Quilter, washboard player and grand adventurer

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Published on Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Photo by Kira Paterson. Mary Murray put on her thimbles and demonstrated how to play the washboard. She plays with bands at the Legion every Wednesday.

By Kira Paterson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

This is the first of a monthly Neepawa Press series highlighting stories from some of our local residents.

 Everywhere one goes, there are people with stories to tell. Shocking stories, funny stories, inspiring stories, can be found in places one would never think to look. Mary Murray of Neepawa holds a treasure trove of such tales. Her life has been an adventure from when she was just a few years old, even to now, being in her 70s. 

The first story she ever had to tell happened when she was only three and a half years old, but she remembers it quite clearly. “I was born in 1940, so I was in the Second World War, in effect... just outside of London, [England],” she said. “Three o’clock in the morning on the 23rd of February in 1944, our home was bombed. And my mum had [me and my sisters] all under the kitchen table and everything collapsed around us and we had to wait for the soldiers to come and dig us out,” she recalled. She explained that their house was between the aerodrome, from where the spitfires and bombing planes used to take off, and the gun site that was protecting the aerodrome. She said that the enemy would always try to bomb those sites, but they never hit them. They just hit the residential street right in between. 

“My mum used to pack us under the table when the sirens went... We used to have to bring our pillows down with us and she packed pillows and blankets around us. And she was packing that last blanket around us when everything caved in.” 

She added that her grandmother was also there, but she wouldn’t hide under the table. “I can remember my grandmother; the night that we were under the table when that happened, she was in a rocking chair. She used to sit in the rocking chair and she used to have her bible and she’d just sit there and she used to sing hymns and that. She wouldn’t do anything else to protect herself. Anyway, that night, I guess the blast from the bomb flipped that chair upside down. So anyway, there she is under the rocking chair, like this [makes a tent shape out of her hands] and everything else, bricks and roof beams and God knows what else, were all over top of us... She hadn’t got a scratch on her. So there she was, trapped underneath this rocking chair. It flipped with her in it and it acted like a teepee over her.”

The family then had to be dug out of the debris by the soldiers from the gun site. The soldiers took them to a neighbour’s house, which was the only house left standing on the whole street, to spend the night. 

Quilting for a cause

Since that experience, she’s always had a soft spot for soldiers and veterans. Because of that, she now makes Valour Quilts for veterans and injured soldiers; she’s even sent a few overseas to soldiers currently serving. She also made a special commemorative Freedom Poppy quilt for the 100th anniversary of the third battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI), which is hanging up at the barracks at CFB Shilo. “I’m hoping now I can make things a little lighter for [them]... because a lot of our soldiers, they’ve gone through hell... they’re lovely boys, very brave,” she said. 

Murray keeps a binder full of pictures of her with the soldiers to whom she’s given quilts, along with a list of where each quilt has gone and when. She knows each soldier by name and the stories behind their injuries. She also goes to CFB Shilo for their annual Christmas suppers and just to visit some of them every once in awhile.  

Last year, her involvement with the PPCLI gave her an opportunity to go on an adventure. May of 2015 marked the 100th year since the first battle in which the PPCLI served. She was able to accompany the PPCLI group from Shilo on their trip to Belgium and France for the Frezenberg Commemoration. 

On that trip, they followed the journey that the PPCLI took during World War I from Ypres, to Passchendaele, to Mount Sorrel, visiting monuments and cemeteries along the way. One of the highlights of that trip Murray shared was finding a soldier’s grave that hadn’t been recorded.

At the Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, all the PPCLI graves had been marked with a flag as part of the centennial celebration. However, Murray noticed one stone that hadn’t been marked with a flag but the grave said it was a PPCLI soldier. She mentioned it to one of the event organizers and when they checked for this soldier’s name in their database, it wasn’t there. She was given the honour of putting a flag in this man’s grave because she was the one that discovered it. 

She was able to have this amazing experience because of the quilts she makes. And she didn’t even know how to quilt until seven years ago. She started in 2009 after her husband died. “It was six months I’d been in kind of limbo,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do with myself, and [my friend] said, ‘Why don’t you come to the quilting?’... so I went, and of course they gave us a pattern for a block... so the next day she came here with a bit of material and we made the first block, and of course, I was hooked. Since then, I’ve made, oh, I don’t know, 250 to 300 quilts.” 

