Powley Case
Voyageur Articles
A Quiet Hero
Steve Powley 1948-2004
by Tom Spaulding
The first death to make me really mad was that of my mother.
That was over forty years ago. The second to make me mad was
my eldest brother, about ten years ago, and the third was
that of Steve Powley.
My family, like many, had its problems. And like many, had
great difficulty talking about them. The loss of my mother
cut off any opportunities there might have been to learn about
family history, to learn about the external stresses imposed,
for example, by two wars and the depression. And the loss
of my brother totally eliminated all possibilities of learning
about the internal stresses in the family, stresses that were
created by the personalities of the various family members.
I was mad because with each death I realized that a door had
been closed. There was a volume of knowledge irrevocably gone.
With their deaths I no longer had anyone to ask. I hope it
is unnecessary to add that anger was in no way a substitute
for grief.
Steve and I had often discussed the possibility of working
on a book together. I think Steve would have described the
project simply as the recording of a family history. I thought
of it as something much more. I thought of it, and still do,
as a description of a man who combined two remarkable and
all too rare qualities-generosity and humility.
If Steve were here watching as I write this, he’d tap
me on my shoulder and shaking his head say, “C’mon
Tom that’s bull! I thought we were going to stick to
the facts!” I have known from the beginning that some
parts of such a book would have to be written while Steve
was out of sight.
Steve was not an easy person to understand. A couple of us
were recalling the other day that after the great success
of his first trial and while amongst a sea of happy people
gathered just outside the courtroom he did not want his picture
taken. It took me quite a while to realize that this person
who had purposely put himself in a position inviting the Ontario
Government to sue him, was profoundly shy!
I think most of us who had the privilege of meeting Steve
would agree he looked what he, for the most part was; that
is, a man skilled in the way of the woods, a fine shot, and
almost mystically sensitive to the ways of wildlife. But I
had the great good fortune to be up in the Sault to see him
in January of 1999, which meant, of course, that Christmas
decorations were still in season. Even though he had warned
me, I was stunned by what I saw of the inside of his house.
Every surface was covered by Christmas balls. Steve had a
hobby! He had been collecting them for years, and he knew
an amazing amount about them. He confessed that he figured
he had at that time something over eight thousand of these
quaint decorations. They had come from all over the world
and some were as old as four hundred years.
I mentioned that Steve was a generous man. I couldn’t
leave the house that evening without having one of those sparkling
glass globes-an old one, hand painted, heaven knows its worth.
So Steve’s death has made me mad, not for the same reasons
mentioned above regarding my own family, but because I wanted
to know more about this man. I liked him; respected him; and
looked forward to working with him. |
