Obituary of Elly Alexander
Elly Alexander died peacefully on Thursday, December 19, 2024, at 11:00 p.m., after a short illness. She resided at Sunnyside Seniors’ Services in Kitchener, ON. Elly was the beloved wife of Robert Alexander for almost 50 years and loving mother of her children Helena Tarback, Martin Tarback (dec.) and Carol Tarback. She was loved by her brother Viggo Stoltenberg-Hansen of Malmo, Sweden, and niece Sara Stoltenberg with daughter Elisabeth.
Elly was born on August 6, 1937, at Ystad, Sweden, living a few blocks from a church built in 1200 and across from a short-term home for Sweden’s “War King” Karl the XII. In 1958, she completed gymnasium with the “Latin Line” (emphasizing literature and languages, including Latin) at Ystad. Her classmates thought of her as the Intellect. After that, she moved to Stockholm to continue her studies at Stockholm University. There she met and began a lifelong interest in theatre.
At the age of 22, she came to Canada after deciding to follow the family’s move to North America. Her talent for writing and background in languages eased the way to work in law firms, including at the Ontario Masters (who determine the rules for divorces) while raising her small children. Later she used her large empathy and interest to act in Little Theatre as well as to assist British actor and director, Maurice Evans. Her interest in people and relationships gave rise to putting in 3,500 hours on the “Suicide Line” and some years spent doing palliative care at St. Mary’s Hospital in Kitchener. On a visit back home, she acted under Ingmar Bergman for a short time, in several plays, in one delivering a difficult one word opening line: a Scream.
A memorial service will be held at a later date at Knox Presbyterian Church, Waterloo. More information about her eventful life will be available via Erb & Good Family Funeral Home, 171 King St. S, Waterloo, www.erbgood.com.
The following is written by Bob Alexander.
Elly saved my life While teaching; I began to notice I was often short of breath in situations I didn’t used to be. I thought I was just getting old. And of course I remembered 45 years of smoking. A lung function test earlier showed me at 70% capacity, but that was partly from aging. I also thought “shortness of breath” was too minor a symptom without something else, perhaps angina with pain. Unbeknownst to me, Elly mentioned to her cardiologist that “Bob breathes funny.” So Dr. Fowlis gave me a stress test on a treadmill. He saw something without saying anything. Then he referred me for an angioplasty which showed the circumflex artery across my heart was 90% occluded. I was scheduled for an operation to expand that artery by inserting a tiny metal stent. The many smaller arteries were also occluded in the range of 70% to 90% but were expected to improve a bit when the heart was working normally.
As I got close to going in for surgery, I mentioned this in one of my lectures during “Demystifying Nonbelievers.” One of the three doctors in the course had just retired from being an anesthetist in the Cardiac Ward at St. Mary’s Hospital where I would be entering soon. She said no heart unit in the hospital was better in Ontario. It also turned out that she was the wife of Dr. McTavish, the orthopedic specialist who took extra care of Elly’s spinal stenosis for the last 30 years. (She had arrived at Elly’s side once at the start of cataract surgery by announcing, “I’m your anesthetist. I am Dr. McTavish.” Elly had said, “No you’re not. Dr. McTavish is a big, wonderful, bachelor surgeon here.” “Well, I got him!” she said.) The other two doctors and others in the class who had patiently listened to me were also very supportive. So I was able to enter surgery with less anxiety than I had expected. And fortunately for me, it was almost painless and continues to maintain my life. I minimized my stent and shortness of breath one day. Elly then told me what Dr. Fowlis had said. When she asked what would have happened if there were no stent procedure? “Bob would have been dead in two months.” I don’t minimize it any more. We both still see Dr. Fowlis when he’s not walking the Scottish Highlands. Amazingly for us, he does not want to retire! By the way, although unplanned, that may well be my last bit of teaching. Paul Fischer, the retired WLU bookstore manager and friend, organized an end of class card-signing and presented it during a sharing of the feelings in the class and my own about the issues in the course, resulting in an emotional high on the last memorable day.
