Marcia Carroll was to my mind a Thompson “original.” Now that’s a bit different than perhaps a Thompson “pioneer” as Marcia didn’t live in Thompson quite from the beginning, marked by those halcyon days that closed out the late 1950s, although she did live here a long time. Marcia was original more in the sense of the unique personal back story she brought with her to Thompson, Manitoba, and the equally unique contributions she made for more than 25 years to minor hockey, through the sponsorship, with her husband, Dave, of the Carroll Aeros Atom “B” minor hockey team, where she incredibly knit or crocheted scarves for all the team’s players for years, and the arts in the North through her unfailing encouragement and patronage of Northern artists – be they indigenous, Métis or white.
So when I read of Marcia Carroll’s Sept. 27 passing at Thompson General Hospital in a 137-word Oct. 9 online obituary in the Thompson Citizen, I thought there might be a few more words to say beyond that about the woman who was my next-door business neighbour for the first five years I edited the Thompson Citizen and Nickel Belt News, from 2007 to 2012. Our office was at 141 Commercial Place, while Marcia’s Precambrian Art Centre was adjacent at the same address, occupying space she rented from our corporate owner. Being Marcia’s landlord meant newspaper staff were dispatched on occasion over to her premises, summoned by her to perform some landlord-like task, such as changing commercial grade fluorescent lighting tubes, a task that often fell between 2007 and 2009 to lanky production newspaper page designer Garrett Wiwcharuk (now a colleague at UCN), who was sometimes ably assisted by the paper’s production manager, Ryan Lynds. I suspect now editor Ian Graham and myself may also have been pressed into service the odd time as well.
Marcia owned and operated Precambrian Art Centre for 18 years. But it was her husband, Dave, I actually first heard about from Steve Ashton, our former Thompson MLA, who I had just met on a tour of the then newly-upgraded Canada Safeway in July 2007. Marcia and Dave have two grown sons, Matthew and Morgan, as well as grandchildren Carter and Jerzie.
Ashton told me about Dave’s prowess as a butcher and the demand for his products at Carroll Meats at 20 Nelson Road, where he worked with veteran Thompson meat cutter Joan Monuik, who died two years ago at the age of 76.
Dave Carroll was married to Marcia for 50 years. Finding himself in declining health, he sold Carroll Meats, which had been closed for a time, to Kelly Bindle in 2013, and trained the civil engineer, who had no previous experience in the field, about the meat business as part of the sale. Bindle changed the name to Ripple Rock Meat Shop and still works as its proprietor, although dividing his time between Thompson and Winnipeg since April 2016, when he ran for the Tories and defeated Ashton for the local MLA seat.
Marcia one time told former Thompson Citizen general manager, and still occasional “Out & About” columnist Donna Wilson, that she said she always has three rules for her Carroll Aeros Atom “B” minor hockey players: Learn the rules of hockey, learn to enjoy the fun; learn to lose gracefully, because there may be years that they’ll never win a game, and as far as she was concerned, she said she didn’t care, as long as they all had fun.
Marcia worked with many artists showcasing their work and supporting their talents at critical career points. A short list of such artists would include Jasyn Lucas, Gerald Kuehl, Murray McKenzie, Angus Merasty, Jeff Monias, Ron Disbrowe, Alan Chapman, Tom Dubois, Dr. Ron Zdrikluk, Dave Cadwell, Gene McCarthy, David Williams, Leonard Bighetty, Bruce Ecker, Judy Waldner, Anne Snihor, Desmond Raymond, Marijo Ready, Jan Bain, Cathy Therrien and Michael Spence.
As her health declined noticeably seven or eight years ago and she spent more and more time away from work, with the Precambrian Art Centre often closed only to reopen again briefly and irregularly, those artists and friends became increasingly concerned for her wellbeing.
My first conversation with Gerald Kuehl about half a dozen years ago wasn’t primarily about his famed Portraits of the North pencil portraiture, but more about how Marcia had been a big booster of his work. Kuehl didn’t know me at the time, but knew I worked next door to Precambrian, so he telephoned to check on her wellbeing after being unable reach her on the telephone there on several occasions.
Marcia Carroll may have been best known in Thompson for her long and loyal support of both minor hockey players and artists, but she had been a witness to history before her arrival in Thompson.
An American by birth, originally from Greene, New York, northeast of Binghamton, she was living in Toronto and attending university when JFK was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, but later wound up using her machine shorthand and note taking reporting skills to work in the White House of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, best known as LBJ, Kennedy’s vice-president and successor. Very good stenographers using machine shorthand on a specialized chording keyboard stenotype can write American English at speeds up to 375 words per minute.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald did it but I believe there was a second shooter based on what I was told by witnesses,” Carroll told the Nickel Belt News in an April 23, 2010 story. “I suppose one will never really know because there’s no way of proving it now.”
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