Ann Mortifee:Coming home to Cortes Island

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Hollyhock brought Ann Mortifee to Cortes Island. She was one of Vancouver’s leading singers, but had no previous teaching experience when they invited her to do a workshop. That was 40 years ago. 

“Martha Abelson convinced me to give it a go. I remember the first workshop I did. I went into a wild panic because I'm not a teacher, I'm a singer. I went to the library to find out how I could teach,” she explained.  “At the end of the first session in the morning, I told Shivon Robinsong (a co-founder and Director of Hollyhock), 'I can't do this. I've used everything that I was going to use in the five days in the first morning. I have no idea what I'm doing for the rest of the week. I have to give them the option to leave. I'll pay for everything that Hollyhock would lose.'"

"They agreed to give the guests back their money if need be and that I would cover it, or they could switch to another workshop."

"So I went back to the class and told everyone, 'I've got to be honest, I don't know what I'm doing here. I just love to sing, and I don't know how to teach you to sing. I don't know how to run a workshop. I've never even done a workshop with anyone else.  I've arranged for you to get your money back, or you can change to another workshop. If you choose to stay, then you have to know that you're going to teach me how to do this by helping me. That's all. I'm going to leave the room for five minutes. If you want to leave, take your stuff and go. Thank you so much for coming. I'm very touched that you have, but this is what the truth is.'" 

"So I left the room going, 'Oh my God, I'll come back. It'll be an empty room and it'll cost me a fortune.' I went back. Everyone just stood up, cheered and laughed. That was it, they stayed." 

"From then on, I did a workshop at Cortes for many years, but never in a million years thought I'd live here. My life was definitely in the city and I was doing what I had to do." 

"What happened is that when my son Devon turned 10, I felt I had to get him out of the city. He'd got into some trouble at one of the schools and I just felt, 'no, this isn't working.' I had no idea where to take him and was looking for a really good school." 
She found the answer at one of her Hollyhock workshops.

AM: "Denise Wolda was there. We got chatting and she told me about the school that her son went to. Paul was Devon's age, and so I said, 'I'd be interested in seeing this school.'"

So Mortifee spoke with Donna Bracewell, principal of the Linnaea school on Cortes island. 

AM: "I told her what was happening and she said, ‘bring him, we'd love to have him.’" 

"Devon was having none of it. He was not coming  to an island. He was not leaving Vancouver. I was a single mother, totally overwhelmed and I just couldn't have one more fight. I just couldn't do it, so I just said, 'okay.'" 

"That night he went to stay with a friend. It was on a Saturday night.  The parents dropped them at a movie and said they'd pick them up. They were a little bit late and an older set of guys started fighting. Devon ended up hiding In a garbage dumpster and the police found him. The first thing out of his mouth is, 'we should have moved to that island.'"

"We had a conversation with the policeman. He asked, 'what island's that Devon?' I told him about Cortes Island. He said, 'oh my God,  I was brought up on Quadra. I loved it. You should go.' And Devon said, 'okay, okay, if I'm supposed to go, okay, Mr. Policeman.' He was only 10 and it was fairly dramatic."


"So I said, 'okay, we're going.' "