Elly’s Health Very early on, 1969, Elly had been given a contrast dye for some test. All of a sudden her heart stopped! The medics attending her got her heart going but it stopped again in a few minutes! Then a short, very light weight Dr. Page got up on top of her and stood on her chest, honest, swearing the way many of us would if we were at our wit’s end. Dr. Fowlis came by at that time and after Elly’s heart started up again, this time continuing at a normal pace, he told her he was her cardiologist from then on and still is 50 years later. (N.B. Elly remembers looking down from the ceiling and watching them working on her. How this happens is unknown but it has been reported by others as well. Elly is seriously committed to telling the truth even when she doesn’t understand what she experienced.) A GP later was present when her pulse increased to 140 beats / per minute (tachycardia) for months before Dr. Fowlis brought it back down with a beta-blocker. Unfortunately, she is subject to episodes of arrhythmia which feel like the heart is pausing to load up and then lurches a few times before it normalizes.
Elly had managed to survive her spinal stenosis since 1976 by being rescued around midnight before planned surgery in the morning. Shirley (her nurse friend) had arranged a second opinion by someone she referred to as “god.” Dr. Ross McTavish, though an orthopedic surgeon, did not like to “cut”. In fact he left a Toronto hospital because he was always under pressure there to do that. Anyhow, he found some slight reaction in Elly’s feet that night while she was thought to be totally paralyzed on the hospital bed. He said that she would have pain either way, but she’d be at much less risk by letting her spine recover on its own while remaining flat in bed or on a mattress on the floor for another few weeks. It was successful enough to get her up and walking then and two or three times later when she was paralyzed for a month or so at a time. Because of such remarkable recoveries, he referred to Elly as his “miracle baby.” Once in Toronto in the late ‘80s, she felt an earthquake while on the floor on a mattress. During that episode of paralysis I had to take her to Women’s Hospital because she was screaming in pain but nothing I tried reduced it. In spite of that, the hospital refused to admit her. I did something I now find hard to believe; facing down the emergency doctor, I said: “Do what you want. I’m leaving,” and I left. They admitted her.
Sometime later, Hamilton Hall, the “Back Doctor” according to himself and his book, brought in 10 other doctors to watch him manipulate Elly’s body and limbs because she was a rare specimen of spinal stenosis, so rare he wouldn’t put her in his book. Since he had treated her as a non-human object, she told him in no uncertain terms right then that he’d better not charge her. A couple of days later she told me her admitting doctor came by and accused her of being the wrong person in that bed. “You shouldn’t be here. Where is Mrs. Alexander?” Pointing at herself Elly said, “I am Mrs. Alexander” in a slow, firm voice. Then he said: “You really were sick. I don’t even recognize you as the same person who came in here.”
There was a different kind of serious event, however, that was even more frightening in the last few years. (Even while writing this it is still hard to believe what Elly had to contend with.) After a couple days of nausea and finally vomiting ugly black liquid at home, she entered St. Mary’s Hospital here in Kitchener shortly before Christmas 2014. Numerous tests later showed she had a serious blood infection (sepsis) and yet hadn’t been helped for the next few days. In spite of that, the hospitalist in charge said, “There is nothing more we can do for you.” Incredible! (Hospitalists in Ontario don’t allow GPs to enter the hospital to consult or to console.) Elly spent the next 12 hours accepting her death and thinking about her funeral without letting me know.
The next morning another surgeon came in, Dr. Pace. “I know what’s wrong with you; you’ve got jaundice. Your eyes are yellow,” he said loudly from the foot of the bed. And that was an indicator of liver problems. He operated two days later, retrieving 11 (yes!) gall stones from her bile duct (gall bladder unavailable because needlessly removed in 1980) by going down her throat without cutting her flesh. It was the worst case he had ever seen. Dr. Pace was clearly our hero. After Elly sent him flowers and a note thanking him for saving her life, he replied. “I was happy to save your life.” We were thrilled that she survived though she seems to have some continuing nausea for a day or two at a time ever since. (BTW, how could the other medical staff fail to notice jaundice so obvious that Elly thought she had a new tan on her legs?) Update: unfortunately for Elly and him of course, Dr. Pace retired a year ago with intestinal cancer. After recent surgery, we heard he was doing well; nevertheless he died in October 2019.
Ataxia A few years ago, before Dr. Casey, our GP, retired, he set up a consultation with a neurologist,* Dr. Jamie Steckley, to determine what caused Elly’s frequent falling without the slightest warning, even with her constant companion – ‘Fred’ the walker, made in Sweden of course, by Dolomite. After some months of tests in 2016, the diagnosis in October was “ataxia” (genetic spinocerebellar ataxia type 8). The genes from the spine and the cerebellum are damaged. Blood tests by a lab in Germany determined she inherited it genetically from her mother; she and Elly pass it on at 50% probability to her children, though none have shown any symptoms yet. It means one walks as if drunk, arms and hands lose control. It also slows and slurs speech, interferes with swallowing and produces fatigue that makes you want to sleep all day. It is chronic and deteriorating with severe pain that sometimes shifts the focus to a shoulder or the feet for a couple of days and then back to the new normal. The U.S. National Institute of Health (The Covid-19 pandemic expert, Dr. Fauci, has worked there for decades) states several times that it is not a terminal disease; they failed (forgot?) to mention that it is just one which makes your remaining life miserable. As it develops, the walker will need to be supplemented with a wheelchair, which it has now, even in our very small apartment, though we expect to go back to a walker somehow.
*Dr. Jeffrey Sloka, another local psychiatrist, had examined Elly only once before she left the Family Medical Centre, eventually getting in with Dr. Casey. Sloka’s diagnosis was something neurological but too tentative to act on. In 2019 he was charged with sexual assaults of numerous women. They continued to add charges until June 2021. The total so far is 76 (!) and he’s referred to as a “former” doctor. He did actually seem strange when we met him, though nothing along these lines crossed our minds. Thankfully there was another neurologist Elly was able to deal with.
There is no cure and no treatment for ataxia other than exercise to maintain strength as long as possible. It is useful, however, to broadloom bare areas of the floor where she walks. Falling on tiled cement adds to the misery, so even a tiny cushion is a real benefit. Falling is no rare occurrence; she has hit the floor some 35+ times in the last few years. The bad news is she gets no warning; it seems to happen as if a “short circuit” occurs. The good news is she has the bone density of a 22 year old male athlete; even with deep bruising and 12 stitches once on her forehead, so far she has not had a broken bone. That was true when I wrote it before the catastrophic fall of August 13th, 2018. She was in so much pain that I couldn’t take her to Emergency Room or Fracture Clinic by car and wheelchair. Instead we got to the hospital by ambulance (on a stretcher); after I had to call a van and pay for the return trip (at $140, since no longer an emergency) and other times the whole trip to and from the clinic plus waiting time (at a $100/hour) was on a stretcher. We finally found out in late November that she had two hairline breaks in her left foot; on the next trip the bone doctor noted a break in the left hand as well. By this time, all the known breaks had healed, though there was still a lot of pain. They had not shown up immediately; we were in very anxious limbo until the breaks spread a bit after 5 or 6 weeks and became visible on x-rays. The hospital put her foot in a plastic boot (not plaster), so we rented a hospital bed at home for her. After 3 weeks I bought a used hospital bed on Kijiji. As I mentioned, Loren Calder gave us his transfer/safety pole with a 16” movable perpendicular bar a bit higher than waist level. Both are making recovery easier than it would have been, especially the pole/bar which enables Elly to keep her balance as she steps off the bed to the commode or the couch, though recovery is still ongoing. (We have since gotten 2 more transfer poles: one for the bed, one for the toilet & tub, one for the couch. Elly is strong enough to be independent with those and her wheelchair.) A huge beneficial change from being bed ridden, but it didn’t last. The ataxia has weakened her enough to make using the walker impossible so far. But we have found ways to work with being wheelchair bound.
We have a DVD of Johnny Carson’s first appearance of comedians on TV, like Gary Shandling, Louie Anderson, Roseanne Barr, et al. Jerry Seinfeld’s sketch included a takeoff on a driver’s typical reaction to a car breaking down. He said: “If your car breaks down and you get out and lift the hood to see what the matter is, that’s no help. You can’t fix it even if you find out what’s wrong. You must think there’s an ‘on—off’ switch which is ‘off’ and all you have to do is turn it ‘on.’” This is a beautiful piece of comedic “art” mimicking real life. Hang on, now, there is a point to this. When we got the hospital bed into the apartment, the head and the foot parts of the mattress moved up and down with the electrical switch, but we couldn’t move the bed as a whole up or down. Yet it had worked when I bought it and even in the entrance on the way to the elevator. This deluxe model includes small wheels if you lower it 2 inches more than just on the posts. He said: “There must be a simple switch somewhere that got bumped or something.” In spite of a half hour of searching by my movers, him, a retired colleague and a physical therapist who was visiting at the time, we had no luck. But a call to the service man, who removed the rental bed before we brought ours in, cleared it up for us. He told me that there is a button (‘on – off switch’, right?) under the foot board; if a light comes on after pushing the button, the switch to move the bed up and down will work. And it did. So, the moral of my story is: “real life” mimics Seinfeld’s “art” this time, not his usual “comedic art” mimicking “real life.”
