A needlepoint embroidery has pride of place in Dorothy G’froerer’s North Vancouver home.
Made to mark her 65th birthday, it’s a visual record of people, places and activities that were important to her, and that still have a place in Dorothy’s life 37 years later.
As Dorothy describes the symbols she designed – the United Church in the centre surrounded by images of the music that enriches her life and initials representing family members – she breaks into song, her voice ringing deep and true.
Born 102 years ago, or as Dorothy would say, “evicted after nine months of free room and board,” music and the needle arts were part of daily life.
Needle arts, like the piece Dorothy made, grew out of the necessity to make clothes and household furnishings. Music, on the other hand, was for pleasure, and good for the soul, of course. Pianos, as common in Dorothy’s day as televisions and smartphones are today, were the heart of the home. Many a harsh Canadian winter was eased by singing and dancing in the family parlour to tunes played on piano and fiddle.
One of Dorothy’s deepest memories takes her back to her prairie hometown of Neville, Sask. “There was a pond at the farm that froze over in the winter, which gave us a perfect skating rink. One of the highlights was when grandpa, who was a fiddler, and my uncles brought their instruments to the rink. They would stand in the middle playing while we skated around and around.
“As I grew older, grandpa taught me chording on his pump organ. When he played his fiddle, he would shout, ‘Hit a D, Dorothy!’” she recalls.
Dorothy learned to play the piano by ear from listening to the radio. A music teacher boarding with the family taught her classical music. She learned to sight-read music as an accompanist.
Music was Dorothy’s ticket out into the wide world. Driving the dusty prairie roads in her jalopy, acquired as a necessity in 1932 in the face of the Depression, Dorothy was entering, and winning, music competitions and collecting teaching credentials in Regina and Saskatoon.
By 1936, she was settled in Indian Head, Sask., 200 miles from Neville – not far by today’s measures, quite a distance from home and family at the time, even with wheels. Dorothy taught piano and played in the Indian Head band, not piano as one might expect, but saxophone. Thanks to her eclectic musical training, Dorothy taught herself the scales on the saxophone and was admitted to the band.
Fred G’froerer, who lived nearby in a town tinier than Indian Head, came from a musical family too – brothers violin, sister piano and Fred favouring the trumpet.
On the day of their wedding in 1941 at St. Cuthbert’s United Church in Toronto, the organist was absent. Dorothy remembers, “What to do. ... The bride playing the organ at her own wedding? There didn’t seem to be much choice and so, after walking down the aisle, I went up to the organ and played the ‘Wedding March.’”
Fred went overseas and Dorothy went to Ottawa for a job with the government. Reunited after the Second World War, they made their home in B.C. with sons Brian and Gordon.
Music and her faith illuminated Dorothy’s path throughout her long life. She taught piano, and played for church choirs, while raising her family, created a housing project for single mothers, and worked with the visually impaired, including a tour of British Columbia with a choir of blind singers called Eight for Sound.
Relocating to North Vancouver in 1990 to be closer to her family, Dorothy sang in church and community choirs, and accompanied them on piano at West Vancouver and Silver Harbour Seniors’ Activity Centres, and Highlands United Church.
These days, Dorothy keeps her hand in by playing piano for the weekly church services at Cedarview Lodge. There, on Sept. 28, Dorothy celebrated her 102nd birthday by doing what she loves – sharing the gift of music with friends and family, including of course, a rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
Thanks to Pia Henriksson’s interview with Dorothy G’froerer from the Collecting and Recollecting series (2011) at the Summerhill PARC Retirement Residence.
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. 778-279-2275 [email protected]
