Blessed Are the Pure in Heart: A Memoir of Bertha Hansford

Grandma Hansford was short, built close to the ground to better withstand the impact of life. There was a stain on Grandma Hansford's soul. The stain was only small, it's true, but because of her goodness, it was all the more apparent. On the bureau in her bedroom was an altar to Christ and to his holy Mother, the Virgin Mary. Prayer cards collected from the churches she visited whenever she traveled, votive candles, rosary beads, and framed photos of the loved ones she'd promised to pray for covered the surface. Here she attended to both morning and evening prayers. These daily prayers fortified the centerpiece of her faith; the weekly mass at St Casimir's Church, the spiritual home of Toronto's Polish Catholics, where reverence and incense filled the air and the stained glass saints watched for any sign of inadequate piety among the parishioners. Grandma Hansford came here to mass and often dropped in to light a candle or say a prayer for the dead. She felt the judgement of the saints, the rebuke of the plaster Christ at all thirteen Stations of the Cross, for he showed that suffering and sacrifice are requisite in those who really do love the Lord. She felt, too, the condemnation of her fellow parishioners, who knew for sure that she didn't really belong there. They suffered her presence, though, out of charity. After all, God was merciful. Even if she was condemned to hell or to purgatory, God would not strike her down here if she dropped in for communion, or to pray, or to offer up her confession to the priest. She was tolerated. She was clearly a sinner in the eyes of the church, for she did not hold to the sacrament of marriage, In fact, she had married twice and went on to live in sin with yet a third man. Grandma Hansford called her first husband the Polak. He was forty when she married him and she was just sixteen+ He was killed, an innocent bystander in a foiled bank robbery, when she was still a girl and the mother of a baby boy. Grandma Hansford stood by the rule that one did not speak ill of the dead, but somehow, when she called Zdancewicz the Old Polak, you knew that it was not a marriage made in heaven. Her second marriage, to a big Lithuanian named Snesky, started well but ended badly. Grandma's mother took over the rearing of the son from the marriage to the Old Polak, and Grandma herself entered into a marriage that produced two more children in three years. Everything went well in Grandma's telling until Snesky got a job as a waiter in a beer parlor. There, tempted by the ubiquitous amber liquid, he descended into alcoholism. She tried to stick by him like a good Catholic wife, but when Snesky pulled out a patch of their little girl's scalp during a drunken rage, Grandma broke her vow to stay with him in sickness and in health. She dressed the children, took their clothes and toys, and moved back to her mother's house. She never so much as spoke to Snesky again, preferring to raise the children on her own, working first as a seamstress and then in a small drycleaning shop on Keele Street. The parishioners at St. Casimir's were not fond of women who didn't keep their marriage vows. They thought a woman who didn't respect her own vows might not respect the vows of other couples. The women at mass looked at her with what might be described as a firm look. They were sure of their place in the community and in the church. If Grandma wanted to be accepted, then her behavior must pass the women's scrutiny. So said their steely gaze, so said their curt nod, so said their thin lipped acknowledgement of her greetings Dobryg Den, Pani. The men did not look at her directly, except when their wives weren't looking. Then they flashed quick smiles, all glowing eyes and teeth. They understood, the smiles said. It was hard to be without a husband, a husband to bring home a paycheque, to discipline the children, to fix things, a husband to warm the bed. …

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