The Joy Inside My Pain: Finding God's Love in Life's Tragedies

By Betty Neilson

All good love stories have moments of heart-wrenching intrigue and valour. Betty Neilson tells her own personal story of love, loss, heartbreak, and the ultimate happy ending. Her marriage to performing entertainer Ron Neilson endured even the darkest of obstacles. Her steadfast resilience and faith in God helped win back her husband, and give her hope for their captivating life together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Word Alive Press
• Release date: Sep 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781486615681

Book preview

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one

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Happy New Year! It was 1984 at last. Not that I was so anxious to see that year arrive, but rather, relieved to see 1983 go! The past year had changed my life, my perspectives and the very core of who I was. Within this first new day of a new year those things would be jolted again like the Earth shifting on it’s axis, propelling me into a totally new normal, and my life, seemingly, into a parallel dimension.

Ron and I had been married for over thirteen years at this point. It was certainly not your average marriage in terms of nine to five, two careers, mortgage and kids, garden-variety kind of life. Ron was a professional musician and I an elementary school teacher when we met in late 1969. No one could have prepared me for the earthquake and impending tsunami that was to come.

At the age of twenty, Ron had already been in a successful touring and recording group in Southwestern Ontario, known as the Volcanoes, under the tutelage of a wonderful manager, T.L. Dudley, since the age of fifteen. Then he was ‘on the road’ full time, travelling the highways and bi-ways of Ontario with a show band called The Bell Tones. He worked with that close-knit group led by Ken and Betty Lynn Cassis and a keyboard player by the name of Gene Boles. As fate would have it, he was booked into a ‘members only’ club where I danced the night away several nights a week. After having ended another relationship in a haze of alcohol and smoke, Ron was gloriously free and watching for ‘that special someone’ to walk into a crowded bar one night.

On the other hand, I had broken off a close relationship with the boy next door, literally. He was handsome, blonde, blue-eyed and a wonderful dancer. He was also a successful, dependable, hard working treasure and a gentleman above all. My mother, therefore, was devastated when I severed this courtship. At times I agreed with her, but then there were the thoughts that I wanted something different for my life than ‘dependable’.

Laughingly, I had recently attended a bridal shower for a fellow teacher and had my tealeaves read. It was the cause of uproarious laughter when the ‘seventh daughter of a seventh daughter’ saw my teacup full of music notes! The entire teaching staff knew only too well that I avoided teaching music even to my little second graders. I always sought out a fellow teacher to switch hit in that area, even teaching ‘Religious Education’ in it’s place, a fate thought by most to be worse than death. But there it was, a teacup full of music notes and the promise of a tall, dark and handsome stranger filling my whole life with music.

Actually, I had dated many others since my break-up, but at the time, had just recently had the cards turned on me. A summer relationship with a tall, dark and handsome young man had just ended, rather unceremoniously. We had danced many a night at the County Club, in Oakville, Ontario, where we were both card -carrying members. But, ultimately, he was far too much a partyer, a drinker, and a man-about-town for me and he let me know it soon after school began in the fall.

Ah, summer love! How painfully it ends when September’s routine and reality sets in. John was choosing many other partners on and off the dance floor those days, but by the end of each evening would invite me to dance, and spin me around the room, all the while complaining that none of the others could dance like I could, and had been stepping on his feet all night. I was heartbroken yet always accepted his offer for ‘the last dance’. Pitiful.

When, late in November, a dark mysterious musician began smiling at me from the stage of that same club, I calculated that I could give John some of the same medicine he had been giving me! It was easy and comfortable to smile back and enjoy watching this talented, Beatle-ish, young heartthrob as he seemed to play and sing directly to me. On the first break Ron approached our table where my sister, Mickey and her boyfriend, Robert sat with me. Robert had met all the members of the Bell Tones as they had set up their equipment that week and he had been removing his drum set from the stage.

It was with excitement that I was introduced to Ron Neilson, but with intrigue in my mind about his lifestyle, so very foreign to mine but, certainly not boring! I also, admittedly, had formulated a plan. Here was someone outside the County Club crowd, who was perfect in his attention to me, to use to make John feel a little of the sting I had been experiencing. We chatted and danced to the jukebox break music and Ron was so nervous he dragged his sleeve though a spilled drink on the table. We laughed and joked freely, all the while I was comfortable, not jittery because my mind was on what effect our interaction was having on John.

The next break Ron invited me outside for some fresh air. Ah, how I remember, that smoke-filled bar and the smell of liquor and beer in a room where I didn’t drink and could only focus on the dance floor and my bruised feelings for John. We were not ten steps outside the club, when tires screeched in the parking lot and John peeled away. Apparently, what was good for that goose did not elicit the same results when this gander began participating!

With satisfaction and sweet revenge bubbling inside me, I now turned my attention to this curious man beside me. After that first night we spent many evenings before he started work talking and laughing. I picked him up one day on my lunch hour and we sought out a local café and enjoyed time together in the daylight for a change. One night, early in that first week, he told me he was going to marry me someday! I was then completely convinced he was a ‘crazy musician’. But even with this revelation all too clear in my mind, within the following two weeks of their engagement at the County Club, I realized that I had been hopelessly trapped in the snare I had set for Ron, to use him for my own purposes. Before the band left Oakville, I knew I was falling in love with Ron Neilson.

