A Manitowaning Memorial - July 4, 2009

March 28, 1970 was a never-to-be forgotten night in the lives of so many families - a two-car, head-on crash between two cars at the top of a hill just outside Manitowaning on Manitoulin Island, leaving three dead in one car, and six in the other.

At the time, it was called the second-highest death toll from an auto collision in the province. All my husband and I knew was that our 17-year old daughter was clinging to life as our friends and neighbours were coping with the deaths of the other five young people in her car. Miraculously, the teenage son of the local OPP corporal had survived and was still conscious when police arrived on the scene.

Thirty-nine years later, thanks to the perseverance of the sister of one of the teenagers in Val's car, we attended the dedication of a memorial plaque to remember the nine young people who died that fateful night: Robert Green, Ann Harasym, Terry Hembruff, Hugh and Paul Morrison, Celina and Patricia Paul, Wayne Wright and Boyne Van Zant; and those whose lives had been changed forever: Martin Brindle, Valerie Koning, Gerald McGregor, Jean Paul, Joseph Roy, Ronald Thompson and Finian Walker.

The July afternoon sun shone brilliantly as about 200 people gathered on the lawn of the Assiginack Museum for the dedication of the plaque placed there by the Municipality of Assiginack, who co-sponsored the event with the Museum.

The service, led by Rev. Martin Garniss of Knox United Church, offered prayers, readings, remembrances and remarks by Leslie Fields and Debbie Robinson of Manitwaning; George Gardner, Pastor of St. Gabriel Lalemant Catholic Church, Birch Island; and Chief Franklin Paibomsai of Birch Island First Nation.

I found it particularly poignant to listen to the young Chief speak of the ways in which the deaths of the young people from Birch Island affected his community. Situated an hour's drive north of Manitowaning, Birch Island is an Indian Reserve through which we passed when driving from the Island to Espanola and the cross-Canada highway, and I had met a very few people from there, but we were all so caught up in concern for our daughter, lying unconscious in a Sudbury hospital, and the grief of so many bereaved families in Manitowaning, that we scarcely had time to think of how the accident had affected that neighbouring community. Chief Paibomsai said he had lost a brother, and two aunts in the accident, which brought grief to his family, and others as well.

So it was good to have friends and relatives from all across the Island and beyond to meet and mingle with members of the families and friends from Birch Island - to share our sense of sadness about the past, and to show expressions of friendship in the present. And I thought I heard a particular message in Chief Paibomsai's words: "We have been brought together," he said. "It is no longer 'me', but 'we' who are to walk together into the future."

Much credit is due Ann Elliott, of Manitowaning, who lost her brother, Wayne Wright, in Val's car. Ann worked tirelessly to gather information from the bereaved families of both communities, to contact everyone she could find who had been a part of the tragic event, and to bring on board Assiginack Reeve Leslie Fields and her Council when they were reminded of the intention of Council shortly after the accident to consider erecting a plaque, but it had been sidelined and never acted upon, until now.

There is gratitude too for David Smith and Jeannette Allen and other dear folk in Manitowaning who offered refreshments following the service, and provided such friendly hospitality.

Coincidentally, my daughter, Valerie Koning Keelan, had been working for several years on the idea of writing a book - an autobiography - which had finally been completed and published just a few weeks before the memorial event. The Manitowaning Library kindly offered Val space for a book-signing, which took place in the morning of July 4th, and again later in the day. Gary and Wilma Neegan and Wilma's sister, Shirley and her husband Lou Vallant, had travelled from Timmins and from Little Current, respectively, to be first in line to buy Val's book. Wilma and Shirley are from Wikwemikong First Nation, and knew Val when they were young girls.

I was delighted to be able to greet other friends whom I hadn't seen for a very long time. My husband, Rev. Tony Koning, had been sent to the Anglican parish of St. Paul's, Manitowaning; St. Francis of Assisi, Mindemoya; and St. John's, South Bay Mouth, in 1966, where we lived until we moved to Englehart in December, 1970. The accident became, in hindsight, a spectacular, never-to-be forgotten beginning to my husband's ministry, which continued for thirty years. And it was good to be remembered kindly, after the passage of all that time.