Lily Milljour

Sep 2011

 

Lily's hat

By Jack Krayenhoff

Lily Milljour is James Bay's poet laureate. Her poems have graced the Beacon for many years, and an appreciative reader told me "Recently they are getting better yet". A contributor to the paper said "When I saw that my piece was printed next to Lily's poem, I felt so honoured!"

And if you don't know Lily from her poems, you surely know her for her hats, for they catch the eye by their abundant decorations: birds, flowers, flags - you name it- crowd each other for space. Their extravagance is fun, and it says a lot about Lily's vitality.

Yes, Lily has plenty of vitality for her age, for (she is proud to tell you) she will soon be 96. What is her secret? "If it had not been for my faith in God, I could never have lived this long", she says. "It says in the Bible 'I shall live and not die', and that's what I keep saying to myself." On the physical level she credits "No smoking, drinking or drugs, and plenty of exercise".

Lily was born in Gleichen, an Alberta town 58 miles South-East of Calgary. "When my father came there in 1910, Gleichen was bigger than Calgary", she says. "It had an opera house and a hospital, and we even had a stampede before Calgary did." She adds, "The main CPR line went straight through the town, with many trains coming through every day. At night the silk train passed through but it never stopped, because of the danger of robbery."

After finishing Grade 12 she worked in the telephone office. After her marriage she moved to a small town in Manitoba, which she says was 'so backward'. Most of the people were retired farmers and she felt lonely because there were no younger people her own age there. Furthermore it was 1939 and the food shortages of World War II began to undermine her health. It was not a happy time. The Milljours had two sons and one daughter.

In the fifties she moved first to Duncan, then to Victoria, where she began to contribute poems to the Beacon, as she still does now. Has she had feedback on her poems? "I have heard from many places, even Russia and Israel. One man said 'You keep on writing! I don't go to church but you are my church'. Are her poems then often about faith? "I always bring God into it. He is very important to me."

Her husband had died of lung cancer from cigarette smoking, so she wrote her 'cigarette poem'. It details the dangers of smoking and stresses the value of healthy habits. With that poem she has touched the lives of many young people, because she gets invited to read it in schools. "I have read it to thousands of school children. I go to the James Bay Community School every year. Some of them have now grown up and work at Thrifty's. They call me 'Grandma', and they said 'Grandma, it is because of you that we don't smoke."

Lily does not mention it herself, but your reporter comes away from this interview with his own conviction confirmed, and it is this: never 'retire', but stay involved. Serve others, remain useful. If you try just to please yourself, others will begin to forget you exist, and then you might as well pack it in.

Read Lily's latest poem, Thanksgiving Joy.

More poetry by Lily Milljour