Vignettes in the life of local philanthropist
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This article was published 12/03/2021 (1678 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A charming memoir written by a member of one of Winnipeg’s eminent families has raised over $40,000 toward research in juvenile diabetes.
Tannis Richardson’s book Vignettes From My Life, written and published in her mid-nineties, gives readers a glimpse into the everyday life of the Richardson family during her long, well-lived life.
The book includes chapters on the canoe trip she, her twin brothers and their parents, Dr. and Mrs. Thorlakson took down the Nelson River with Cree guides when Tannis was 13, plus amusing stories about university, her first years as a mother and her early attempts at volunteering.

“One of the things I’m doing now is writing more stories,” Richardson said in a Zoom interview. “I enjoy remembering them, and the people who were involved.”
She acted as the family photographer for decades and has multiple photo albums to provide ideas for her stories. “I remember one of my first photographs. There was a picture of King George V in the newspaper. I cut it out and borrowed my brother’s chemistry tripod. I put it on the carpet and put my little Univex camera on the tripod and went to the sunny window and took a picture. It turned out very well,” she said, adding her most recent camera was a Rolleiflex.
One of her favourite stories in the book is the chapter about “No dollar, no rabbit”. In this, her son Hartley had a pet rabbit which had a litter of kits. A neighbour boy, Patrick Coyne, wanted one of the babies. The boys bargained until they settled on a dollar as the asking price, but Patrick had left his money at home.
“Nothing would do until he went home and got the money. Hartley wasn’t going to give him the baby rabbit until then,” she said.
When she married George Richardson, the family lived on Wellington Crescent near Kingsway, as well as on a farm on St. Mary’s Road they called Briarsmeade. She now lives in Crescentwood.
The couple travelled the world, including by helicopter, which was one of George’s favourite ways to get around on short hops. When he was named the first Canadian governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, they got the opportunity to sail aboard the replica Nonsuch off the coast of Victoria, B.C. as the ship toured before eventually finding a berth in the Manitoba Museum.
Tannis and George experienced sadness, too. Type 1 diabetes claimed the life of their eldest child Pamela when she was just 29, leaving the family deeply wounded.

After discussions with other families with children suffering from the same disease, she and Donald Ferguson, then regional director of CBC, decided to organize a fundraising dinner to support much-needed research into the disease.
Over the past 30 years, the annual A Starry Starry Night event has raised over eight million dollars for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. In Manitoba, about 130,000 people have Type 1 diabetes. Research has improved their care to the point where they now have a life expectancy of around 69 years, according to a press release on the book.
All proceeds from the sale of Vignettes from My Life go to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The book is available at McNally Robinson Booksellers, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, publisher Heartland Associates at www.heartlandgreatbooks.com
It is also available on the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation website at jdrf.akaraisin.com/pc/JDRFTannisRichardson