Ferne Margaret Cristall

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Cristall, Ferne

 

Beset, bereft, besieged by emotions . . . 

 

Our very own Ferne Margaret Cristall died early Tuesday morning, April 29, 2025, with her immediate family standing by, all of us trying so hard to fill her to the brim with the same adoring, fierce love that she had poured out for us and so many others for so long.

 

Ferne leaves her life and love partner of 43 years, Robert Clarke, her daughter Gabrielle Clarke (Peter Barbour), and her son, Jonah Cristall-Clarke (Alexander Gates).

 

She also leaves her brothers, Jeff Cristall (Pat), Neil Cristall (Brenda), niece Katrina and nephews Jordan and Michael – and a huge, unmanageable array of beloved cousins and their offspring and partners.

 

Importantly, as a rule Ferne’s vast family also included her friends and former students, too numerous to mention. We especially want to note two close friends, Stephanie Benn and Krista English, who were there every step of the way during Ferne’s 10 months of illness.

 

Ferne was a political activist, feminist, volunteer for good causes, and above all a believer in a broad definition of family and community. Family and friends were always at the centre of Ferne’s life. She welcomed visitors to her home with open arms, a trait picked up from her parents, and offered up great quantities of good food. “She makes food fly from the oven,” Rob once wrote. She enjoyed long daily walks with friends and their dogs in parks. She enjoyed travelling the world – British Columbia and its mountains (and especially paddleboarding on the Columbia River near Golden), Barcelona, Greece, Southeast Asia, Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica – and most especially when she could take her family along. She enjoyed going as much as possible to her family’s cottage at Clear Lake in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba.

 

In the course of conversation she would give her everything. She was always, foremost, helping others near and far to draw links and solve problems. And she would call on others to help solve her own problems, too. She liked fun and laughter and rootsy music. Her zest for life and its relationships – human, animal, bird, and nature in general – were what made her tick. She made it clear, over and over again, that she did not want to leave this world and people that she loved so much.

 

Ferne was born in Brandon, MB, on Aug. 10, 1954. Her parents were Ellie (Elinore) Cristall (nee Simkin) and Boom (Arthur) Cristall. Ellie was a mathematics professor at Brandon University, and Boom (with his brother Dood) ran the family store, the New System Store, in downtown Brandon. Ferne came from a secular Jewish family steeped in politics. She always considered herself a “red diaper baby.”

 

Arriving in Peterborough in the early 1970s to study at Trent University, she took courses in Comparative Development and Anthropology, among others. Of course, she made lifelong friends. She took time off from Trent now and then to travel and take up other projects. In 1976, for instance, she happened to be in Guatemala as a volunteer during the Great Earthquake, and stayed on to help in the recovery and restorations. Her parents were relieved when they finally got word she was okay. “Brandon girl escapes quake,” said a headline in the Brandon Sun.

 

After graduating from Trent in 1978, Ferne joined the Development Education Centre (DEC), a collective organization in Toronto. She worked in DEC Films, distributing documentary films across Canada, assisting community groups in organizing film events, and conducting workshops on social and political issues. Her work nurtured a lasting devotion to the promotion and screening of documentary films that challenged the status quo and changed lives.

 

In 1984–86 she also took on a special job for the YWCA Social Action Department as coordinator of an International Violence Against Women Project – an issue of personal significance.  She continued working to end violence against women throughout her life, volunteering at the Rape Crisis Centre in Peterborough, and programming films and panels at the ReFrame Film Festival on gender-based violence.

 

Ferne was also the author of two books: the groundbreaking Getting There: Producing Photostories with Immigrant Women, co-authored with Deborah Barndt and dian marino (1982) and Images in Action: A Guide to Using Women’s Film and Video, co-authored with Barbara Emanuel (1986).

 

She was on the board of Peterborough’s Canadian Images Festival in the early 1980s and a key figure in the ReFrame Film Festival from its very beginning in 2004. She continued to help select films for the 2025 festival while she was undergoing cancer treatments.

 

As one of the ReFrame members put it: “Beyond being an amazing trooper for the many many many films she previewed, she had the biggest heart and incomparable vision for what this small town festival might be. Everyone who has ever watched a ReFrame film owes her an unimaginable debt.”

 

While working at DEC, Ferne got to know Robert Clarke, a co-worker (who grew up in Peterborough). Rob had a daughter, Gabrielle, age seven at the time, and Gabe and Ferne took an instant liking (or loving) to each other. Ferne, Rob, and Gabe began living together in 1982. Jonah was born in 1983.

 

In 1990 Ferne, Rob, and Jonah moved to Peterborough; Gabe followed two years later to study at Trent.

 

In 1990–91 Ferne got her Bachelors of Education degree from the University of Toronto and reinvented herself, just slightly, as a mainstream teacher. She quickly found work teaching in the Adult Re-Entry program in the Continuing Education Centre, housed in what used to be known as Central Public School. In 1993 three graduates of that program thanked “Ferne Cristall, a very special teacher blessed with a vision. We thank her from the bottoms of our hearts for believing in us. Ferne, to teach is to touch a life forever.” From there she went on to touch countless lives.

