Why a mom bought a Bieber-autographed guitar

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Elissa, Sheryl and Noah with guitar

AND THE WINNING BID IS... The Justin Bieber-autographed guitar I was telling you about last month has brought $3,550 in an online auction, all of which will go to Winnipeg Harvest. But it's who bought it, and why, that sends a priceless message on why giving to food banks is so important, and has been even before there was a Winnipeg Harvest.

The winner is a 54-year-old woman from St. Catharines, Ont. Or rather, the winners are her children, Elissa, 15, and Noah, 14.

Once upon a childhood, Sheryl Armstrong lived in Winnipeg, which is where her soft spot for the food bank -- and the story that goes with it -- originated.

It's a story Sheryl only learned of during the last two years, as her mother, Donna Armstrong, reflected on her life during the final stages of the brain cancer that would take her life.

It begins in the late 1950s, when Donna was 18, just married and her husband decided they should leave Ontario and move west. He found a job in construction and they settled in St. Boniface. But at that time, Sheryl's father was a drunk who used to beat her mom.

"I remember the discussions and abuse between them," Sheryl said.

Sheryl wasn't even in kindergarten at the time. Late in 1961, just after her fourth birthday, Sheryl's father left her mother for another woman.

It was winter.

Her mother was nine months pregnant, had two kids and was 4,800 kilometres from family. There was no food in the house or even much heat.

It was a clergyman who helped them find the food they needed at what passed for a food bank at the time. The food, and the clergyman's warmth, sustained the young mother and her children until family arrived to take them home to Ontario.

"My mother returned to school at 21 with three children under the age of 5 and became a well-respected and highly valued teacher in the London system."

In fact, she ended teaching teachers and winning awards. And she and her husband ended up back together.

He rejoined the family five years after he left, when Sheryl was 9, but he was still drinking. By the time Sheryl was 13, her mother gave her father an ultimatum.

Stop drinking. Or leave.

He chose to stop drinking and stay.

Her father was still dry, and still with her mother, when she died.

Sheryl and her siblings seem to have come through the ups and downs of growing up remarkably well.

They're all well-educated. Her brother is the fire chief in Guelph, Ont. Sheryl has been a nurse, a real estate agent and now manages her husband's office. He's a dentist who specializes in root-canal surgery. Which is why they could afford to bid big on Bieber's guitar.

So it was that on Tuesday, Dave Robinson and his team from Purolator Courier in Winnipeg generously donated their services to ship the Bieber guitar to St. Catharines before kids woke up Wednesday morning.

"My kids are Bieber-crazy," Sheryl said. But she said there's no way she would have bid that high on the guitar if the money hadn't gone to a food bank. "This is a nice way to give back and to honour my mother. And to help other people."

Way down deep, there may have been another reason -- being able to give her children a gift her mother could never have afforded to give her.

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A CAREER SETS AT THE SUN... I was sorry to hear word that Laurie Mustard, the Winnipeg Sun columnist who was always shining a bright light around town, left the paper this week. I left messages on Laurie's cell and home phone Wednesday but didn't hear from him. Confirmation came instead through a mutual friend who spoke with Laurie that morning.

"They offered him a package," the mutual friend said.

And he seems fine with it.

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THE TALE END... Tuesday's column about Gary Claeys, the senior from Deloraine, and Papa, the cat who somehow found its way 20 kilometres back to him, has inspired D'Arcy's ARC to offer to pay for Papa's neuter, tattoo and updated vaccines.

"Gary is thrilled about the D'Arcy's Arc offer," said his neighbour, Linda Slobodian. And ain't that the cat's me-ouch!

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 1, 2011 B1