A CELEBRATION OF LIVES ON OCT. 5 FOR CYRIL AND MARION FRY FOR WHOM ‘GRAVENHURST WORKED WELL’
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GRAVENHURST — Cyril and Marion Fry were an adorable, memorable and very active couple in every way.
So how do you celebrate almost 200 years of lives so well and richly lived?
That’s the challenge for son Alastair and his sisters Jill and Gretta on Sunday Oct. 5, when they will attempt to squeeze all that in to just three hours upstairs and downstairs at the Gravenhurst Opera House from 2-5 p.m.
“They weren’t keen on funerals, but they didn’t say anything about a celebration of life,” Alastair said. “There’s no fun in funerals.”
An apt analogy for their lives and what their kids hope will be an afternoon of fond memories for the long-time well-loved Gravenhurst residents.
“Because it’s after the fact we just want to make sure people are aware of it,” said Jill.
“It’s hard to let everyone know about it,” says Alastair. “There’s too many different communications for people these days.
“It’s an opportunity for locals, anybody, who knew them to come together and connect with people they haven’t seen for a long time. Talk about Gravenhurst. And get together and we can provide a few details about their early years.
“And then some of the things people may be more familiar with having known them in Gravenhurst, which was for almost 70 years for them.”
Cyril died June 22, 2022 at 96 and Marion passed away early this year, Jan. 17, 2025, at age 99.
“Dad would have loved to have been up on the stage,” said Jill, “because he could tell all kinds of great stories. “He enjoyed getting up and talking.”
A natural ability and skill he honed as a teacher and for a couple years as host of the Stephen Leacock Humour Award in Orillia.
Marion, too, had a dry wit and wry smile often in his shadow.
“This is a nice opportunity for us to hear other people’s stories,” said Jill. “Because in a family you see one side of a person.”
The son and daughter will talk about Marion and Cyril’s early years growing up in Kitchener and Brantford, respectively. How they met in a rather unusual location near Huntsville and re-connected while attending the University of Toronto. The first few years following their marriage and then their decision to move to Gravenhurst.
The family will provide additional photos and stories behind some of the things that people who have lived in Gravenhurst may be more familiar with including: Jobs at Rubberset and GHS for Cyril and the Muskoka Sanatorium for Marion. Building a home on Muskoka Beach Road. Outdoor activities including cycling, sailing, skiing. Parades, the unicycle and the “clown costume.” Square dancing and the kilt. Global travel and time spent living in other countries. But they always came back. Writing, mostly including various news letters and books as well as the Gravenhurst News. Aviation, gardening, Gravenhurst 1977 Centennial, music including the Muskoka Concert Association, Gravenhurst Archive committee and a whole lot more.
“We’ll note that Jill and I and Gretta (who lives in Australia and won’t be back) moved away from Gravenhurst in our early 20s,” said Alastair. “And therefore some residents may have known them better than we do. At least over the past 40-50 years through organizations like the Muskoka Field Naturalist, Probus and Gravenhurst Archives.
Of particular note were high school reunions, which Cyril especially enjoyed attending.
“Marion and Cyril spent a lot of time in the Opera House over the years,” where Cyril also did a little theatre acting and drew the rap attention of a teacher when speaking at public meetings where he mixed wit with sage advice, said Alastair.
“So it is an appropriate venue. And the newly renovated auditorium with the big screen should help provide a good presentation and slide show. We’re trying to focus on the lighter side of things to inspire people to stand up and speak.”
A couple of other friends of the Frys will also speak.
Gretta’s daughter, Claudia, who is on an around the world trip will also be there with about a dozen other family members.
“There’s nothing shocking about their lives that we don’t already know,” said Jill, 69, who lives in Calgary after retiring five years ago as the “costumer” for CBC’s Heartland TV show when COVID hit. “But you never know.”
Cyril and his family spent time in his youth around Sparrow Lake and Kahshe Lake and Peninsula Lake in Huntsville, where he met Marion on the Portage Flyer. She, too, was familiar with Muskoka and Honey Harbour. They attended UofT together before marrying for 74 years.
Cyril liked to say he “married an older woman,” who in 1926 was born 40 days before him.
After returning following a year working in England after they wed, Gravenhurst was one of the preferred locations to look for work. He worked at Rubberset as an engineer. And they never left.
