Obituaries
Celebrating Vivian Maxwell’s Remarkable Spirit
Volume 30 Issue 4, 5 & 6 | Posted: July 7, 2016
I first met Vivian Maxwell through her husband Grant who was my hero and mentor during the decade of the 1970s. Grant lead the way after Vatican II with Catholic social journalism. I called him the dean of that kind of writing which combined social communication and the church’s social teaching in a whole new trenchant style. Grant took special pride in writing in simple, accessible language. He was also an engaging speaker.
I followed Grant’s writing in the Prairie Messenger and other sources and heard him speak at numerous conferences whenever I could. As a result, I met Viv in the late seventies in Ottawa after I had married and had three little kids. The Maxwells had eight of their own and took Penny and me under their wing.
I first met Vivian Maxwell through her husband Grant who was my hero and mentor during the decade of the 1970s. Grant lead the way after Vatican II with Catholic social journalism. I called him the dean of that kind of writing which combined social communication and the church’s social teaching in a whole new trenchant style. Grant took special pride in writing in simple, accessible language. He was also an engaging speaker.
I followed Grant’s writing in the Prairie Messenger and other sources and heard him speak at numerous conferences whenever I could. As a result, I met Viv in the late seventies in Ottawa after I had married and had three little kids. The Maxwells had eight of their own and took Penny and me under their wing.
Coming for supper one evening at the apartment where we lived in Alta Vista in Ottawa, Grant would try to reassure Penny over her concern about still smoking despite having the children. Viv smoked all the way through our eight, he said in a typical rejoinder which always moved to lessen inner strain at life’s contradictions. As the great Everett McNeil said about Grant, he was a beautiful guy.
Viv was a strong complement to his soft male tenderness. She stood up to bishops, reminding them of their moral responsibility toward the poor, even though Grant was employed by the Bishops’ conference. The same Father Everett McNeil, who served at different times as both Grant’s and my boss, expressed admiration for Vivian’s no nonsense faithfulness to the mission of the Gospel.
It was Grant who arranged both my great breaks in Catholic social communications, with Everett in 1978 at The Catholic Health Association of Canada in Ottawa, and at the Prairie Messenger in his home province of Saskatchewan in the early ‘80s.
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Wherever they went the Maxwells would form small faith sharing groups that would meet in homes. One of Viv’s last social acts was to host the new bishop Gary Gordon here in Victoria to the Journey Group on Pemberton Street.
There was something essentially Saskatchewan about Vivian, strong, clear and steady. Her funeral at the Franciscan Friary on February 26 served her spirit proud. The style of it and song selections and poems all bore Vivian’s stamp.
When I met her she was employed as a social worker in a low-income housing settlement in Ottawa. They had moved with their seven surviving children in 1969, leaving their beloved Saskatoon so Grant could take a national church position. He later went on found a Jesuit magazine, Compass based in Toronto.
In the heydays following Vatican II, they were meeting popes and attending international conferences of Christian Family Movement, working with Bishop Remi De Roo even before the Council, to prepare his historical interventions during the four years of the council. His youthful spirit and wide reaching vision for the church matched their own expansive Christian perspective.
Born in Yorkton, but raised in Sutherland, outside Saskatoon, Viv and her sister travelled by horse and buggy during their early school days. She went to Sion Academy in Saskatoon. After high school graduation, when she asserted her intention to go to university, her father drove her on a tractor to register.
At the University of Saskatchewan she captained the women’s volleyball team, got a BA from St. Thomas More College and met her future husband Grant at a wiener roast at Devil’s Dip on the banks of the Saskatchewan River.
Grant took a job at the Catholic Information Centre in Saskatoon, associating with other noted progressive Saskatchewan Catholics such as Bernard and Mae Daly, Bernard De Margerie, Father Bob Ogle and Justice Emmett Hall. He served as a script writer for Ogle after his election as Federal NDP Member of Parliament for Saskatoon East, bumping off Liberal Cabinet Minister Otto Lang. Amazing things came out of Saskatchewan at that time, including Vivian Maxwell.
Viv and Grant moved to Victoria in 1986, the same year I arrived. Bishop De Roo was just about to celebrate twenty-five years as bishop here. They were as big a fan of his leadership style as I am.
It was Grant and Vivian who first raised the spectre in the 1970s that Vatican II could be rolled back. I was astounded in my youthful naivete but it came to pass even though stalwarts such as the Maxwells kept on with its spirit and have been vindicated with the election of Pope Francis.
Viv took joy in these last few years with the change of mood in the church and the fact that once again, as Hannah Arendt put it, a Christian had been elected to the office of pope. After all Viv had witnessed the first one first hand in the great Pope John XXIII.
Grant and I had committed to writing a history of the Diocese of Victoria and a biography of Bishop De Roo together in the late 1990s. But changes to the bishop’s fortunes and to Grant’s health intervened and we had to abandon our partnership in the projects, but not our dear friendship. Grant had served on the board of ICN for a clear decade prior to that.
It was Viv who called to explain certain things when the situation required diplomatic attitude. She had that matter of fact manner and clarity of strength that was always so reliable. She always took an interest in the progressive developments as they occurred.
She was not unlike my mother in all of that, a generation of women who anticipated the liberation of the Sixties and Seventies even while respecting the authority of the church which was no small hindrance to such growth. They both died on the same day, nine years apart.
In her funeral brochure, Viv requested that the Christina Rossetti poem, Let Me Go, be reprinted. It typifies her lovely detachment and solicitous autonomy in its attitude. Vivian Maxwell, Rest in Peace.
“When I come to the end of the road
And the sun has set for me
I want no rites in a gloom filled room
Why cry for a soul set free?”
“For this is a journey we all must take
And each must go alone
Its all part of the master plan
A step on the road to home…
Laugh at all the things we used to do
Miss me, but let me go.”