Marian Fowler.Courtesy of family
Marian Fowler: Biographer. Bird lover. History buff. Diarist. Born Oct. 15, 1929, in Newmarket, Ont.; died June 12, 2020, in Toronto, from a stroke; aged 90.
Marian and I met in the early 1980s at a writers’ retreat in Northern Ontario. She was memorable, witty, ascerbic and never boring. She seemed as if born in the wrong era, so it’s of no surprise that of her seven biographies, only a couple flirted with the 20th century. One could easily imagine her penning her work with a quill. She looked like a woman whose musical preferences would run to Vivaldi or Mozart and yet she adored country and western. Yet another anomaly about this unusual woman.
Always well dressed, Marian was obsessed with clothes from an early age. She rarely forgot what anyone had been wearing on first meeting. Marian had a somewhat controlling mother and felt closer to her father, an avid orchid grower.
She earned an honours BA from the University of Toronto in 1951. After graduating she worked as a copywriter for Eatons. She married Rodney Fowler in 1953 and then focused on raising their two children, Timothy and Caroline. Marian later continued her studies, earning a master’s in English in 1965 and her PhD in 1970. She began teaching at York University in 1971. She divorced in 1978 and became a full-time writer after she left teaching.
After retiring from York, Marian moved up north to her country home, Kilmara. She welcomed the isolation of her country retreat. She was an avid bird lover and seemed to be able to identify every single bird sound. She claimed to have learned this skill from her friend Farley Mowat.
She became a biographer of some repute. Her most financially successful biography, Hope: Adventures of a Diamond garnered a large advance and talk of a Hollywood series. She was also proud of Blenheim: Biography of a Palace. In her meticulous research, perhaps Marian dug up a little too much interesting dirt on the Marlborough ancestors. It was not to be sold at Blenheim. I believe it is their loss.
Toward the end of one of Marian’s research visits to London, she met a gentleman with an impressive background who catalogued and organized libraries for some of London’s peerage. Once back in Canada, they engaged in voluminous letter writing. He confessed he had fallen in love with Marian because of the white gloves she had worn on their first encounter. The letter writing seemed romantic and very 19th century. Since Marian’s PhD had been on Jane Austen, she may have allowed herself to be carried back in time.
Returning to London, he invited her to stay at his impressive mansion outside the city. Although Marian was 19th century in her leanings, this did not apply to British plumbing. The romance faded when she eschewed his offer of second-hand, tepid bathwater for her morning ablutions! Definitely not her Mr. Darcy.
The legacy Marian has left with her writing shows how women can remold and adapt to what life has in store for them, whether it be the five gentlewomen who survived the rugged terrain of Canada in The Embroidered Tent or the American heiresses of In A Gilded Cage.
Marian was a study in contrasts: a collector of fine clothing, scarves and jewellery, both old and new. She prided herself in finding second-hand shops that sold designer brands for a pittance. Chameleon-like, with any return to civilization from the country, she wore high heels and impressive suits and disdained ever using a cane or a walker. Until the end, she walked tall and without any kind of help. Very much the way she had lived her life.
Norma Harrs is Marian’s friend.
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