The Inspiration for Treasures

The story of the Birdcage
A tribute to Gill

Gill Perry had been in a serious road accident many years before I met her in 1975. She had been a highly successful occupational therapist, coming from an exceptionally creative family. Her mother, Bea, was one of the first Montessori teachers, trained by Montessori herself, who went to England during the summers and taught, through an interpreter, out of a private school whilst the boys were on vacation. Gill’s father, Ron, was a retired engineer, who could turn his hands and his brain to anything from writing sonnets to planning Seniors’ Homes in Oak Ridges. The whole family loved life in all its forms. The garden was as full of wild life as it was of trees and flowers. Not surprisingly people of all sorts were attracted by the diversity of talents, interests and environment to be found at Maple Garth, the home of Ron, Bea, Gill and animals at 44 Sunset Beach Road.
Sharing an English heritage, my family became great friends of the Perrys and I became particularly close to Gill. On casual acquaintance, Gill was a “normal”, warm, interested, empathetic and very astute person. After years of treatment her physical disabilities were minimal and her mental disabilities were not immediately apparent. However the brain damage Gill sustained in the accident, permanently affected her memory and her manipulative skills, so that she was unable to function at her job and felt herself against others, thoroughly frustrated when she remembered how capable she had been measured.
Suddenly in 1985, Gill was taken to the hospital and cancer was diagnosed. She was given various treatments, but, after only five months she died a painful death. Miraculously, from this loss, Treasures was born.
After her death, Ron and Bea gave Gill’s belongings to the fledgling Treasures, an 8’ x 10’ booth in the Fantastic Flea Market. One of these was a flimsy birdcage. At the time it was badly damaged, but, Robin Collinson’s patient expertise took care of that and the cage was hung high as a landmark at the Market when we opened on February 1st, 1986.
To me, the birdcage is many things. Firstly it’s a memorial to Gill. Secondly, it symbolizes the latter years of her life, when the precious Gill was trapped inside a frame that frustrated her to the point of distraction-a hell shared by countless others.
And most important of all, it stand for the creatures great and small that were helped by Gill during her life and that continued to be helped as a result of it. My prayer and hope is that you are one of them.

Elizabeth Davis, September 10th, 1992
(Written for the 6th Anniversary of the Opening of Treasures Store on 4 Levendale Rd., Richmond Hill)