To honour Edsel and Anthea properly - the lessons and legacy are truly theirs together - we need merely follow the example they set.
On Wednesday night, hundreds of people across North America and perhaps around the world were where they had been on many the Wednesday night long ago. They were with Edsel Bonnell.
Only this time they were not practising the music they all loved, laughing, and crying and ducking and hiding but remembering and laughing and mourning and crying at the passing of a man they loved.
In Texas, Pennsylvania, and Maine.
In British Columbia and Nunavut and Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Towns and cities as far removed from where they’d started and in careers and with lives every bit as different.
Nurses and doctors and lawyers and actors and musicians and accountants and teachers and graphic artists and photographers and journalists and writers and musicians.
Lots of professional musicians.
Only Edsel could have been father to so many, literally hundreds, without ever being unfaithful to the woman he truly loved, Anthea. Indeed to have her blessing as they both became father, mother, friend, mentor to such a brood.
And that in addition to their own five: Mark, John, Bruce, Brett, all of whom grew up to be musicians in addition to having other careers and Matthew, who died not long after he was born. As the boys became men and started families of their own, neither Edsel nor Anthea changed their ways. They merely welcomed more and more sparks of life to their own very large and loving families.
What all those people shared starting on Wednesday whether in phone calls, emails, texts, or posting on Facebook were the same words. The same experiences.
One of the first spoke for all when she wrote that she was “struggling to make this post as I know are many of my friends. How do you sum up someone who has made such an indelible mark on the lives of so many? Edsel Bonnell died today and it's a loss to his family, his friends, the many people who went through the Gower Band programs, and the entire province.”
One professional musician, a brilliant and caring man, wrote:
“He was a brilliant Conductor with such a natural technique and fantastic ears punctuated by an engaging and classy persona in leading us enthusiastic young people through a huge repertoire of infinite variety.”
Another, a lawyer:
“Mr. Bonnell pushed us. He expected us to practise, show up on time, and put in the work at rehearsals. In return, he showed up for us. Hundreds of us. At rehearsals and at performances. At sectionals and at private lessons, which he provided free of charge. At music festival performances. At graduations. At weddings and funerals. He and his lovely wife Anthea took us all in and supported us and celebrated our successes and shared in our sorrows. Mr. Bonnell set dozens of kids on the path to becoming professional musicians and was a reference on god knows how many resumes of teenagers applying for their first jobs.”
The one who struggled remember this:
“He pushed us hard, and threw batons, and yelled (oh did he yell!) but we all knew he was just trying to get us to be our best. And get our best out of us he did!”
The musician reminded us that Edsel “truly believed in all of us and expected a great deal in knowing that we only wanted to follow his own enthusiasm and sacred vision beyond our own abilities in reaching heights of achievement and success and dedication and commitment.”
“He showed us all how to make fine music together and taught us the values inherent in enabling us to enjoy what seemed as a deeply professional environment.”
Another old friend whose own father died just before Christmas did not know how many have said this as well: “The man literally changed the trajectory of my life.”
One who achieved the distinction of Life membership - 10 years continuous service - and whose children both joined the band wrote that “Mr. Bonnell…was an imposing personality, but it was because he knew we could achieve great things. The members came from all walks of life and religions. We had a denominational school system, so we did not necessarily go to school or participate in activities together. Lifelong connections and friendships were made. We achieved musical success, toured, made recordings, but most important of all we learned valuable life lessons.”
Edsel Bonnell did not create the Gower Band Program but on the fateful night when he first walked into the bandroom - October 31, 1973 - he made it his own. Yet typically, as when Edsel received his honorary doctorate from Memorial University in 2011, he gave credit to others.
I share this honour today with the people of Gower Street United Church who caught the vision 38 years (and more than 900 performances!) ago of establishing a non-denominational community band program which would provide music education and instruments, scholarship support, and opportunities for community service to anyone with a commitment to the love of music and the joy of service --- a truly remarkable gift to community by a church and its supporters and benefactors; and of course the more than 400 musicians who have participated in this program over the years and who continue to touch countless lives with music and community service at home and abroad.
More than 400. Many more than that. And when you add in their partners, children, and in many cases grandchildren, the legacy of the band has been far greater than anyone might have imagined.
There were lives changed as a result of the band. People found careers, especially in music, that they might never have thought of before. Others followed the paths they were on. There are too many stories to share but two are worth considering if only because the band’s impact, all of which traces back to Edsel one way or another. The Broadway smash Come from away featured a Gower band alumnus in the original cast. Telus would be coloured differently if not for a Gower alumna. All took the values and the experience of Gower with them.
There was more to Edsel than the band. At 18 he started working in a local newsroom. Edsel would eventually work at VOCM, the Telegram, and CJON Radio and CJON Television (now NTV). In 1959, he became the first public relations consultant in the province He was publisher of the Daily News and owned sign and marketing companies before coming back to public relations. Edsel would become the first PR consultant in the province to achieve national accreditation (APR) from the Canadian Public Relations Society. CPRS would later make Edsel an Honorary Fellow of the Society as well as a Life Member, honours richly deserved and ones that likely meant as much to Edsel as his honorary doctorate (2011) or the Order of Canada (2001), both for his community service through music.
