-by Rebecca Silver Slayter
In the early hours of April 3rd, at the age of exactly 69.5, Diana McKinnon died. For almost seven decades she had lived a life of extraordinariness – a world traveller, a theatre director and actor, an equestrian, a scuba diver, a singer, a gardener and a businesswoman, she was, moreover, a loving daughter, sister, mother and grandmother, and a devoted friend. During her 13 years in Cape Breton, she brought together individuals and communities, cultivating the performing arts in Inverness County and fostering the talents of its community members, often in those who didn’t yet know their own gifts.
McKinnon’s daughter, Emily, says though her mother didn’t move to Cape Breton until 2002, “This is absolutely her home. It's the longest she's ever lived in one place…It's the only place where she ever felt like she had become a part of the community.”
McKinnon’s father worked with the U.S. Diplomatic Corps, so though she was born in Michigan, she grew up all over the world, in the Philippines, Belgium, and especially West Africa (she even spent a period of time in Halifax).
When she was only 16, her father died, and her mother, Lorraine, brought her and her two younger sisters back to the family home in Vermont to live. Emily says after being raised and schooled abroad, McKinnon felt out of step with the American youth culture of the late 60s and early 70s; “So what did she do? She got married when she was 19.”
The groom was a man she’d met at the Vermont college she attended for a year, where he had directed her in a play. Their wedding was a grand affair with a horse-drawn carriage. “Still,” says Emily, “she was unsettled, and she and her husband travelled. They only stayed married for about three years. And then she kept travelling, trying to figure out what she was going to do with herself.”
Between her first marriage, and a second that also ended amicably, McKinnon gave birth to her daughter, Emily. Motherhood came as a surprise, and a joyful one, as she had believed she was unable to have children. While Emily was young, she continued travelling, sometimes leaving her daughter in the care of her sisters or Lorraine.
In 1980, McKinnon found work in the nascent computer industry, taking a job in customer support with Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and bringing her mother to live with her in New Hampshire and help raise Emily. At DEC, she managed a team of computer specialists, exercising her innate talent for bringing people together to solve problems or pull off a project. “She’s always been very good at managing,” says Emily, “getting other people to work to their best…When DEC was bought out by Compaq, they kept her because of her managerial skills.”
McKinnon and her family moved to Georgia to work for Compaq after the buyout; but when Compaq was in turn bought by Hewlett Packard and they asked her to continue on, instead she took early retirement.
A few years earlier, McKinnon had visited Cape Breton with a distant cousin, tracing their roots to family in Mabou Mines and Lake Ainslie, whom their ancestor had left behind when he emigrated to the States. She fell in love with the area and after retiring from Compaq, she convinced Emily – who by then had a child of her own and another on the way – to relocate with her and Lorraine to Margaree Forks, and help run Scottish Crofters Campground.
So Emily and her partner moved their young family to Canada, but soon after, her partner left, and the four generations of McKinnons drew even closer, helping to care for one another as Emily’s children grew and Lorraine’s health declined.
Emily says her mother had always had a passion project of some kind underway; “She’s always had something that she chose for herself that she could throw herself into.” Earlier in life, she had been an avid scuba diver, an accomplished equestrian and a serious gardener, but when she arrived to Cape Breton, her focus shifted: “Theatre and music were her project here.”
McKinnon produced, directed, sang or starred in numerous plays and concerts in Margaree, Cheticamp, Mabou and other communities. She had a great theatrical talent, magnificent stage presence and – as fellow thespian and friend Cindy O’Neill puts it – a voice that “would put Lauren Bacall to shame.”
O’Neill first encountered Diana on stage, after moving to Cape Breton a decade ago. “As luck should have it one of the first theatre productions I went to was her one-woman show…Lucifer’s Child…. It was really an amazing production and just to a handful of people, but it was magical. She just transformed, and it was really exciting to see that that was happening in this new place that I was calling home.”
But McKinnon was also more than a gifted performer – she was an organizing force in the community, bringing people together and helping them to discover their own talents and contribute to the cultural life of this county.
“She was a bright light,” says District 3 Councillor Jim Mustard, who starred with McKinnon in her 2011 production of On Golden Pond. “She landed with a very big presence in our community, and she committed to everything she did. I never met another person like her – she almost singlehandedly undertook fairly big projects and carried them out.”
