PADDLE, Helen Jane (née Hall) - Farmgirl–Scooter Girl–Traveller-Titan-Matriarch
(November 9, 1932 – February 7, 2021) - Our mum left us on Sunday evening. She was at home and surrounded by family, exactly as she had hoped.
Helen was born in Galt, Ontario. She and her sisters Wilma (“Toot”) and Bethie, and brothers Tom and John, were raised on the Hall family homestead in Ayr/Jedburgh, Ontario during the Great Depression.
Although there were hardships - they had no electricity or indoor plumbing, and farming involved hard manual labour - Helen always remembered her childhood with great fondness. Music filled the home and huge family meals – Hall Christmases that continue to this day - were a source of happiness for her.
After graduating from high school, Helen worked as a secretary (“90 wpm AND shorthand!!!”) at the Smiles and Chuckles factory in Kitchener where she developed a lifelong love of “Turtles”. Toot had moved to Toronto and it wasn’t long before Helen headed down the road to join her at a residence for out-of-town girls, Willard Hall. Helen met Mae Drew (Waxer) and Betty Koch (Russell) there and the trio shared many small-town-girl-in-the-big-city adventures. Helen secured a secretarial job at the CBC where she met Molly Davis (Endress). Molly, Betty, Mae and Helen would remain friends, meeting over Bridge games and then just coffee or wine when no one could remember what trump was, for the next seven decades.
At a Young People’s dance at Metropolitan United Church, Helen caught the eye of the DJ. It was love at first sight for young Jack Paddle. He and Helen married in May of 1955 at the end of Jack’s fourth year of architecture at UofT. Helen acted as breadwinner while Jack completed his fifth year and graduated. Then, much to their family’s consternation, they put everything they owned into storage and went to Europe, planning to take a year to visit all of the castles and cathedrals that Jack had studied in school. They started the trip on bicycles but, halfway up one of those interminable hills in Cumbria, Helen sat down on the side of the road and refused to go any further. There was no point in arguing with Helen – EVER - so they traded in their bikes for a motor scooter in Penrith and continued on their merry way.
When they arrived home in 1957, penniless, Jack and Helen were met at Union Station by Mum’s cousin, Bob Lowndes, and his young wife Joan. Helen’s Aunt Amy gave them $100 to get them started and they moved to an apartment in Thorncliffe Park. Jack found a job and six months later -! - Patti was born. Carol followed thirteen months after that and John was born in 1961. By this time the Paddle family had bought a house in Midland Park. Neighbours like Doris Maiden, Norma King, Grace Lewis and Doreen Kincaid were lifelines and these women as well as “The Bridge Ladies” became second mothers for the Paddle kids.
By the late seventies, her children grown, Helen was anxious to get back into the workforce. Despite the fact that she knew nothing about cars, she became the first female car salesperson in Toronto. By noon of her first day, she sold her first car, a fully loaded Cadillac, and went on to win many sales awards. Helen was regularly the only woman in a room of three thousand men at District Sales Meetings. After she retired from selling cars, she worked onsite during the construction of the CN Tower. On the afternoon they were going to install the needle, she poked her head out of the very tip of the tower and took her time looking down at the city of Toronto, hair blowing in the wind. She was a titan.
Helen and Jack’s trips to Kenya and winters in Mexico were highlights of their lives, and they instilled their love of travel into their seven grandchildren. These six grandsons and one granddaughter loved visits to the cottage on the St. Lawrence where their Grandma Jane taught them how to play cribbage and when to pour her a glass of wine. (Five o’clock. Lots of ice.) To her grandchildren, Grandma Jane was a study in contrasts: “stylish and elegant, yet pragmatic to her very core.” With them, she shared a special relationship, “happy to sit, listen, and take in what was happening, but then you’d see someone doing something funny and catch her eye from across the room, and you’d know she’d seen it too.”
And there you have it: FAMILY was everything for Helen and we, her family, won’t forget her words: “Remember you’re a Hall.”
With love from your kids, Patti (John), Carol (Mark), John, and Terry (Marvin); your grandchildren, Will (Anna), Rob, Ned (Robbie), Laura Jane (Josh), Jeff (Rebecca), Jake (Melissa), and Trystan; and your great-grandchildren, Emmett and Harper Helen.
Arrangements entrusted with Giffen-Mack funeral home, Danforth chapel, Toronto. Interment at Ayr Cemetery will happen only when we can hug one another safely.
Patti, Carol and John are enormously grateful to the Temmy Latner Centre for Palliative Care. Donations, if you wish, can be made to them.
Bye-o, bye-o, Mum. Cheers. (Do you want more ice in that white wine?)
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