Conrad Boyce is the editor and publisher of the Cosmos. He has a BA in English from the University of Alberta and a diploma in journalism from Grant Macewan Community College in Edmonton. He lived and worked in the Yukon and Vancouver Island before arriving in Ontario in 1995. Beyond these pages, he is the Artistic Director of OnStage Uxbridge, and the technical manager of the Uxbridge Music Hall.
Looking in on Libbie
On a warm summer evening in Halifax almost 50 years ago, a beautiful young woman stood, microphone in hand, on the sidewalk outside the city’s new professional theatre, the Neptune, ready to interview celebrities for the local CBC television station. In her other hand, she held a copy of the Neptune’s opening night program, with meticulously researched and typed notes stapled to its pages. When the interviews began, no one was surprised at how thoroughly prepared she was; this woman had as great a reputation for her intelligence and insight, as for her stunning looks and grace.
Truth be told, Libbie Christensen was as much a local celebrity as many of the people she interviewed that night. Since she’d first come to Halifax a decade earlier with her sailor husband Paul, she’d demonstrated her ease in the spotlight by appearing in local theatre (shortly after high school in Montreal, she was Christopher Plummer’s first leading lady) and starring as a singer with the Navy band. Then in 1960, she was taken on by the CBC, and was soon hosting her own talk show called Look in On Libbie. The station trusted her with assignments like the opening of Expo 67, and she became one of the country’s foremost experts on the American space program. It was a glamorous life with which she was totally comfortable.
When she moved to Toronto shortly after Expo, she continued to appear with the CBC on panel shows like Front Page Challenge. She took a job with Eaton’s in public relations, then shared her skills and insights as a teacher of P.R. at Humber College. One of her students, now living in Uxbridge, recalls Libbie as being somewhat intimidating, with her confident sense of style and her fierce intelligence. An amazing woman.
On a cold winter morning in 2013, another woman, in her mid-80s, sits in a wheelchair, staring vacantly out a picture window at the Westpark Longterm Care Centre in Toronto. At least she seems to be another woman. But this is Libbie. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a decade ago, she has lost almost everything to that evil disease - her style, her intelligence, even the ability to talk or walk. If she has any memories left at all of her glory days in the 60s, she can no longer share them. And in turn, many of the youngest members of her family, her great-grandchildren, in whom she would take such joy, have no memories of her, because she can no longer take part in the cherished family gatherings which are such a major part of the life of the Christensen clan.
If there is anything left of the woman who stood outside the Neptune in July of 1963, it is the fire in her eyes. Every once in a while, they sparkle as in the past, perhaps with anger at the unfairness of what she’s become, but maybe, just maybe, with a fleeting glimmer of pictures from a faraway life.
Libbie is my wife’s mother. A few months ago, while sorting through some of Libbie’s photos and memorabilia, Lisa came across that program from the Neptune’s opening night, superbly preserved with all of her mother’s notes still attached. It was a priceless flashback to the wonderful life that she had enjoyed as a young teenager, with her mother almost like a movie star in those early days of television. She prepared to give it an honoured place in Libbie’s album.
Then we learned that a close friend of ours was to appear in the Neptune’s 50th anniversary season, and Lisa resolved to take the program to Halifax, just in case the theatre would be interested in having it for its archives. So in late January we headed east, the program tucked safely in Lisa’s carry-on luggage.
Our friend said she would introduce Lisa to one of the Neptune’s bigwigs at the opening night party, so after the show (a rollicking version of The Importance of Being Earnest), we hovered in one of the theatre lounges, waiting to be told where to go for the party. To celebrate the anniversary, there were a few historical photos on the walls, ones which wrapped around the frame in the modern fashion. As she waited, leaning against the wall, Lisa turned to her right, and suddenly found herself face to face with her own mother, on the side of a photo from that night almost a half-century before. There was Libbie, microphone in her right hand, the opening program in her left. Lisa held the same program in her own left hand.
It was a breathtaking moment. Not only did it transport her back to a cherished time in her own life, it suddenly gave her an almost-forgotten glimpse of the vibrant woman that her mother used to be. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had put the program back in her purse, determined to keep it after all. But despite being shaken, she showed it to the Neptune’s artistic director, and he said they would be delighted to have it.
What Lisa does have now is a copy of the photograph; the Neptune e-mailed it to her. And even though she is often angry at how unfair Alzheimer’s is, to rob Libbie of what should have been her golden years, even though she finds it more and more difficult to recognize the woman at Westpark as her mother, the Neptune photo will be one more source of deep pride, in all the amazing things that Libbie achieved, blazing a trail for many other women to follow.
However cruel Alzheimer’s might be, it will never have the power to take that pride away.
