people more deftly than did Mitchell’s. By 1957, the year that Peter discovered Who Has Seen the Wind, Sinclair Ross’s As for Me and My House, which had been published in 1941, was being hailed as a Canadian classic.
Ross’s mother spent her last years in Moose Jaw. When she died, in early October 1957, her son spent several days in Moose Jaw in order to arrange and attend his mother’s funeral. While Kate Ross’s death was noted in the obituary section of the Times-Herald, the city editor was, it seems, completely unaware that an important writer was in town for the funeral. Surely, Peter, ever on the watch for a good story, read the obituary notices. However, on Wednesday, October 9, the day of Kate Ross’s funeral, Peter was more interested in the fact that John David Eaton, scion of the wealthy Eaton clan, had just visited the family store in Moose Jaw. One of the greatest of Prairie writers came and went without being noted.
Like most white Canadians at the time, Peter overlooked the treatment of people now called First Nations. A few years later, however, he did make amends when he wrote an article in Maclean’s about the shoddy treatment of Natives in an article called “This Is Our Alabama,” in which Peter compared Canadian Natives to “Negroes” in the American South.
In Moose Jaw the Community Players’ rehearsals took place in Pat and Betty Styles’s basement suite at 1104 First Avenue NW. Sheila Thake had a small part in Riders to the Sea. Years later, as Sheila Phillips, she recalled that Peter began enthusiastically as a director but didn’t stick around to see the play through to opening night in November 1957 at the Peacock Auditorium in the city’s collegiate. J.M. Synge was upstaged by Jennie Lissaman. As winter set in, Peter suddenly resigned from the newspaper. In his memoirs, he gives no reason. According to co-workers, he was competent and got along well with his staff with one exception — a crusty veteran of the Second World War. One of his colleagues, a printer who worked with him on composing the paper, remembered that Peter had applied for the job of managing editor when Ron Brownridge announced he had accepted a post at the News-Chronicle of Port Arthur. Peter was told by management that he was too young and inexperienced. “What does it matter if I’m only sixteen,” he replied in disgust, “if I can do the job?” Management chose a young American. When in time he proved to be incompetent, Murray Burt took over.37
Jennie and Peter drove eastward across the Prairies, stopping en route in Brandon to announce to the Lissamans that their daughter was going to spend the rest of her life with a young, unemployed journalist from Ontario. From Brandon they continued eastward and crossed into the States. The Austin broke down somewhere in Michigan. Eventually, they reached Toronto.
Peter hoped to join Clyde Batten in the publishing of a weekly magazine. The idea never got past the discussion stage, however, for Peter soon landed a job with another Thomson newspaper, Chatham, Ontario’s Daily News, even though Roy Thomson, president of the chain, was none too pleased with Peter’s “fickleness” at the Times-Herald.38
In Chatham, Peter was appointed city editor. Jennie and he took up residence in an apartment on Wellington Street West and First Avenue in a one-storey cottage that had once belonged to the Ursuline Sisters of Chatham, a fact that led to some teasing. Soon Peter met Darcy McKeough, whose grandfather, A.C. Woodward, had owned the Daily News until 1922. Apparently, Jim Chaplin had telephoned McKeough to tell him that Peter was in Chatham. McKeough and Peter went out for dinner, and Darcy arranged an interview for Jennie with an architectural firm.
On Saturday, February 14, 1958, Jennie and Peter were married in the chapel of the University of Toronto’s Wycliffe College on Hoskin Avenue, just west of Queen’s Park. This theological college, named after John Wycliffe, the fourteenth-century clergyman and translator, was founded in 1877 by members of the evangelical branch of the Church of England. Casimir Gzowski had been a promoter and benefactor of the college and one of its first trustees. Later he served as chairman of the College Council. His son, Casimir S. Gzowski, also played a prominent role in the founding of the college. The chapel itself, where the wedding took place, dates from 1891.
The bride was given away by her uncle, William Seibel, of Ancaster, Ontario. Her maid of honour was Clyde Batten’s wife, “Mrs. C.C. Batten, Jackson’s Point.” The bride and her attendant were described as “pretty” in lace and satin and nosegays. There was a noticeable absence of fathers. However, Reg Lissaman did send $500 as a wedding gift. Margaret Brown was named in the article as “the late Mrs. Gzowski.” Clyde Batten was the only usher, and the best man was Ron Brownridge, who had driven down from Port Arthur. The presiding clergyman was the principal of Wycliffe, the Reverend Ramsay Armitage. At the reception, held in Clarendon Hall, Jennie’s mother and Peter’s grandmother Gzowski stood in the receiving line.
Peter and Jennie’s wedding photo as it appeared in Chatham’s Daily News on February 18, 1957.
(Courtesy Chatham-Kent Public Library)
On their honeymoon, Peter liked to boast, their first child was conceived.39 As the old saying goes, babies usually take nine months, but with the first one you can never be certain. Peter Casimir Gzowski was born on October 22, 1958, less than nine months after the wedding. It is entirely possible that he was conceived during the honeymoon, though, since the couple had been living together in Chatham for several weeks, Peter’s romantic conceit is probably another flight of fancy.
Peter didn’t spend all his honeymoon lovemaking. He took time out to write an article about the wedding, which appeared on February 18 in Moose Jaw’s Daily News. Accompanying it was a photograph of the happy couple, Peter giddy and boyish, sans “respectacles,” and Jennie, peering heavenward and giving the impression of being rather tired of all those nosegays. In the article, Peter claimed he was a graduate of the University of Toronto.
The creative city editor was soon back at his desk. On February 27, he wrote about the Chatham Little Theatre workshop. The cast for Sabrina Fair included the young and beautiful Sylvia Fricker, a few years before her last name changed to Tyson. It was probably also Peter who reported on the drama club at the Chatham Collegiate Institute. Although there is no evidence that he acted or directed in Chatham, he did attend Little Theatre productions, according to Darcy McKeough, who was a member. Peter also acquired review tickets from theatres in Detroit such as the Schubert, the Cass, and the Fox, and invited McKeough to accompany him a few times.
On March 6, 1958, “Peter Gzowski, News City Editor,” wrote a piece entitled “Huge Chatham Crowd Hears Prime Minister.” Having governed with a minority of seats since the previous June, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker had called an election for March 31. About three thousand people packed the Chatham Armoury, and another six hundred stood outside, making it, by Peter’s count, “the biggest crowd to attend a political meeting in Chatham since the heydays of the 1930s.” Since most of the articles about the city were published without a byline, one can only assume that it was Peter who covered events such as city council meetings, construction of a new Roman Catholic church, and rotting garbage in the city. He was probably the journalist who wrote stories about bootlegging, a fatal car accident, and vandalism at the local bus terminal.
Later, in March, Peter was promoted to the post of managing editor,40 thus making him, along with Pierre Berton, one of the youngest managing editors in Canada. He was now in charge of editorials, one of which, on April 11, 1958, was headlined “Shooting at the Moon,” which commented on President Eisenhower’s recent statement that soon the Americans would be sending unmanned probes around the moon. In 1958, Americans were still recovering from the surprise Sputnik that the Soviets had lobbed around the Earth the previous October. On May 1, 1958, the editor wrote about the difficulties Prime Minister Diefenbaker was having passing bills. On the same day, Peter pointed out that the Red Ensign was the official flag of Canada and had been since 1945. So why all the fuss over a new flag? he wondered.
Winn Miller knew Peter in Chatham. Her father, Victor Lauriston, was a long-time journalist on the Daily News, and she herself was the Chatham correspondent for the London Free Press. According to Miller, Peter had good ideas and high