Amber drove a motorcycle with a sidecar built here in Alberta, by one of our Grandfathers. He would purchase motorcycles, handcraft sidecars out of whatever metal parts were available (making each unique and distinctive) and resell them, saving his profits for his travels.
One of Amber’s Signature flavours, Australian Mountain Pepper Berry was discovered because one day, out of the blue, a box arrived, by mail, from Australia, containing a sample of the spice. One of our sisters, on her travels, had discovered the flavour and forwarded it home.
Amber carried coins brought over from England by one of our Grandfathers as he emigrated. He landed at Ellis Island in New York and pressed on, North and West. Scant years after his arrival he signed up for World War I, fought at Vimy ridge, was gassed, sent home and signed up for a second tour. He returned to Alberta and worked for breweries and liquor stores for the rest of his life. And he never lost those few coins he brought with him to remind him of his Yorkshire childhood.
Amber wore a broach brought to Alberta by one of our great Grandmothers. She left Garden of Eden Nova Scotia as a young woman, travelled west and founded one of Alberta’s first Millinery shops. The husband that she met in Edmonton lost an arm and a leg in an accident while working underneath a rail car but, tourniquets firmly in place, he argued with the ambulance drivers over which hospital he should attend.
In fact, Amber came from a city and a province so young, so new, that neither appeared on the map on which she planned her journeys. Those cities and that province, however, have grown and matured like the people that populate them.