from the early 1970’s. They seemed to especially enjoy being with my four young children, and through our early years in Barrington, they shared some wonderful stories with us. Once they lived and worked in Italy, and had an apartment inside the Roman Wall. Ti spoke Italian and I believe was editing the Italian dictionary for Random House. One of their apartments in New York’s Greenwich Village was near the apartment of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tolklas. And they were friends with many interesting literary people of that time. One of my favourite stories from Mamie was about an incident from her teaching days at a private girls’ school in Shanghai, China. Mamie loved literature as well as art, and had taught poems by the English Romantics. One January day, her students arrived with gifts wrapped in red tissue, saying as they entered the classroom, “Happy Holiday, Miss.” A bewildered Mamie asked with surprise, “Why what holiday is this, girls?” To which all replied in unison, “The Eve of St, Agnes, Miss, a holiday – like in the poem by Lord Byron!” Mamie was born in Macon, Georgia. Her father was a Methodist minister. Mamie first attended the Wesleyan University of Georgia, and then received her Masters in Art from the Chicago School of Art. She was a prolific painter and her post-impressionist paintings can still be found for sale in certain galleries. I got the impression that Mamie and Tessa had been together most of their adult life. Mamie once spoke of wanting an ATV to get around the woods more easily. I picture her now riding one into the sunset!

Mary McLean is still one of my dearest friends. She lived and worked as the BMHS librarian during the 1970’s to the late 1980’s, when she returned to Great Britain. She met and married John Archer, whom she met on a bus tour to Israel. They lived in various places in England, and on the Isle of Wight. Mary now resides in Truro, England, and we keep in touch. Mary had her degree from Oxford University and while there was a student of Tolkien. I shall never forget her kindness in keeping my four very young children for a weekend so I could be with my dying mother in the hospital in Halifax.

Ann and John Hill, if I remember their names correctly, once owned the house in Villagedale now belonging to Bob and Avril Malay. They seemed interesting folks, but found themselves too old to start a pioneering life. Others may know more about them.

Beulah (Cromwell) Berman was born on Seal Island, went to high school in Barrington, lived for a few years in Japan, and returned to her childhood home in Barrington. I met her in 1970 through birdwatching and nature walks. I had the joy of spending a week in August of 1984 with her on Seal, where she was visiting her aunt Winnie and her cousin, Mary – Mrs. James Nickerson. Beulah was an animal lover. Her relatives will fill in her story. I believe she was married to a US airman. Her classic DeSoto car was a treasure!