Remembering Meredith Layton (1932-1926)

“Losing a person with a century’s lifespan is losing a testimony of a world. You remember them in order to reconstruct it.” Yiannis Doukas

Great Village lost one of its most respected citizens on 17 June 2026. Meredith Layton spent her life engaging every day with her community, as a nurse, a business woman, an active member of many organizations. And as a friend. I met Meredith when I began going to the village in the early 1990s in search of Elizabeth Bishop. She and her husband Robert welcomed not only me but also many other Bishop fans, scholars and seekers in their wonderful general store. In the 1770s, the Layton family had been Yorkshire immigrants, along with the Bulmers; they came together on the same ship, Two Friends, and eventually settled in the village, becoming part of its bedrock. So interested was Meredith in the connection Bishop had with the village, she became a founding member of the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia (formed in 1994), and spent the next thirty-plus years helping to spread the word about that connection.

From the moment I met Meredith and Robert, they shared with me their deep and extensive interest in the history of Great Village, which included documents directly connected to the Bulmer family and Elizabeth Bishop. One thing I vividly remember was the small but amazing mercantile museum they had set up in their store, a room filled with countless fascinating artefacts collected and preserved from over a century of commerce in Colchester County. One specific memory I have of this space: I am with Thomas Travisano, an important American Bishop scholar, who was visiting to deliver a lecture in St. James United Church in 1995. We are looking at the guest book in the museum and find signatures of some of Bishop’s friends: Lloyd Schwartz, J.D. McClatchy, Alfred Corn, and the poet James Merrill, whose poem “Overdue Pilgrimage to Nova Scotia” was triggered by his visit. 

(Meredith at the EB House, June 2024. Photo by Brenda Barry.) 

When I learned of Meredith’s passing, I contacted a couple of friends who had known Meredith for many years. One of them was the Japanese Bishop scholar and translator Michiru Tsubura. I want to share some of what she wrote upon hearing the news: 

I met them [Meredith and Robert] in 1991, during a family trip to Nova Scotia only because I wished to find any little hint about the poet and her hometown. By then, I just knew her poems and her life story only through books, never thinking of the chance to really witness the place. Anyway, it was simply luck, a happy coincidence I must say, that we dropped in … Layton’s Store at the centre of the three-forked road. There I met Meredith and her husband Robert who gave us the first precious information about the house of the Bulmer family. Oh, I have such a good memory and strong impression about that day even today…. Thanks to the Laytons, I could continue my quest for Bishop since then, later joining conferences in Canada, the US, Brazil, and as far as translating Bishop’s poems into Japanese. Sandra, you know all about it, for we have shared lots of experiences at every place connected to the poet. But meeting Meredith was really the starting point. I met her in 1991, again in 1995 and 2011. She showed me the house, while Robert showed me the photographs of Elizabeth in her Nova Scotian days. All I feel now is...the deepest gratitude and love for her.

I could not say it better. I last spoke with Meredith just after Christmas last year. I had fallen and broken my right arm and she expressed deep empathy as she herself had fallen in her icy driveway. Miraculously, she was shaken up but uninjured. Two good Samaritans passing by had stopped and helped her get back into her house. We both agreed: it is not good to fall! Regretfully, I did not talk with her again. My conversations with her over the years were always lively, uplifting and enlightening. I was often the beneficiary of her grace and gracious hospitality, sitting in her welcoming home with the birds at the feeders outside. The conversations ranged widely from local activities to history to politics to sports (she was a huge fan of curling, as am I). She was always interested in what was happening in the wider Bishop world because she had met many of the principals doing those happenings. I miss her so much. 

(Meredith cutting the EBSNS 30^th anniversary cake, June 2024.

That’s me looking on. Photo by Brenda Barry)