The Actress It’s hard to remember, even after all these years together, that Elly is an actor through and through. I realized early on that Elly’s acting talent and her insightful judgment of people had kept her in charge of law offices before and after I met her. Her psychiatrist had even developed a crush on her (I knew how he felt, but he couldn’t have her) which got in the way of her therapy. She had to confront him and exit. He then had told her: she was the best relationship analyst and the only one he’d ever seen as a client. Her talent for reading people was so remarkable that on her last day, the psychiatrist asked her to analyze each member of his group, with their unanimous consent, before she left it. It was quite a special session.
Along with extra generosity (she was giving away toys at age three) and empathy, those abilities also made her a superior suicide line listener in London and Kitchener for 3500 hours (honest!) and a hospice visitor at St. Mary’s Hospital for some years. One ward she visited several times there had patients who were dying to know (pardon the pun) what the latest was in O. J. Simpson’s murder trial.
She had also acted (cried tears continually but no speaking for 2 hours with two 6 year old children kneeling by her, all near the front edge of the stage protected only by a thin veil in Six Characters in Search of an Author). It ended uniquely by her sobbing becoming a pathetic scream, which then led to the set slowly going dark and the actors disappearing without taking a bow. The audience was spellbound for a few minutes.
Comedy is a whole other thing, since the laughter is required immediately. And though nervous about going on stage alone, she had them laughing, thank goodness, in Aunt Mame, and then did directing along with her British actor/friend, Maurice Evans, in Kitchener Little Theater, as well as at University of Waterloo. She also made a mini-star out of me, believe it or not, for a part on stage in The Gingerbread Lady.
One other play she was in was especially memorable. She had the role of the most beautiful woman in the world, while Maurice was the most brilliant man in the world, so they could produce the most fabulous child in the world. Elly was afraid of not being able to live up to the billing and had to be shoved with a foot to her rear end by another actor to enter the stage. But she filled the role well enough. The local theatre critic headlined his remarks in the paper as: “The Bombshell that Bombed.” She had to live with that pan all weekend. He knew she was from Sweden and wrongly believed she was so beautiful (she was a “lovely confection”) that she didn’t have to act at all. So Monday lunch time, dressed in her normal secretarial outfit without the blond wig, she entered his newspaper office and said: “Here is your bombshell!” She then left, in spite of his begging her to stay to talk with him. He felt so bad that her next plays were reviewed by him with strong praise for her acting.
So we have an enlarged framed picture of her and Maurice from a scene in full view at our home. There is a special three word engraving on the bottom. A plumber was cleaning out our ancient pipes in a home we owned and when he saw the picture, he said “What a babe.” Elly heard and quietly said, “That’s me.” To which he replied, “Don’t you wish.” Very cruel! Fifteen minutes later he apologized to Elly, saying: “After thinking about it, I finally recognized your eyes. I’m really sorry I insulted you.” So the framed photo includes those three words in yellow metal. I wish I’d known her then to have seen the play, but at least I’ve delighted in the story.
Now I finally found out how her acting got started. She had read a poem to 1000 people while a student in Gymnasium (HS). She made such an emotional impact on the audience that many students told her she had to think of acting. One teacher, who had been fairly hostile toward her, sat silent for 10 minutes after entering the classroom the next morning. He then said:”Stoltenberg, you’ve got to be an actor.” (He went back to disliking her after a few days.) So she bravely called one of Ingmar Bergman’s lead actors, Hans Strååt (Seventh Seal), and auditioned for him at his home. When she knocked, he opened the door in his old fashioned underwear. She thought: Mother was right—this is SIN! She decided to stay though after seeing his rather plump wife in the kitchen. He didn’t think it was worth his time, but he decided to give her a chance. She overwhelmed him (at age 17 then) with an unrehearsed reading of an 80 year old widow speaking, crying and shouting to her husband in his grave. Strååt couldn’t believe her performance; he was just stunned. It was better than the best mature woman actor in Sweden, he said. In America, it would be like an amateur topping Meryl Streep at the power she displayed and with no rehearsal, remember.
So after a summer of his lessons he managed to get her a scholarship (the first and only one) to the only acting school in Sweden. They only take 12 out of 2000 applicants; that year she became the 13th. But the Seventh Day Adventists gathered together to pray that she wouldn’t accept. The head of the acting school tried his best to convince them there was nothing evil about what they do on the stage. But he failed and she knew her parents would be humiliated if their daughter was an actress, so she turned it down. It was a very sad day for her and Sweden.*
*Much later in New York, her mother ironically became liberalized enough to think the film “Never On Sunday” was wonderful. No praying to stay away from the evil theater anymore. (!) That leaves Elly tragically having sacrificed her rare and awesome talent for something only temporary. Sweden’s loss and my gain, however, are quite small compared to the lifetime use of Elly’s talent that she lost!