“She never thought about limitations,” Emily explains. “She always just said, ‘We’re going to do this.’”
McKinnon bridged communities, often bringing together cast members from across the county in a single production. From creating the West Side Performing Arts Cooperative (WeSPAC) to organizing unique musical programs like last year’s wildly successful Play It Again Sam cabarets, she had a genius for enlisting others to help realize her creative vision. But she was also an unparalleled source of support for those with visions of their own.
“She instilled a confidence in people,” says McKinnon’s frequent accompanist, musical co-conspirator and beloved friend Brydon MacDonald, with whom she produced their 2014 album Reflections. “If they didn’t know what to do she would tell them how to make it happen. Especially with the acting, she had in her mind what it would look like and she had the ability to make it happen or let people explore it so they would understand what it was like to act in a certain role.”
“She saw things in people,” says O’Neill, “that I think they may not have seen in themselves.”
Mustard had never acted on stage before taking part in On Golden Pond. “For a lot of people who worked with Diana it was their initial time on stage. And she challenged them, but she created, I think, amazing art in their lives with what they did…She was very good at chipping away the layers of doubt that most of us walk around with…she took that and just chipped it away so people really shone.”
O’Neill performed with McKinnon in the Play It Again Sam cabarets, and was a cast member of Steel Magnolias, the last theatre project McKinnon undertook. In the early stages of production, McKinnon had to withdraw due to her mother’s declining health, and it was shortly after Lorraine’s death, in early January, that she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Though she turned Steel Magnolias over to director Tom Ryan, the production remained dear to her heart. “She said to me that it was like handing over your child to someone,” O’Neill recalls, “but she knew that her child was in very capable hands. And so I think that was the thing that we all wanted to do was to really make sure that we all took care of her child… This was her grand finale in many ways, as far as we were concerned, so we were very proud to be a part of that.”
In the last weeks of her life, McKinnon drew pleasure from the great success of Steel Magnolias and enjoyed visits from her loved ones and the devoted care of her daughter, with the help of other family and friends, and an extraordinary team of palliative care and continuing care nurses (“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them,” Emily says).
“My mother could be a very dramatic and emotional person,” Emily muses. “She got angry a lot. But it wasn’t like anger directed at somebody. It was just anger at the world condition .... These great big things. Anger at religious war… And she always thought of her anger as a useful tool. It’s better than despair. You get angry, you can do something about it.”
But, says Emily, “When she got sick, she was so cooperative.” Despite the great pain she experienced and the rapid progress of her disease, McKinnon, who had been known all her life for her will and independence, received her diagnosis, treatment, and at last, the withdrawal of treatment, with acceptance and grace. Emily believes she did so for her sake.
Not long before she died, McKinnon told her daughter, “‘I have nothing undone. I have things that I would like to do, but I feel that there is nothing I haven’t done that was my responsibility to do.’” The only concerns she expressed at the end of her life were for the loved ones she left behind.
“She still looked elegant,” says MacDonald, “even in the last hours.”
Diana McKinnon died at her home in Margaree Forks. She is mourned by her sisters, Mary and Barbara; her daughter, Emily; her grandchildren, Mack and Zoe; and countless other loved ones, in this part of the world and beyond.
Discussions are already unfolding about how to continue McKinnon’s creative projects and ensure that what she brought to this community continues on now that she’s gone. Emily says, “I hope that what she started, that there’s still enough enthusiasm that the people who got involved will continue to be involved.”
“The two of us once shared a conversation, many years ago,” she recalls, “and what we reflected was that we had come to a community small enough that one person could make a difference in it.”
“She connected a lot of people together that had various talents and insights into things,” says MacDonald. “And if nothing else, she introduced us to each other and so we can now call on those talents and those people and benefit from the joy of just knowing them.” He adds, “I’m very glad that she was loaned to us for a little while.”
A wake for Diana will be held at Wilson United Church on Friday, April 10th, at 10:00 a.m. The funeral will follow at 11:00 a.m., and afterwards a luncheon will be served at the hall. McKinnon’s family invites those who wish to contribute to make a donation to the Central Inverness County Palliative and Hospice Care, who gave her such devoted care.