Edsel covered the IWA strike, one of the most divisive labour actions in Newfoundland and Labrador history. He was Mobil’s PR counsel during the Ocean Ranger disaster, a moment he considered one of the darkest of his career. Edsel counted his public relations strategy for the 1977 Canada Summer Games in St. John’s as a career highlight, noting that the media accreditation for the ‘77 Games was higher than any previous games. As Chief of Staff to Clyde Wells, Edsel put his many talents but particularly his belief in strategic planning to work as chair of the planning groups that led to both the Strategic Economic Plan and the unreleased Strategic Social Plan.
Edsel was a pragmatist, as someone so astutely described him on Wednesday. It was as much that quality as any other of Edsel’s many that helped to make his relationship with Clyde Wells not merely work but to become a deep and lasting friendship that lasted until Edsel’s death. The two remained in regular touch, just as Edsel kept in regular touch after his retirement with several circles of friends and former work colleagues both in government and in the private sector.
Edsel took the same attitude to his professional PR and management career as he did to his professional music career. And as with music, there are many journalists, former journalists, and public relations professionals or politicians, political staff, and public servants mourning Edsel. They got to know him the same way the band members did, as a friend and mentor and colleague, gregarious, full of endless energy enthusiasm and optimism, hard-working, level-headed and almost above all, fiercely loyal. With Edsel, he was never your ex- anything and he would happily learn from those he taught. I had the good fortune of knowing Edsel in that other career as well as in music. And like so many others, that experience changed me and changed my life twice over.
The only word I have ever settled on to describe Edsel is large. Physically, he was a big man. Taller than most of his generation in Newfoundland and Labrador and for a few generations afterward. His voice was a naturally rich baritone, cured to its warm depths by diligent pipe smoking over many years and a glass of scotch, nursed especially carefully when pondering an obscure trivia question on games night at his house. His curiosity was limitless, which is why Edsel was a boundless fountain of knowledge and insight and information on almost any subject. He read voraciously and his musical tastes were equally deep as they were broad. This was also why Edsel was such a brilliant writer.
Edsel was a raconteur who could hold his own with the best story-tellers. He also had a wicked and frequently ribald sense of humour. Ask some of the old hands from the band about the trip to Twillingate and his encounter with a small shard of glass in a towel a few hours before a major concert. Ask too about his legendary rants.
Edsel was large. Large in the way Newfoundlanders talk of a large day. Sunny. Warm. Full of life all around. Seemingly endless.
Edsel seemed endless in virtually every way. But on Wednesday, all those who knew and loved him, who were known by and loved by him, got the hard reminder that in this life nothing is endless.
Now we sit and laugh and cry and remember. We struggle for words to tell others how we feel, to find words to honour Edsel, to write his obituary, to eulogize him.
We need not waste our time. Edsel did the job for us. In his life, Edsel embodied all the values that matter. He didn’t tell us what to do. He showed us how to do it.
To honour Edsel and Anthea properly - the lessons and legacy are truly theirs together - we merely follow the example they set.
For those who may have missed it, read Edsel’s message to convocation at Memorial a dozen years ago. The word pragmatism is there. You can see him share the honour of his doctorate with everyone else in his life, a reminder, as always, of the central role that relationships play in all that we do just as they were central to Edsel’s life.
Edsel challenged the young people in the room to look at the marvellous world they inherited from generations before. “Today you have become alumni of Memorial,” Edsel told them, “the latest generation of a proud tradition of academic excellence which has sent its graduates to teach others, to provide leadership, and to serve humanity around the world as well as here at home.”.
Unconsciously, he was describing himself: teach others. Lead. Serve humanity. Edsel could not help but do this unconsciously because these are the principles he took from his parents - John Bonnell and Rhoda Eason, strong Salvationers that they were - and applied every day of his life. Edsel lived by example and for every one of us struggling today in sadness and grief, we need only look to the example Edsel set to know what we must do.
After he retired, Edsel continued to write letters to the editor offering his suggestions on how the rest of us could tackle the problems we face. His advice was never about specific things to do but rather *how* to find the answer. That was the secret of the two strategic plans he helped develop. Success was not in the destination, although both plans contained many ideas that are still relevant 25 and more years later. Success came out of the journey to the destination. Success is rooted not in one person’s achievement but in people working together and finding common ground on which to build anew.
It was about relationships, integrity, and selflessness.
Lead. Teach. Serve.
Launch forth into the deep, he told those graduates, taking the motto of the university. That day was Edsel’s moment to shine, to bring together so much of his life into a focus and give us the benefit of his lifelong philosophy. It was a philosophy at the heart of the Gower band program: an accent on youth.
Use the knowledge and tools which are at your disposal, turn your challenges into opportunities, and save the world.
Because the world is truly yours, with all the blunders and blessings that you inherit.
Your world. Your choice. Your future.
Enjoy the voyage!
Edsel was never any clearer:
Lead. Teach Others. Serve the Community.
And enjoy the voyage.
Trust us, Edsel, we will.
Beautiful.