She did have a chance to act at the highest level years later when stuck in Sweden on welfare with 3 kids and no husband along. To begin with, the government welfare office refused to find a baby sitter for her children so she could work. As she turned around and walked down the hall away without them, the clerk went after her, calling her back. After much discussion (which must have been amazing), the office decided to have her children taken care of by someone else. They then made a 180 degree turn, and offered her a chance to do ensemble acting, believe it or not. (Where else could this have happened to a person on welfare if not in a Nordic country?) She got to work with Ingmar Bergman, the world-famous Swedish director (Wild Strawberries, Seventh Seal, etc.), though he wasn’t that easy to be around. In one play, she had only one line – a scream when surprised by seeing a dead body. It couldn’t sound phony and had to shock the audience, on the first and only try; and then do that in a few more shows. (Better than a baby-sitting job, but a very high stress moment for her, nevertheless.) So she enjoyed a few months of using her special talent with the best actors available. Some she recognized here in Swedish and Danish videos we’ve watched. And she had morning coffee near Max von Sydow, whom I mentioned earlier. Elly said he had a very strong charisma and carried a powerful gravitas with him even while sitting down for a chat. Her mother didn’t know this was going on. Later, in the winter of 1975, Elly and I came around an evergreen in Skansen [a bit like a Swedish Wonderland] and almost bumped into Liv Ullman; she looked like an angel with no makeup and blond hair topping off a rich brown fur coat. Elly got an autograph and a vivid memory for her brash request. It was a magical afternoon.
Elly went to a private school, Ekeby Holm, near Stockholm. There was rampant anti-Semitism and the public school down south in Skone announced that they wouldn’t/couldn’t keep her and Viggo safe. Imagine that! Sweden’s history is not entirely what it appears to be today. So, her parents (at great expense) sent her at age 13 to Seventh Day Adventist high school, for 5 years. It was an upper class environment; they actually lived in a castle and had meals which were formally set with white linen table cloth and had uniformed servers. Among many other things, she learned which fork or spoon went with which dish. They did not allow much in the way of boy-girl socializing. (So later, when she went to college, it was as a fairly unworldly young woman.) She did have athletic experiences and was quite strong for her age. One time two boys from another school showed up and she went with them in a row boat out into the very deep and fairly large lake. After a while and quite a way from shore, the weather changed and frightened them: they had been cocky and were now pleading for her help. Elly had enough practice and presence of mind to take the oars and bring them back to shore through the wind and waves and impending darkness. Another time she went skating after the lake had been declared frozen enough. But she started hearing the ice crack as she was skating far from shore and had no choice but to keep going quickly and with her feet as wide apart as possible to spread her weight. Many had gathered at the shore because they could hear the noisy ice and watched her with fear and concern as she finally brought herself safely to them and their applause.
Ekeby Holm was not certified as equal to public high schools, so her class in 1954 had to take oral exams in four subjects: mathematics, chemistry, physics and biology-botany-physiology. This was a very high stakes week for her class of 17 year olds. The exam covered all four years in each subject and was handled by top academics who were, of course, total strangers. So she had to stay for a week in Stockholm, 8 hours away from home. She was boarded at the apartment of an older couple, who she felt had “the smell of dignified poverty.” While having tea with them and getting acquainted, she noticed a familiar face in a framed photo on the side table. “Is that Greta Garbo?” she asked. “Yes. She’s our daughter.” Sadly, there was no evidence of any sprinkling of Garbo’s American wealth to this apartment.
Coincidentally, 1954 was the year Ms. Garbo was given a special Honorary Academy Award after missing awards for the three nominations she had gotten earlier. With a resume of 28 films, at age 35 she retired from Hollywood and Elly thinks she may have moved to London. Anita Ekberg, in La Dolce Vita, you may remember her in the Trevi Fountain, at least her face and her body. When she came back to Sweden from her success, she spoke English and said she had forgotten her native Swedish. The country’s backlash was huge, so perhaps Ms. Garbo didn’t want a critique of her native tongue if she returned. Elly, a multi linguist in her prime could speak and understand 8 or 10 languages. As that talent has diminished, her Swedish is still impeccable according to her brother and their weekly hour long conversations.
