My first cousin, Doris Corbett, was born and raised in Conception Harbour, Newfoundland. In Forty Years Late, Doris wrote about the courage of our grandmother who defied the parish priest by opening her home to a woman he had banished. Doris graduated from the Mercy Convent in Conception Harbour and began her long teaching career at St. Teresa’s Convent School in Mundy Pond, at the one-room schoolhouse in Bacon Cove, in Corner Brook, and in St. Johns. She traveled to the United States and attended St. Mary’s College in Indiana, where our great aunt Sister Leonce taught. She obtained a B.A. followed by a Masters degree in Asian Studies from the University of Hawaii, a Masters degree in History from Eastern Michigan University, and an ABD in History from Wayne State University.

Doris had an encyclopedic knowledge of history, politics, literature, and art. She was an inspiring teacher with a healthy disdain for ‘academentia’. Her book learning was enhanced by travel and connection with people from all walks of life. She was an accomplished folk singer working in London, Ontario, Key West, and throughout Michigan. Throughout her life, she was a charismatic storyteller believing that women’s history and truth lay in the stories we tell in our own voices. Her roots in Newfoundland lay at the core of Doris’s being. To know Doris was to love a gentle woman, respectful of others, ever ready to laugh.

Doris died in Michigan of brain cancer at the age of 60. At her request, a funeral mass was held in St. Anne’s Church on January 10, 2000 and she is interred in the Conception Harbour cemetery. Copies of Doris singing may be obtained from me at mcorbe@aol.com.