Read on Twitter
I’ve met so many unforgettable people in this field, for so many reasons, and had so many remarkable moments; maybe I’ll answer this as a slowly growing thread. https://twitter.com/codysellar/status/1332798311691153408
First ones that come to mind are George and Melinda Wood. I spent a couple of nights with them as they searched for their daughter. I hold a lot of love for them. The quiet dignity and determination with which they faced a nightmare. I will never forget. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/searching-to-end-the-heartbreak-395498161.html
On a total flipside, story-wise, was Lorne Collie, who makes guitars out of moose antlers or cookie tins or bits of random stuff. Just a true character; he gifted me a cookie tin banjo which is still one of my most beloved possessions.
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/would-be-junk-makes-beautiful-music-100605879.html
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/would-be-junk-makes-beautiful-music-100605879.html
Oh, I have a story about my piece from earlier this year on Payton. It gave me goosebumps when it happened. So: one of the people mentioned in this story is a police officer who died in the 1980s... https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/instagram/tethered-by-trauma-driven-by-truth-fragments-frustration-and-then-a-friend-572536891.html
...named Ian Logan, who died in the 1980s. Payton, the survivor, remembered him vividly because he had given her a teddy bear when she was in the hospital after suffering abuse at the hands of her father.
Shortly before the piece was finished, I talked to Logan’s daughter..
Shortly before the piece was finished, I talked to Logan’s daughter..
I learned the bear had been hers. He’d asked if she would share it with a hurting child.
And I learned she was about to get married — on the same day our story was to be published. She’d been talking with her family about how her dad would find a way to make his presence known..
And I learned she was about to get married — on the same day our story was to be published. She’d been talking with her family about how her dad would find a way to make his presence known..
...suddenly she’s getting a call from a writer who is telling a story about a beautiful memory a survivor had of her father. Scheduled for that same day. Unfortunately we pushed publication back a week after that, but... close enough. When she told me I actually got chills. Fate.
Here’s a story about one of the most remarkable scenes I’ve ever been present for. This is going back a long time, and reading this story now I regret I wasn’t a good enough writer then to do it justice. It doesn’t capture it at all. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/searching-to-end-the-heartbreak-395498161.html
Father Taras Kowch is a priest from a long line of Ukrainian Catholic priests, who can marry; his father was a priest, his grandfather was a priest. During the Holocaust, his grandfather baptized thousands of Jewish people, in an attempt to help save them
That priest, Father Emilian, was caught and sent to the Majdanek camp, where he died — while writing his family telling them not to try and free him. He has since been beatified.
In 2008, a local rabbi and Holocaust survivor heard of the connection and wanted to pay his respects. I got to be at this meeting in Father Taras’s house: this rabbi, just talking, for hours. Just telling his story. It was unspeakably profound to witness.
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/historic/33006329.html
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/historic/33006329.html
I could add to this thread for days. Maybe I’ll pick it up again later. I will say: in all these years, the one thing I’ve learned for certain is the most unforgettable people are those who never meant to be in the news, and every community is deep with stories waiting to be told
