We were sitting in our living room and someone commented on the Darrell Morrisey painting hanging above the love seat where I was sitting, and how much they liked it, it draws one in, it demands one's attention. Later that afternoon we drove to Mount Royal Cemetery and visited my parents' grave which is where, one day, I will be buried. I commented on how beautiful and peaceful I find this cemetery, it is like being in the country. We took a circuitous drive to the cemetery’s exit on Remembrance Road, we passed the Molson family mausoleum and stopped to discuss it, how the Molson family is prominent in Montreal's history. Then we continued and a minute later someone exclaimed "There is Chiniquy's grave!", it was the grave of Reverend Charles Chiniquy (1809-1899) who had fallen out with the powerful Roman Catholic Church in Quebec; an ancestor of one of our party had been a Presbyterian minister, originally from a family of Huguenots, and he moved to Illinois from Quebec City over a hundred years ago to work with Reverend Chiniquy. And then, as we looked at Revered Chiniquy's impressive monument, I looked back to where the car was parked and on the other side of the road I saw a headstone for the McLernon family and I remembered that a member of Darrell Morrisey’s family had married a McLernon; I walked across the road to read the headstone and there I saw the name Phyllis Anne Morrisey, Phyllis was Darrell Morrisey’s niece; Darrell’s brother, Thomas Sydney Morrisey and his wife Beatrice Coristine Morrisey, had two children, Hugh Morrisey and Phyllis Anne Morrisey. Phyllis Anne Morrisey married Roy McLernon in 1942 and one of their children was named after Darrell. Phyllis was born in 1918 when Darrell was 21 years old, when Darrell died in 1930 Phyllis was only twelve years old. After her passing something happened to Darrell's paintings because there are very few of them extant, we don't really know what happened to them. Only a few years ago we learned that around 1940 Syd Morrisey left one of Darrell's paintings at the West End Gallery on Greene Avenue, Westmount, and this painting was re-discovered eighty years later. As well, around 1940, Syd phoned my mother to inquire about Morrissey family history and years later she mentioned this phone call to me, she was impressed by Colonel Morrisey. It is curious that although Darrell was probably the most forgotten member of the Beaver Hall group of artists, evidence of her life and art keeps appearing, even on a day like this.
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Phyllis Anne Morrisey is Darrell Morrisey`s niece |