By the way, Elly succeeded with her Gray Hat. And Ekeby Holm earned its certification as equal to the public high schools. During the exams, the pressure was almost unbearable in chemistry and math. While being questioned about a wiring diagram by a gentle older professor, she offered ‘+’ the wrong answer. While everyone in earshot held their breath, he smilingly said try again. She came up with ‘—’. If Elly flunked one of the oral questions and therefore the course, and then her whole year, she would also have caused the failure of the whole school’s certification. She and the others all passed, so the final exam was a success. Along the way, they had listed the IQ of individuals in the senior class. Elly’s was at the top of her class; she was known as an intellectual by her HS friends.
While I was reviewing this work in progress, my local news said Von Sydow died at 90 years of age. He was in 150 films and TV series, won many prizes but, oddly, never an American Oscar. My favorite memory is from Three Days of the Condor. It is a 1975 American political thriller film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson and Max Von Sydow. Redford enters his walk up office one morning and has to step over the bloody bodies of his 3 CIA co-workers, all of whom just did seemingly dull analyses of worldwide agriculture, forestry, etc. Who can you trust? Von Sydow is involved along the way.
Before leaving her acting talent, I should mention some dangerous events she confronted.
1-- The first event was going to a dance with a new dress from “His and Hers” clothing store (which has now come to Kitchener). The rule was “Always say Yes, if asked to dance.” She said No to a large Italian post-doctoral gentleman. She was tired. She realized her mistake when he came back a bit later and she accepted. He danced her to the center of the floor and dumped her, so everyone would see her being humiliated. When she left he came after her and she realized she was in trouble. She (play) relaxed as she got to her apartment front door. Without him looking she slipped her key into the lock, pulled the door enough to slip in and slammed it shut. He screamed and banged on the steel gate in a rage.
2— Another time she got off a city train at the last stop near Poughkeepsie, NY. It was on the edge of a cornfield and she was all alone. Then someone came up. She decided to treat him as her protector. When he said, “Aren’t you afraid?” she said “No, You are here to protect me,” even touching his arm as real friends would do. She went on about her husband (eventually played by her brother Viggo) being late as usual and kept talking about her day in New York, etc. He finally showed up, she introduced the bad guy to him as her savior and they left without incident in his car.
3—Walking home late from the apartment of Viggo and Carol, his wife, in downtown winter Toronto, she was grabbed from behind by a tall man with fringed leather jacket and brass knuckles (!). He told her she’d had it now. So she slumped a bit as he was holding her arms and marching her down the street. When she saw a car coming toward them, she slipped away and jumped over the snow pile on the curb and chased the car, shouting for help. The driver’s partner took pity on her and let her in the car, so she got home safely. She went to the police the next day and they gave her some mug shot books to look through. Feeling it was pointless, she was startled as she screamed in the middle of the second book. He was well known by them as the “Subway Mugger.” A few weeks later they caught him, though he may have killed someone by then.
In all these cases, her intuitive acting skills saved her from sexual assault or worse. She could feel what they were planning and she was terrified; but she was able to act normally or talkative, whatever the situation called for. The only time she wasn’t saved was when drugged by a preacher’s son and his wife, members of her own church, if you can believe it. Her doctor who was also a church member and a child hood friend was told, so the son had been caught and offered to pay for an abortion (which was unnecessary). She brought no further consequence, since she didn’t want the whole church and his parents to know. Too considerate I think.
That was not the only case of generosity after being badly wronged. She had gotten one of her last but best jobs as secretary for the Master Judges who wrote and handled the difficult court cases for divorce and custody. One policeman was always nearby because a disgruntled male had shot and killed a judge, written up as a book entitled: “Final Decree.” This cop was despicable with filthy gestures and pictures harassing Elly. She finally complained to the judge who was ignorant of the Old Testament. She had told him about the parable of two mothers each claiming a baby as their own. The ancient judge decided to cut the baby in half, but one mother quickly gave up her claim. He decided she was the real mother, a Solomonic decision. But the judge she worked for was a coward, deciding that it was not really harassment that she needed relief from. So she quit and called the police. Two detectives wanted to bring him to court but Elly didn’t want the perp’s daughter to live with the shame of her father’s actions. The police then took administrative (not judicial) action and put him on the night shift at the Toronto waterfront and cut his pay. They wanted to do much worse, but respected Elly’s gift to his daughter while still getting some serious justice.
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