Though Marion spent her last year and a bit at a retirement home in Aurora closer to where Alastair, 64, is retired after career in sales including Canada sales manager for the popular clothing firm Helly Hansen. And before that Nike, which led Cyril to proudly sport the swish.
“They did an amazing amount of stuff,” said Jill. “When you live to be almost 100 … when we were looking through material Mom and Dad were in to all kinds of different things. It’s kind of astounding.”
“Except sports,” jokes Alastair. “They were more interested in music (he calling square dances).”
The Frys took advantage of everything Gravenhurst had to offer. But, said Jill, Cyril would drive to Orillia and to Toronto for meetings of the Canadian Aviational Society and Audubon Society. “All kinds of diverse things all over the place.”
Cyril retired from school a little early and they took advantage of travel including to China on a Rotary exchange.
“I wish I had known a little more about Mom’s early years and when they were kids,” said Jill. “I had spoken to Dad about it as I’m a bit in to genealogy and he had written down some of his.
“This has given me and Alastair a chance to look at our parents as younger people and learn things about them. To just reconnect with their younger selves because, of course, when we last saw them they were quite elderly.”
“It would have been nice to have more time with them to become more aware of them as you get older,” added Alastair.
“I think one of the things is it’s interesting to see how their interests have been passed on, just by osmosis, and in to our children,” said Jill. “Mom’s interest in gardening or sense of style and taste. Or Dad’s interests. You sort of see them reappearing and think maybe that’s where that came from. I know for me a lot of my interests were engendered by things Mom and Dad were interested in — the natural world. And in Mom’s case she was interested in the arts and crafts and was very good at doing them. And taught me to do things. You sort of see things carrying on in that sense. And, yes, to some extent in our families.”
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While Cyril was not afraid of a little limelight, Marion preferred to keep a low profile but she was always busy getting things done, whether it was organizing a nursery school, selling Community Concert memberships, canvassing for the Canadian Cancer Society, planting the flower beds at the opera house, serving as president of the Segwun Museum Society or sitting on the Committee of Adjustment for the town.
“She did her own things and had a lot of fun,” Alastair said of his Mom.
The culmination of this commitment to volunteering came when she and Cyril were instrumental in the founding of the Gravenhurst Archives in 1978. After that the running of this organization became a large part of Marion’s senior years. For this work she was awarded, with Cyril, a 2019 Lieutenant Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ontario Heritage Trust.
‘It was a good time and good place for them to be in.’
“I think a town like Gravenhurst worked well for them,” said Alastair. “They knew a lot of people and were in a lot of the same groups and organizations. It was a good time and good place for them to be in. That’s one of the nice things about Gravenhurst. Nice size, nice community. It wasn’t too big or too small. There was a lot going on and they embraced that.”
But the Frys also “got of out town.” They lived in England twice, including with their kids as part of a teaching exchange. And many trips to visit Gretta in Australia and all over the world.
“But they always came back,” said Alastair. “Never expressed an interest in living anywhere else. They didn’t do some of the things that people do like going to Florida for the winter. They stuck it out.”
For Cyril, between working at Rubberset and GHS he knew half the families in town young and old and in-between.
“It’s true, yeah, they knew probably a huge percentage of the population at least somewhat,” said Jill. “And as they got older and their friends died, they kept going to meetings and joining groups like Probus to meet new people.”
Of course being instrumental in the Gravenhurst Archives together they knew more pioneers and history of the town than most born in the Gateway to Muskoka.
She said Cyril had no interest in running for mayor or being on council, but did sit on the school board. And if pushed he would admit to being a New Democrat and labour supporter.
However, he did like to run things, mostly charitable organizations like the Arthritis Society.
He was also quite interested in writing, including his weekly ‘Ivory Tower’ column in the Gravenhurst News, which he owned in the 1970s-’80s with his good friend and lawyer John Christensen. The two also started a famous walking group that continues this October.
“We’re looking forward to seeing people,” said Jill. “We’re not there running in to people at the bank. It will be a chance for Alastair and I to reconnect with some people in Gravenhurst. And some relatives of course. These occasions are always a family get-together as well.”
Alastair and Jill and some of their families will be staying at the family’s home on Muskoka Beach Road, which they’ve kept up.
If you can’t make it and would like to share a story, you can contact them at afry90@hotmail.com
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