The veterans are not the only ones who benefit from Murray’s hobby. She also makes blankets and folds a stuffed toy inside to give to emergency responders. She brings them in bulk to local police officers, firefighters, paramedics and the hospital to give to children in trauma. 

Murray has about 100 of these blanket bundles on hand and she recently brought 45 to the hospital and ambulances to top up their supplies. 

She has also made quilts for Country Meadows Personal Care Home, the hospital and the Legion, which raffled off the quilt she made for them to raise money for the HMK playground fund. She plans to make another quilt for the Legion to raffle off as well. 

Marching to the beat of her own washboard

Quilts are not the only things Murray makes. She also makes music. Back when she was a teenager, living in England, she used to play the washboard with a “skiffle” band in a bar. “We were the West Five. And we weren’t old enough to be in a bar, but because we were playing music for young people, we were in an area that was away from the bar,” she explained. Now, for about the past month, she’s been reliving those days at the Legion every Wednesday. 

“I’ve been going down to the Legion on Wednesdays to listen to the music. And I said to my neighbour, ‘You know, if I could get a washboard... I’d play with them.” So one of her friends found her a metal washboard from an antique store in Rapid City. She cleaned it all up, washed off the soap residue and cobwebs and joined the bands at the Legion. She also went to Arden a few weeks ago to the Pub Night at the curling rink and played her washboard during the jam session there. “I just love it, I really do. Because I love music, I love all kinds of music,” she stressed. 

Along with the Legion, she has also been involved with the local Red Hat Society, the Elks, the Tangled Threads Quilt Guild and the Royal Purple group before it shut down. 

Despite spending most of her time giving to others, she still makes time to have her own adventures. Her daughter, Melanie, makes sure of that. 

One adventure Melanie took her on a few years ago let her check an item off her bucket list. “I wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef from a glass bottomed boat,” she began. “I did do that, but when I got there, [Melanie] had arranged for a young person to swim with me –swim for me, because I can’t swim– and to take me snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. I was scared silly. Well, I took a leap of faith and I jumped into the ocean even though I couldn’t see the bottom.” She explained that the person swimming with her towed her along with a rope to the reef. “He said to me, ‘Put your face in the water and look around, see all you can see and you’ll forget about being scared,’ well he was right.” She said they were out there for about an hour and she saw all kinds of fish and coral. “It was absolutely gorgeous... So while I was there, I went snorkeling three times. I jumped in the water next time real easy. It was really nice.” 

Murray also mentioned that while they were in Australia, she saw some ziplines and had said to her daughter that they looked interesting. She specifically noted that she never told her daughter she wanted to try it, she only said it was interesting. 

So, last year, Melanie arranged for Murray to try it. “So we’re out in Vancouver and I thought we’re going to the cabin, which is up north of Whistler. Anyway, we stop in Whistler,” Murray said. “Well [Melanie] took me ziplining. We did five zips. I was scared silly! The first one was fine, it was only 900 metres and it wasn’t that far off the ground... Well then the next one was 1,100 metres and it was a little bit further up. But anyway, now I did it. But the next one... I get up there and we’re going to go across the canyon from Whistler to Blackcomb, one mountain to the other. And the bottom is white water and great big boulders and everything else... I was as white as a sheet. And I’m standing at the gate and I think I would’ve gone, but I looked down. And there were great big spruce trees and I’m looking down on the tops of them. Way down on the tops of them... And I started to back up. I said, ‘I can’t do it. I can’t do it.’ Next thing I knew... the gate was open and I was pushed from behind... Fourteen hundred metres, right across the canyon! That’s 1.4 kilometres!” She said the last two were a 1,100 metre and a 900 metre and after the 1,400 metre, they didn’t even phase her. “I’d always been scared of heights and I’m not scared of heights anymore,” she said with a laugh.

Murray has always loved the outdoors, but generally, she sticks to less extreme activities than snorkeling and ziplining. Gardening is one of her favourite hobbies. She has beautiful garden space in her yard. She’s even won Garden of the Week a few times when Communities in Bloom held the competition in Neepawa. “I’m closer to God in my garden than anywhere else in the world,” she said, quoting her mother’s words. 

And so, that is a bit of Mary Murray in a nutshell. “It’s just me,” Murray said, simply. “I try to do what I can for other people. And I love doing this kind of thing and giving my quilts and being of whatever help I can. I try to be a good neighbour and I love my garden.”

Do you know someone with some interesting life stories? We’d love to hear them, please contact us at 204-476-3401 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .