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Fishing was one of Betty Gyles\u2019 many passions. Gyles died last year.<\/p>\n
Gyles would write stories and after each page was finished Betty would read them and it counted toward her summer reading goal.<\/p>\n
Little did Gyles know at the time that cottage country in Ontario would become her retirement plan and an integral part of her later life.<\/p>\n
As a teen in high school, she met Harold Gyles, who was a year her senior, but the two wouldn\u2019t date until after graduation. Through mutual friends in university, the pair connected and married in 1951.<\/p>\n
Around that time, she trained as a nurse at St. Boniface Hospital, but her professional life took a back seat when she had kids.<\/p>\n
The Gyleses had six children, four boys and two girls. One of their daughters, Shelley, died at three months old.<\/p>\n
If juggling careers and children weren\u2019t enough, they also hosted two nephews from Trinidad who came to Canada for a better education.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t SUPPLIED<\/p>\n Betty and Harold Gyles on their wedding day in 1951.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom was a very welcoming, gracious host,\u201d son Bill said. \u201cShe liked having people over. If there was two or three extra people for dinner, she wouldn\u2019t bat an eye.\u201d<\/p>\n As with most big families, the Gyleses operated with an open-door policy and guests were a constant in the household. If it wasn\u2019t the kids having friends over, it was the couple hosting parties that went late into the night.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember we would have friends over and Mom and Dad would come home and join the party,\u201d daughter, Lauren, said. \u201cWe would also sit on the staircase and watch the parties they threw. They were always elaborate and an absolute blast, even though we were just kids.\u201d<\/p>\n Gyles\u2019 open-door policy extended beyond their family home and out to Keewatin, where they had a cottage. Betty was already familiar with the Lake of the Woods, having spent summers there as a girl, and when the opportunity came to buy the Ken-O-Kee Lodge, they took it.<\/p>\n The couple turned it into a family cabin and made life-long friends with everyone in the area.<\/p>\n The Gyleses were known for their dinner parties and gatherings, where Betty was the hostess with the mostess. Dinner would usually be followed by a card game or a board game, or a bonfire that flickered late into the night.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t SUPPLIED<\/p>\n Gyles with her first granddaughter, Amanda.<\/p>\n After taking a continuing education course at Red River College Polytech, Gyles worked in nursing at several agencies, including the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba as an intake nurse.<\/p>\n \u201cShe found it interesting. She was pretty good at reading people and I think that they understood that,\u201d Bill said. \u201cShe was genuinely liked by almost everybody she met.\u201d<\/p>\n After the Gyleses retired, they winterized their cottage and lived there full-time, where the good times kept on going.<\/p>\n During summers at Keewatin, the gatherings often extended beyond the confines of the cabin and spilled into the neighbours\u2019 properties.<\/p>\n Gyles was a regular customer at My Place restaurant in Keewatin. As the story goes, one day in the early 2000s, she was dining with her daughter and asked the server what they had for dessert.<\/p>\n Lauren told the server her mother made the best pies and soon she struck up a relationship with the diner\u2019s owner and began baking for them.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t SUPPLIED<\/p>\n Gyles and three of her children at the first house they built on the river in St. James.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were already a popular restaurant, but her pies definitely added to it,\u201d said Shalene Rawluk, owner of the now-shuttered restaurant.<\/p>\n Gyles\u2019 eye for detail showed in her work, Rawluk recalls. She used seasonal ingredients and her cream and fruit-based pies were sought after.<\/p>\n She soon became known as the \u201cPie Lady\u201d in Keewatin and the surrounding area, but to staff at the restaurant she was a loyal member of the family.<\/p>\n \u201cI could call her before the weekend to say we sold out of all the pies and then she would make a new batch of pies for the weekend. She was really dedicated to it,\u201d Rawluk said.<\/p>\n According to her son, Bill, her affinity for baking wasn\u2019t evident until later in life.<\/p>\n \u201cI probably had dessert six times in my life, so I don\u2019t know where she got it,\u201d Bill joked.<\/p>\n
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