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Teacher, mother, grandmother, creator of a sense of place. Born Jan. 2, 1919, in Fredericton. Died Dec. 10, 2010, in Halifax of kidney failure, aged 91.
Jessie Sharpe grew up in Fredericton and Saint John in the 1920s and 1930s, but spent her summers at her father's birthplace, a farm and a fox ranch on the Northumberland Strait in Murray Corner, N.B. Here she would visit her many cousins and friends, swim, work in the garden and kitchen, and care for her grandparents.
In 1930, her father, Fletcher Peacock, a vocational-school principal and pioneer in progressive education, took his wife, Stella, and family to Manhattan, where he was completing his master's degree at Columbia University. At 11, Jessie fell in love with New York.
To her, the city provided as strong a sense of place as the fields and beaches of Murray Corner. She returned to New York during the Second World War, leaving her teaching job as the first female principal of the Consolidated School in Deer Island, N.B. She studied nutrition at Columbia, spending her Sunday afternoons at the tea dances at the Roosevelt Hotel.
After returning to New Brunswick, she married Donald Sharpe in 1947. He had just returned from service in Europe, supporting the troops with the YMCA, to study for the United Church ministry. As Donald moved to different pastoral charges, Jessie taught, played the organ on Sundays, conducted choirs and glee clubs and directed community theatre in rural communities across Canada: Malagawatch and Sambro in Nova Scotia, Welsford in New Brunswick, Souris in Prince Edward Island and Vulcan in southern Alberta.
In 1964, the lure of New York enticed her to move there with her husband and young family to study religious drama at Union Theological Seminary. She wanted to give her two boys, Jim and Andrew, a sense of adventure. In September, 1964, after the summer of the Harlem Riots, she enrolled her sons in public school in Harlem. Her sons have always enjoyed a sense of adventure.
In 1965, the family moved to Chelsea, Que., and Jessie returned to teaching and school administration. She believed in the power of education to change lives and to overcome poverty, dependence and injustice.
Jessie and Don returned to the Maritimes after retirement in 1981, first to Fredericton where she joined the Voice of Women and worked in soup kitchens. In 1987, they built a house in Murray Corner, near the cottage and farm where she had spent her summers as a child.
This remains the family centre, a meeting place for all generations. In declining health, Jessie lived her last few years in Halifax, but returned to Murray Corner each summer. She created a sense of place there for her extended family and her grandchildren. Many will return this summer to celebrate her life.
By Jim Sharpe, Jessie's son.
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New Brunswick Families