Long-lost love Guy Millar (TANYA EVERETT / TIMES AND TRANSCRIPT)
Guy Millar in the 1950s. (TANYA EVERETT/TIMES & TRANSCRIPT)
A former Winnipeg man recently called the Free Pressclassified department from New Brunswick to inquire about obituary rates.
It's not that Guy Millar got bad news recently.
Quite the opposite, actually.
The pensioner had simply decided that, with his 80th birthday just a few years away, it was time to get his life -- or more precisely, his death arrangements -- in order. As he asked what it would cost to tell his life story in brief, Guy excitedly shared the latest chapter with the obituary clerk.
It's a love story.
At the clerk's prompting, Guy sat down at his typewriter and faxed me his story.
-- -- --
"I was born in Winnipeg on March 6, 1933. My mother passed away from a lingering illness on Christmas Day of 1946 and my father on March 29, 1947. After a couple of foster homes and a short spell with an aunt in East Kildonan, I was taken in by the family of a friend from school. But in the fall of 1950, this family relocated to Toronto and I went with them.
"At the time, I had a girlfriend that I cared for greatly.
"Her name is Claire Howe.
"After a year in Toronto, I caught a train back to Winnipeg, hoping we could rekindle the spark. For the first few weeks things were idyllic. But then, as teenagers do, we had a spat and I returned to Toronto and joined the navy in September of 1952.
"A year later, while the ship I was on was on refit in Montreal, I learned from a friend that Claire was going through entry training for the air force in St. Jean, Que. On my first shore leave, I boarded a bus and went to find her again. We only had two hours together before I was booted off the base.
"Four years later, I took my release from the navy. Then, in the spring of '58, I was on a Halifax transit bus heading home after a job search when, as the bus was coming to a stop, a young woman came down the aisle towards the rear door.
"I felt a touch on my shoulder.
"It was Claire.
"As she stepped off the bus, she turned and said: 'My mother always said I should have married you.'
"By this time I was married and had a daughter.
"I never saw Claire again.
"Over the years, I continually searched for her. I had another daughter and spent five years in the air force.
"Many years passed.
"I moved to Moncton, my wife divorced me and eventually I remarried. I continued my search for Claire, but was never able to find her.
"My second wife divorced me in 2007 and I am now a 77-year-old handicapped pensioner living alone in a small basement apartment just a few miles outside Moncton.
"I tried Winnipeg information on the phone one more time on Sunday, July 4. And the operator said, 'Yes, I have a listing for a C.L. Howe.' I tried the number and -- surprise! -- it was her.
"After both of us getting over the shock, I discovered that, like me, she had been married and divorced twice and had a son and two daughters. She was now living alone in a small apartment in St. Vital, but would like it if I wrote and, perhaps, was able to visit in the near future.
"Since our conversation on Sunday, I have written her three times, but have no replies yet. I am on pins and needles waiting for her to reply and plan to call her again on Sunday. I know it's a long shot, but I am hoping we can find what we had as teenagers so long ago."
Guy added an afterthought.
"Her nickname is 'Rusty,' which I have tattooed on my arm."
-- -- --
Two weeks went by.
Then, on Thursday, I called Guy and asked if there was anything new. He said he hadn't received any letters from Claire because of what rheumatoid arthritis has done to her hands. But Guy said he's been writing her and they talk on the phone every night.
Oh, there was one other thing.
"We're going to get married."
Apparently they've waited long enough to do what her mother always wanted. Although they're going to have to wait a little longer. The man who still uses a typewriter and mails his letters is coming by train, of course. And since he's on a fixed income and the Via Rail pass rates don't drop until the fall, he won't arrive until late October.
So what was it about Claire that made Guy look so hopefully, for so long? That's what she wondered during that first phone call.
Guy answered in his first letter.
"You were my first love," he wrote. "And you'll be my last love."
May they live happily ever after.
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Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 24, 2010 B1