Oblivious to the warnings of my parents with concerns that this musician, this unknown suitor, would have girlfriends in every town, I threw caution to the wind and wholeheartedly began a relationship. And Ron had garnered some admiration from them within weeks when my six-year-old sister, Joanne was hospitalized for mastoid surgery and was refusing to eat during her recovery, to the dismay of the doctors as well as all of us. It was Ron’s first introduction to my family when I brought him to visit her in the hospital and he made her laugh and coaxed her into eating her first cafeteria meal. It was no small feat and much appreciated.

I began joining him for weekends whenever he was within driving range. If my home was on the way to the next booking Ron would spend the Sunday at our house and soon became a ‘regular’ visitor with his recording equipment and instruments a strange addition to the living room. Occasionally, taking buses or trains, I would soothe my mother’s fears for my physical safety, but took no such precautions to ‘guard’ my heart. It was already totally lost. That was the onset of 1970 and, oh what promise that New Year held.

Unlike the image of unemployed, drifting musician that my mother conveyed with a tinge of dislike and a ton of disrespect, The Bell Tones were never without work. They plied their trade and their brand of fun entertainment all over Ontario in some of the nicest lounges in the province and some not-so-nice bars where tuxedo clothed show bands were out of place and unappreciated. Such was the nature of the business and I was getting a first hand look at it all.

By April 1970, Ron and I were engaged and had a huge celebration in Sebringville on the outskirts of Stratford, Ontario. The Sebringvilla was one of the favorite bookings of The Bell Tones and seemed the most appropriate place to gather family members and friends centrally from Port Credit, my family’s home and Sarnia, Ron’s hometown. What excitement!

The engagement entailed a beautiful diamond ring, a new baby-doll dress, as short as fashion and modesty would allow; all of our family and friends present; and a special song written and performed by my ‘tall, dark and handsome, musician fiancé! It wasn’t until much later that I connected the dots to my ‘teacup full of music notes’ and that teacher’s shower. We were gloriously happy.

My parents were too, until they heard of our plans to spend my summer break travelling together on the road. But as I explained to my father, it was my final test for this new life on which I was embarking, most of which I knew nothing about. It also meant I would be giving up my teaching career so we could be together.

We planned and set the wedding date for Boxing Day, securing the church and the reception location. It was the only Saturday the hotels were closed so the band was not booked and my choice for the reception was also available. But then we were off covering the province of Ontario from Windsor to Kingston, Sarnia to Peterborough and Kapuskasing to Toronto. We had matching suits made (unisex was a big deal then) and visited all the tourist attractions Ontario had to offer. Niagara Falls and the newly opened African Lion Safari were our favorites.

Upon my return and having to decorate my classroom and prepare for the new school term, we were all in a flurry of activity also completing details of the wedding. Five months is not a long time to plan. All my sisters, Mickey, Susan, Cathy, and even Joanne were involved. My mother and I searched endlessly for the perfect dress and even went as far afield as Sarnia, where she had the opportunity to meet John and Mabel Neilson, Ron’s parents.

I don’t know really how I determined that I wanted a dress with a hood attached instead of a veil, probably from seeing one in a magazine, but it was a very difficult thing to find in the long run. As a last ditch effort, Mom and all four of my sisters, we Livingston girls, went into Toronto to look into renting the dresses. ‘Syd Silver Formal Wear’ was owned and operated by cousins of my Father and just by chance they had exactly what I had imagined. With all five of us outfitted, the deal was struck and we were getting much closer to the finish line.

Most of this time of preparation Ron was not present. Their popularity had taken The Bell Tones as far away as Prince Edward Island and East Coast cities like Halifax. My mailbox was constantly full of cards and letters, as we wrote daily and the mail crisscrossed the country. It was torture being apart and there were precious few times when they were performing in Ontario and in my proximity that we could be together. Once a week, on a Sunday after 11pm Ron would call collect and my father would watch the clock, in an attempt to control the ever-rising phone bills.

Nevertheless a girl does what a girl must do, and along with resigning my teaching position at Christmas Break, with much appreciated help from my mother and sisters, we pulled it off. And although the festivities were hampered by a serious snowstorm, the hospitalization of one of Ron’s nieces, and the bad behavior of some uninvited cousins of Ron’s who crashed the party, nothing could dampen our joy!

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two

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Admittedly, our marriage was far from the ordinary. Unlike most couples who are consumed with searching for a new apartment or starter house, dealing with two jobs and conflicting schedules, longing for weekends to socialize and parade around their ‘new couple’ identity, our married life more resembled an extended honeymoon.

With all the wedding gifts packed away at my parents’ home, the thank-you notes duly sent, we went travelling with Ken, Betty Lynn and Gene.

