Dayal Kaur Khalsa: A Childhood Remembered; A Childhood Transposed

Illustration from Cowboy Dreams showing the little girl on a hobby horse being led out of the picture

Cowboy Dreams, which many of her closest friends consider Dayal's best work, was published posthumously in 1990. Not only is the design and detail of this book greatly enhanced by her determination and motivation, but it took painstaking effort to complete this book as she was quite ill during this time. The cancer that claimed her grandmother and her mother had taken its hold on her. Surgery, chemotherapy and a multitude of alternative treatments including a trip to Greece with friend Yvonne Lammerich failed to reverse or check the spreading cancer.

Perhaps I can best open my commentary on Cowboy Dreams by quoting from a ten-page letter I received in 1996 from a reader of the book:

"As you already know, in July 1990, I purchased a copy of Cowboy Dreams for Emily, my seven year old red headed niece. The title of the book caught my eye as I rummaged through the shelves at one of our local bookstores. Emily's father, Dennis was an honest to goodness modern day cowboy. He worked as a ranch hand most of his adult life and he died in June 1990..... As I quickly read through the book while standing in the bookstore I had tears in my eyes. It was as if this book was intended for Dennis's kids in his memory. "

" I thank G-d for the talent of Dayal Kaur Khalsa and for her willingness to share her priceless gift with the rest of us in this world . Emily, Jaime, Monty, Trent and I would be honored to have you use our reactions to Cowboy Dreams in the biography you are writing about Dayal."

In Cowboy Dreams, Dayal appears to be reviewing the great loves of her life. The illustrations and text reveal her earliest dream of becoming a cowboy. She says early in the story,

" My whole life revolved around being a cowboy. I called my bike Old Paint, my brother Pardner, my supper chuck and my bedroom the bunkhouse."

Knowing that her parents did not even want a dog, she knew her chances of them getting her a horse were slim. So, she bought a raffle ticket to win one. It was not in the cards for her to win a horse.

Grandma was on the scene to cheer her up. They went to F.A.O. Schwartz, "the best toy store in the world". There she saw the horse of her dreams. With that horse, she told Grandma she knew she could be a cowboy. Grandma told her that expensive toys like that were meant only for the children of kings and maharajas. "Oh, how I wish my father was a maharaja! But he was a tailor—and I wasn't going to get that horse." So, it was back to fantasy land which was the basement bannister and singing favorite cowboy songs.

There are many symbols in the illustrations that tell us about this time in Dayal's life. The angels next to the last page, and finally the golden yellow-red aura, the blood red stream dividing the hills tell us of the reality that Dayal was facing at the time. We see her following the cowboy on her fantasy horse as he slowly guides her out of the picture.

Color photo of Dayal at work in her studio, taken shortly before her death

These illustrations were made as she struggled with cancer treatments and surgery. It comes to mind that knowing the end of her life story as we do, we can see that her efforts to express her deepest feelings through her creative work continued until her untimely death.

Before closing, I think it might add to your understanding and appreciation of Dayal's frame of mind during her most productive years, which coincided with her terminal illness, to hear from some of her letters. The following are excerpts from some of the letters she wrote between 1985 and 1989 while she was recalling her early years, commenting on her illness and creating her literary legacy in her children's books.

In October 1985, after she had submitted her first story book, Tales of a Gambling Grandma, she writes about May Cutler arranging an appointment with a New York agent. "What if she's one of those hollow-cheeked ash blond live tooten mid-western career women, me being a transplanted Canadian hick?" Well as luck would have it, it turned out to be someone from our old neighborhood in Queens, who coincidentally turned out to be a seventh grade classmate of mine. Around that time, when she learned that Tales was to be published in New York, she also learned that she had cancer.

In November 1985, while she was working on I Want a Dog, after her first surgery, she writes, " I felt pretty dancy other than tender arm muscles. I guess that, for me, the amount of real joy I have in anything is based on the amount of appreciation I have of it. To come out as cancer-clean as it seems I am now, well, that makes me ever more appreciative of my life. For the personal gains I've experienced in the past few weeks, my left breast doesn't seem like such a big price to pay; but then again I am a vegetarian." In February 1986 she started work on My Family Vacation.

In a letter dated February 11, 1986, Dayal writes, " May Cutler has booked me on a promotional tour [for Tales of a Gambling Grandma] across Canada....I am very excited about my Grand Canadian tour which will end up at the Canadian Booksellers' Association meeting.....I will practice checking into a hotel by taking a trip to Detroit". My impression of her description of her hotel stay is reminiscent of a scene from Kay Thompson's, Eloise at the Plaza, in which the central character, a spoiled little girl, demands complete attention from the staff, orders almost everything on the Room Service menu, and charges everything to her absent mother's account.

In November 1986, after Tales was published, referring to her first surgery, followed by six months of radiation and chemotherapy and her other tests that were negative, she expresses the hope that she can now get a low dose so that she can keep her hair.

In a letter of December 1, 1986, she writes more details of her radiation treatments and at the same time of doing a "little" book in 12 days — a go-to sleep book for 3 to 5 year olds, probably to be called Sleepers which has recently been reissued in a larger format by Tundra, in conjunction with this exhibition.

After sending My Family Vacation to her editor in February 1987, she writes, "I told the oncologist to jump in the lake. [After] the torture of the last 4 months, I feel like the Great Wall of China deep down..... What the drugs have been doing is so bad... I stopped chemo. I feel like I've been released from Hell. I expect to finish How Pizza Came to Queens by April and come to New York and get on with some more difficult adult stuff. Thank you for the advance on the advance in advance of the actual thanks on the forthcoming advance." She hasn't lost her sense of humor.

On April 28, 1988, she writes, " Did a storytelling session with a second grade at a Talmud Torah [translation: a Hebrew School]. On his way out a 7 year-old tipped me a quarter. With such public acceptance, I ran home and rewrote another story."

In a letter in November 1988, she announces that she has decided to go to Vancouver.

Her letter of July 8, 1989, certainly one of her last, she writes, "I want everything to go to the National Library, no matter what.... My illness has racked up so many medical bills, any money for acquisitions would be appreciated."

In closing, I want to thank my husband and business partner, Bill, for assisting me in reproducing my text and the transparencies, and for projecting the transparencies during my talk. But I particularly want to thank Céline Gendron, coordinator of the National Library's Canadian Literature Research Service and curator of this exhibition, and her staff, especially Daniel St.-Hilaire. She came here not as a children's literature specialist, knowing very little about Dayal directly, and working against a very short deadline. Yet she was able to recognize the most significant pieces of Dayal's work in the Library's collection and has managed to put together a very insightful exposition of that work.

I also want to thank her for giving me the opportunity to come here today to deliver this talk about my favorite children's author and illustrator. And I want to thank Tundra for giving new life to a deserving artist through its sponsorship.

Annex I - Books Written and Illustrated by Dayal Kaur Khalsa