Rita MacNeil
(May 28, 1944 – April 16, 2013)

We had a really difficult time with the passing of Cape Breton’s First Lady of Song: Rita MacNeil. She was an inspiration to us and we actually felt like we knew her. You know when you think you are friends with a celebrity but you really aren’t? (hope that’s not just us sounding crazy…people do that right?). Well we considered her a friend and part of our blogging family. Laura, Robin and Rita. Just like Three’s Company or Charlie’s Angels only very, very different.

As many of our zillions of die hard fans know, we haven’t been blogging much lately. It’s hard, when the face of your blog passes away – how do you continue on? We’ve thought long and hard about it and we’ve decided that Rita would have wanted us to go on. How do we know this? Well in all honesty we don’t, but we did think we were friends with her so let us think this too okay?

Here are some of our favourite things about Rita.

1. Rita MacNeil was a feminist. Not just because she was a female. You know you can be a feminist even if you aren’t female. Get your head outta the clouds. The RCMP actually spied on her and a bunch of other female activists in the 1970’s to try to understand the new generation of women who shunned traditional female roles and fought for for equal pay, sex education in schools and access to abortion. Go RITA!!! Read more about this here.

2. She was on an episode of Trailer Park Boys

3. She had a fondness for oversized hats. SO DO WE RITA!!!

4. Rita drove a Nissan Cube. You know that car that kind of looks like a refrigerator.

5. Rita made her family laugh even after her passing. In her will she wrote, “Upon my death, I would want to be cremated immediately, my ashes to be placed in my tea room teapot. Two, if necessary,”.

Her daughter Laura Lewis said, “My mom loved to laugh and she had a wonderful sense of humour. She showed us that humour and laughter is a wonderful coping mechanism in hard times.”

WE TOTALLY AGREE RITA!!!! With that being said, the blog must go on!!

Thank you Rita for all that you have done. You are missed every single day.