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Last of a line
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Mary Pellatt, niece to builder of Casa Loma, didn’t value possessions
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| By Tom G. Kernaghan |
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Her independence was like a home with many rooms. When
94-year-old Mary Pellatt passed away in Sechelt, B.C. on December 27 of last
year, the former Torontonian had lived a life rich in exploration and discovery.
“She was always an adventurer,” says Christine Chandler, a Sechelt resident
and friend who cared for Pellatt in her later years.
Pellatt earned three degrees, travelled the world, and got the most out of
life by giving back to it. But then, one might expect to find great generosity
of spirit in the niece of the man who built Casa Loma.
Mary Pellatt’s life began in Toronto on October 6, 1911. As the niece of
legendary tycoon Sir Henry Pellatt and his wife, Mary, young Pellatt had
access to the $3.5 million, 98-room mansion that continues to overlook the
Annex, standing as a monument to its creator and his ambition.
Pellatt also had the adoration of her charismatic and powerful uncle, whom she
called Uncle Harry. And yet despite her exposure to Sir Henry’s money and
influence, Pellatt never developed a fondness or desire for riches.
“She didn’t place any value on material possessions or wealth,” says Chandler,
a longtime westerner and former Brit, who says the Pellatt name meant nothing to
her when the two first met. “[Mary] was modest about her background.”
“She had no airs about her,” says Charlie Oreskovich, author of Sir Henry
Pellatt: King of Casa Loma. He first met Mary in 1979, when he joined her for
lunch in the castle cafeteria. “She was jocular, self-effacing, straightforward,
bright, and sensitive – the kind of person you feel good about being around.”
Sir Henry showed his feelings by doting on his pretty niece, the only child of
his youngest brother, Mills Pellatt, and Lucy Bowerman, a nurse who had cared
for his father. Sir Henry, who along with his wife was known for his generosity
and philanthropy, sent Pellatt to Bishop Strachan School, paid for her debutante
ball and a subsequent trip to Europe, and financed her studies at the University
of Toronto, where she earned a bachelor of arts, a degree in music, and a diploma
in social work.
“The generosity and goodwill that came to her,” said Oreskovich, “she spent her
life doing that with others.”
After Sir Henry lost his fortune and his wife in the 1920s, Pellatt was one of
the few who continued to visit her uncle, who following his wife’s death addressed
his niece as “girl.”
After a brief stint at a residential school in Northern Ontario in the 1930s,
Pellatt returned to Toronto, and then headed west, working in Winnipeg and
Saskatchewan before continuing on to B.C., where she joined a man named Jim
Carpenter, a pastor with whom she had been corresponding. Though the two never
married, they did forge a deep relationship, moving to North Vancouver, where
they worked at St. Catherine’s Anglican Church. When Carpenter died in 1969,
Pellatt stayed on until her retirement in the mid-1970s.
She then moved to a small cottage she had built for herself on B.C.’s Sunshine
Coast. A lifelong lover of learning and literature, she helped found the University
Women’s Club, a writers’ network called The Forge, and the Sechelt branch of the
Trefoil Guild.
Driven by her tremendous curiosity and keen mind, Pellatt took up many hobbies
and travelled to the high Arctic, Britain, Scandinavia, and Siberia (with 10
pounds of Bibles).
“She definitely had the Pellatt intelligence,” says Chandler. “She had a phenomenal
memory and a need to delve into intricate details.”
Not only did she continue to donate to the church, but she enrolled in an
ecumenical studies course, and frequently enjoyed philosophical and theological
debates. She had an engaging manner that made people remember her.
“Once you connected with Mary there was no departing her,” says Chandler, adding
Pellatt treated her friends as family and never mentioned her father.
When an injury last July took away the last of Pellatt’s independence, she told
her friends she was ready to die.
She was the last Pellatt of her era, and she left little but a cottage full of
books. The only item of value from her days in Toronto was a clock given to her
by Uncle Harry. She had it sent back to Casa Loma, where it now resides.
(History section – The Annex Gleaner – April 2006)
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