 

She was soon teaching several different courses at PCVS, including, most notably, World Issues, leading students into cutting-edge, controversial discussions of race, gender, and geopolitics. She went beyond teaching courses. She sought funding for and developed an English as a Second Language (ESL) or English Language Learners (ELL) program, and became its teacher and champion. Her emphasis was on inclusion: making sure students coming from a multitude of different countries felt welcome and safe. At noon-hour her classroom became a lunchroom.

 

Colleagues and community members later set up an ELL scholarship fund in her name, explaining: “She bolstered the confidence of every student through language training; she assisted in course choices and understanding curriculum material, tests and exams, college and university applications; and she supported families through collecting necessities, arranging for translators, navigating local agencies and organizing community get-togethers. Her diligence, soft-spoken nature and insight ensured that students had her tireless support through the toughest and the best of times.”

 

Later on she became an itinerant ELL teacher for the Board, travelling from school to school to work with ELL students and teachers across the district.

 

Wherever she went she made friends among the students, and it became difficult to move around Peterborough without running into someone who had felt her impact.

 

In 2006 she won the YMCA Peace Medallion – given annually to an individual who makes a contribution to building stronger, peaceful communities. Among other things, she had organized an exchange of photos, letters, and music between students at PCVS and the Nyachuru Secondary School in Zimbabwe.

 

One of her former students told us: “In high school she opened my eyes to the broader world and introduced me to concepts of human rights, social justice and international solidarity that profoundly changed my view of the world and impacted the rest of my life.”

 

Another friend says that Ferne “stands out as a beacon of incredible strength and dignity and loyalty, and principled commitment. When I see Ferne I see her penetrating focus, the care with which she observes and listens and the thoughtfulness with which she responds. From Canadian Images forward – and that’s almost 50 years – I have watched her be a pillar of our community in so many different ways.”

 

When Ferne retired from teaching in 2015, she immersed herself in the Master of Education program at Trent University. Her thesis became, not surprisingly, a work of the heart as well as mind, and a project of inclusion: “Resistance Revisited: How Student Activism around the PCVS School Closure Influenced Youths’ Life Experiences, Views on Power, Political Engagement, and Personal Agency” (May 2018). In researching and writing this piece, she worked with 14 youth participants from the PCVS Raiders in Action group who had resisted the closure of their beloved school. Much to Ferne’s delight – for she did not want her project sitting on a shelf gathering dust – a playwright in Toronto, Madeleine Brown, came across the thesis, contacted Ferne, and worked closely with her to turn it into a play, “Give ‘Em Hell” – which was performed in the PCVS auditorium in September 2023.

 

All the while, whether it was her friends’ trials and aspirations and work lives, her daughter’s art, her son’s music, her partner’s editing and writing, Ferne was the buttress that held them all in place.

 

We thank her community of friends for delivering constant support – and huge supplies of wonderful food to our doorstep (and hospice) – over her ten months of illness and treatment. In the last few months her musician friends filled her life with live music, first at home and finally in hospice.

 

A host of wonderful doctors tended to her, and developed bonds, and we thank them all: in Peterborough, Drs. Garth Hanson and Britt Lehmann-Bender; in Oshawa, Drs. Elena Igwe, Audrey Li, and Orit Freedman. As one of the Oshawa team lovingly put it in a meeting last fall, “You are a complicated lady” – and she was so correct. After entering the realm of palliative care in Peterborough, Ferne had the good luck to fall into the care of Dr. Becca Webster, who became a friend as well as a doctor, with her unconventional doctor-love: from her heart socks to putting her feet and legs up comfortably on our living-room couch (she was, after all, expecting a baby), to a hug and kiss that she gave to Ferne, wondering if it was an appropriate thing for a doctor to do. We said, Yes!

 

Then there were all the nurses and care workers who came so closely into our lives over the last 10 months. They were, again, too many to mention, but a few stuck in our hearts: the home-care nurses Kimberley and Kristena; Sarah came weekly to do blood work; Jade and Ella at the hospital’s palliative care ward; at Hospice Peterborough, Kathy, Melissa, Brooke, Baily, and countless others. 

 

We thank the staff of Hospice Peterborough for so caringly and expertly looking after Ferne and her needs – and, we found, they just as caringly looked after the families, too. (It helps to know someone who works in the kitchen.)

 

In lieu of flowers, please, if you can, send donations to ReFrame Film Festival, The Ferne Cristall English Language Learner (ELL) Fund, New Canadians Centre Peterborough, or Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME).

 

Finally, we entrusted Ferne to the care of the Ashburnham Funeral Home and Reception Centre. A private Aquamation has taken place.

 

We thank Joy Simmons and Colin MacAdam for opening their house and hosting two evenings of shiva.

 

A celebration of Ferne’s life will be held at on Saturday, September 13th, 2025.