Shirley Van Dusen shows off her new book of reminiscences about life in the Ottawa Valley.
“Well you know, a spider monkey can be a great pet and companion,” says Ottawa media-clan matriarch Shirley Van Dusen, Centretown resident and newly published author of the autobiographical book The Mother’s Day Monkey.
In its 127 pages, The Mother’s Day Monkey compiles a variety of stories about Van Dusen’s unique adventures and unusual pets, as well as illustrations drawn by the author herself.
An accomplished painter, mother of seven children, grandmother to 14 and recently a first-time great-grandmother, the 85-year-old woman who raised Ottawa’s well-known Van Dusen family of journalists never imagined that the unique present she received one Mother’s Day would be the star of the title story in her own book.
“I certainly loved him,” recalls Van Dusen. “He was so mischievous. He would turn around with a grin on his face and moon us.”
But Sydney the Monkey was just one of many pets Van Dusen welcomed into her home over the years. To name a few, there was Mary-John, a duck that acted like a dog, Daphne, a clever sheep that amused a small town, and Harold the Horrible Hare.
“For 50 years, I have been jotting these notes down on random pieces of paper,” says Van Dusen. “They are the happenings of perhaps an ordinary life with extraordinary occurrences.”
Shirley Van Dusen is married to Thomas Van Dusen, former adviser to prime ministers John Diefenbaker and Brian Mulroney. Her children – Mark, Tom, Michael, Lisa, Julie, Tina, and Peter – include several prominent Ottawa media personalities.
“I’m really glad she finally did it,” says son Peter Van Dusen, former CBC news anchor and now the host of the CPAC public affairs program Prime Time Politics.
“She is a superb writer. If you are looking for something funny and authentic then anything she writes will certainly do the job,” he adds. “After all, she certainly had her hands full all these years, and these are stories so surreal they could be a movie.”
Shirley Van Dusen explains that after decades spent amid the mayhem of a rural home, a little apartment-turned-studio on Metcalfe Street was just the peace she needed.
“My work and passion is painting, and at the studio I could pick up my brushes and paint in peace,” says Van Dusen. “I had a bed in there but I rarely used it to sleep. I would always go home after finishing a portrait.”
In fact, during a 2009 interview with the National Post, Mulroney pointed to a Van Dusen portrait of his children as his most coveted possession. “That’s by far the most important thing in this office, what I cherish most,” said Mulroney. “It’s perfect.”
Van Dusen says writing The Mother's Day Monkey was one of her “musts” in a long bucket list.
“I did this for my grandchildren, but I truly hope people enjoy my book.”