What an exciting life! Enjoying another full year of various clubs and interesting new people, we relished each new location and what friendships and experiences each one offered. I learned from Betty Lynn how to maintain a leash on our spending by cooking our meals in hotel rooms and hauling around a ‘kitchen in a trunk’ for several years. Some people would find it hard to believe but restaurant meals do get tiresome.

It was during this time that Ron coined his phrase that we, as a couple, lived by. He always said: Betty, with my talent and your brains we can do anything!

Amazingly, we were young and naïve enough to believe that. But although Ron, at that time, was shy and hesitant to take center stage in any situation, he had dreams of ‘making it’ in the business before he was thirty five. He worked very hard toward that goal by listening to Ken Cassis and taking on a more diverse repertoire.

Painful as it was, he began introducing songs occasionally and even doing some comedy that garnered great applause and attention from the audiences. This is when ‘Misty’ was first attempted and adopted into the act. For those who never had the pleasure of seeing this phenomenon, Ron sang the song in a Donald Duck voice, all the while doing an impression of Maurice Chevalier.

Ron was building his self-confidence, but I can honestly say he was not cultivating a big ego. That was never his style. It wasn’t long, however, before an opportunity for further success presented itself. While in Trenton, Ontario, some members of a local band, all of whom were related, approached us about Ron joining their band, Noah. We considered the implications for several months. They were looking for a lead guitar player, mainly, who could sing as well, but mostly back up the lead singer.

Randy Bachman was working with the group and agreed that Ron’s skills were more than adequate. The band had such promise. Their manager also managed Three Dog Night, which was one of the most popular bands of the time. Noah’s label was ABC/Dunhill; you couldn’t get much better than that.

It was so difficult, to say the least, to say good-bye to The Bell Tones who had become our closest friends and terrific mentors. But, giving plenty of notice, we worked our last jobs with them and set off to put down roots in the community of Trenton. This was a whole new chapter in our lives. Gone were the steady income, travel and total freedom from the adult responsibilities of budgets, rent and groceries. We moved into a tiny bachelor apartment on Main Street above a retail store. Money was hard to come by while Ron practiced and worked on redeveloping his whole image.

Gone also were the six tuxedos, all different colors, and the ‘kitchen in a trunk’. But the apartment didn’t seem so small as compared to hotel rooms, which changed every two weeks or so, but the changes in our lifestyle were huge. Ron grew his hair long and gave up shaving altogether. His wardrobe now consisted of T-shirts and tight jeans. His guitar was adorned with the Canadian flag. Our food budget was almost non-existent and since we were both smokers, that didn’t help. At times we lived on a loaf of white bread, canned soup, and a bag of oranges for a week; sacrifices we made very gladly to reach for the stars.

As that long winter of 1971 gave way to spring, plans were being made for touring, plans that did not include wives or children. I couldn’t even comprehend how we could go back to a long distance relationship after all we had been through. When touring began, it was confined to South Eastern Ontario or North Western New York State at first. I was able to go periodically, on weekends if I could convince one of my sisters or a friend from home to come with me. What a rush it was to witness this new incarnation of my young and talented husband!

Early that April a substitute - teaching position became available at the Catholic School Board, due to the death of one of their teachers. I tentatively took the job, but with great apprehension. We certainly needed the money, but I didn’t know how I would be when Ron was flying all over the US. Stress was beginning to be a large part of my life, quite unexpectedly, and with it came failing health and weight loss that was alarming. It was fortunate that I had not signed a contract for the rest of the school year. This was not an ordinary elementary school situation; this was a class of grieving grade two children that had just lost their favorite teacher. By early May, the board had found a permanent replacement and I resigned, gave up our apartment with the help of my parents, and moved back home.

By the end of May, I had the opportunity to go to Los Angeles to spend time with Ron. I was so thin by then that I had to have new clothes, the smallest size I could buy, taken in to fit me. This was my first time ever flying, and I had to go alone out of Toronto while Lawrie and Bonnie, Marinus’ and Peter’s wives were leaving from Trenton. It was nerve wracking, but certainly worth it to spend exciting time in sunny California.

It was thrilling! There were exhilarating performances at the Ice House and Whiskey A-Go-Go by the band, tours of Beverly Hills and Graumans Chinese Theater, the Hollywood Walk of Fame and shopping on Rodeo Drive. A bucket-list experience for sure.

Then the band had to get down to work recording their new album at RCA. I had an opportunity to add some percussion and back-up vocals to the project. It was during this time that Buzzy, the lead singer and bassist began to suffer from headaches. At first people were dispatched to get aspirin and we took turns massaging his neck and temples, but soon it became obvious that he was debilitated by the pain, so much so that Ron at times had to redo vocal tracks and bass lines that Buzz had originally played. It was not until this trip was long over and we were all back in Canada that Buzzy was diagnosed. He had a brain tumor that would eventually take his life and break the hearts of his entire family and band members.

It was with heavy hearts, and a sad reality that Noah was over, that Ron and I returned to Mississauga and the home of my parents. We talked, reasoned, and planned for a complete change of direction. What Ron was sure of was that his experience with The Bell Tones had really stimulated his interest in a total entertainment package, rather than