Hilary Kilbourn; Lifelines (Catherine Dunphy obituary)
Hyfler/Rosner
March 13, 2006 Monday
Byline: Catherine Dunphy
She was born into Toronto royalty, certainly its
establishment, a statement that would not have made her
wince because it honours her father.
And Hilary Kilbourn worshipped her father.
When Bill Kilbourn died in 1995, "it was as if the history
of our lives was passing in front of us," Rosedale MP Bill
Graham said at the time. It meant that and more to
Kilbourn's second child, who was so grief-stricken she was
hospitalized for two days.
Passionate about Toronto, Bill Kilbourn was a rebel alderman
on city council in the '70s, David Crombie's time, when
Toronto had an exciting future and its politicians the
courage to fight developers to preserve its past.
Founding chair of York University's humanities department,
author of 14 books, with friends and admirers in the usually
disparate worlds of the arts, politics, academia and media,
he was often dishevelled as he rode his bike through Toronto
winter traffic without an overcoat. But at the same time, he
helped stop the Spadina Expressway and the planned Pickering
Airport.
He lived with his wife, Elizabeth, an Anglican minister, and
five children in a rambling three-storey house in south
Rosedale with a dining room painted a shocking black for a
while, modern art on all the walls, wolf skins on the living
room floor, singsongs round the piano, political discussions
around the table and hockey on the rink in the backyard.
"It was magical," said Francesca Mallin Parker, whose family
lived in the next block and who became fast friends with the
Kilbourn sisters, Hilary and Philippa. "We were a gang of
three."
Though she was the youngest, Hilary was their leader because
she had the verve, the artistic passion and talent. There
was always a painting on an easel set up in the bedroom and
playroom on the third floor that she shared with her sister.
"Often her zeal for artistic expression was unable to be
contained and spilled over onto the walls and ceilings of
her house," recalled George Hathaway, who moved in across
the street in 1976.
It was always understood within her family, and by her
friends, that Hilary was - and was going to be - an artist.
"Right from the beginning she was always drawing -
princesses and witches. Dad kept a lot of them," said
Philippa or Pippa, her sister. (There were also three sons:
Nicholas, Timothy and Michael.)
Their father adored Hilary, taking her along to official
functions if his wife was unavailable. An intellectual
descended from prominent Toronto industrialists, he was
thrilled to have an artist in his family. "They were very
much soulmates," said Pippa.
Tall, lively and lovely - with dimples, fair hair and an
entourage - Hilary was a sophisticated presence in the halls
of Jarvis C.I., her poetry and art winning awards and
filling the school magazine and yearbooks.
"I felt lucky that she accepted my friendship. I was in awe
of her," said writer Ann Silversides. "It was all rather
exotic to me, a kind of J.D. Salinger-ish household full of
brilliant individuals."
Activists, politicians, artists, people were often in their
living room - even Pierre Trudeau swung by on his first
campaign to be prime minister.
Hilary thrived on the excitement on the home front as well
as from her own social whirl of poetry readings and formal
dances. There was every reason to believe a fine future lay
ahead of her studying art and drama at York University's
brand new fine arts program.
But Hilary's "incredibly fertile existence," as her sister
described it, began to crumble when she was 22 and spending
time in Findhorn Community, a religious retreat in Scotland.
She came home and was hospitalized after experiencing her
first episode of mania, now known as bipolar disorder.
It had been building for a while. Her friend Mallin Parker
remembers seeing "an episode of misery like I've never seen"
when Hilary, in university, sank to the floor, weeping. "She
was crying and hysterical and in such emotional pain that
literally she couldn't stand."
Her illness dogged her the rest of her life as she fought it
and fought to retain her creativity. She gained a lot of
weight as a result of her medications. She was in and out of
many hospitals and almost as many apartments until 1983,
when her father got her a house on the Toronto Islands.
There she found her place. Her home was one of the original
island houses, a blue cottage with purple trim and a bathtub
out back on Wyandot Ave. Typically, there were usually two
or three other people living there with her. She was
subsisting on a government disability pension, but she felt
blessed to have her island home and therefore obligated to
share it.
In a community of characters, everybody knew her - outgoing,
friendly, bumming a cigarette, riding her bike, pointing her
video camera anywhere she could record another moment of
life in her community. In turn, they kept an eye out for
her, knowing when she wasn't taking her medication, helping
her during her ensuing mania and at times psychotic
episodes.
In 1994, she produced a half-hour film with original music
about life on the island, past and present. "She would come
here, hands shaking, and video-film the old still
photographs I had," said self-styled island archivist Albert
Fulton. "And I was amazed at what a professional production
it was."
Her father died Jan. 4, 1995, three days before her film was
aired on a local cable channel.
She was always sketching, but she was extraordinarily modest
about her art, often giving it away because she valued it so
little. Her portraits were vivid, passionate. Pippa Kilbourn
says Hilary's best work was a larger-than-life portrait of
their father looking like rebel leader William Lyon
Mackenzie. "She could capture people. She had such
sensitivity she could penetrate the personality," she said.
On Thursday, Feb. 2, she died in her sleep. She was 53.
Her funeral wasn't held at the island's church, St.
Andrew-by-the-Lake. Instead her mother, Pippa and brothers,
and several hundred of her friends gathered at St. James
Cathedral. Hilary Kilbourn loved the island and that church,
but it was too small and there was no doubt that the
cathedral was really the appropriate place to say goodbye to
her. For it was there that several hundred people had also
gathered, back in 1995, to mourn the passing of her father.
Catherine Dunphy can be reached at cdunphy @ thestar.ca
Lifelines
GRAPHIC: Hilary Kilbourn, who died last month at age 53, was
well-known on the Toronto Islands, where she had lived since
1983. Community members looked out for Kilbourn, who
suffered from bipolar disorder.
