October 1977, a reunion hall in the Cunard International Hotel London. A new group , mainly Canadians, has arrived for a cultural roundtrip tour of Europe. Their tour director, now responsible for everything over the next two weeks, welcomes them with a cocktail reception. I am Prof. Dr. Erich Skwara, but just call me Erich. Around forty tourists fill the hall, most are elderly, very few are young. He is 29, in his main job assistant professor at the University of Maryland. But in his true calling he is a poet and novelist, an Austrian poet of German language. The long summer vacations at universities give him a lot of time to travel throughout his very own continent - Europe. Nearly all his clients are Americans, this time his group is made up of Canaidians and Austrialians. He knows nothing about them, they know nothing about him. As he outlines the tour, he finds it difficult to look at his tourists, he feels spellbound by a young girl, she is lovely and beset with a tenderness he has never seen before. He name is Gloria and she comes from Saskatchewan, some kind of a Mini-Siberia in the midst of Canada. So many things shoot through his mind, among them thoughts which border the impossible: I wish I could keep this girl with me here in Europe. I wish I would never have to see her depart again.

Three days in London offer little opportunity to see the group, local guides are doing their job. Then the itinerary takes the group to Athens, Greece. Now, and for the remainder of the journey, the group will be his sole responsibility. An intensive but magnificent trip, first across Greece, then by ship to Brindisi, and during the crossing to Italy he can finally spend hours talking with his Canadian girl. When they board the bus which will take the group across Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Belgium and, finally, France, he only sees her, speaks to her, shows Europe to her. The group does not notice the ever tighter bond between their guide and the girl. In Rome they exchange their first kiss, and from that night they both know they belong together. They avoid talking about the approaching departure day, the last day in Paris. They know that their separation will not be long. Yes, she will fly back home, yes, he will fly back to Baltimore to teach again, but it is Mid-November by now, she wants to spend a last Christmas with her parents and family, but before New Year`s they want to be together.

Yes, indeed she will arrive, it is winter, she is wearing a soft white coat, they will be a couple now and forever. They must hurry, she is expecting a child, their first child, in July. They forget to inform others about their new life together. They get married in June, they do not see fit to inform family or friends. She knows no one in America, he knows four Austrian and German friends. These four will be their wedding guests, this is how he had alwys imagined a perfect wedding. And she agrees. They both have left this world and created and entered a world of their own. In July their first daughter, Gabriella Maria, is born. Three years later a sister, Alexandra Felicitas, will join the small family. They live in Maryland and they are happy. He is a poet, a writer, his growing success keeps him tied to Europe. In 1984 he takes his family to Salzburg, Austria, for two years. He wants the children to learn German, and their mother also is quickly turning into an European. In 1986 he is offered a professorship - German and European Humanities - at San Diego State University. The warm climate and the Pacific Ocean are too tempting, he accepts. They arrive with no strategy, they have neither friends nor relatives, they continue to inhabit their very own universe. They love each other. He travels constantly between Europe and San Diego, he loses all sense of time. He sees their daughters turn into adults, they attend fine universities, suddenly he and Gloria find themselves alone. He spends twelve years in Florence, Italy, but their love can easily withstand even this. They plan to travel soon, together. It cannot happen. Shortly after her 70th birthday, his wife gets sick, a chronic, incurable disease. He must return from Italy and spend time with her. She remains so very peaceful, quiet, brave. He admires and adores his wife. Now he regrets his long absences. But they never pulled them apart. They both know that their love, their bond, their shared life is unique, is a divine gift which was bestowed on them. Then, suddenly, unexpected in its violence, the disease demands authority. Gloria would have loved to celebrate her 74th birthday, young by today`s standards, but it was not meant to be. Despite its demand to leave this human stage, her dying was soft and tender, very much like her arrival into her husband`s life. She passed away, her hand in his, and all the pain is still to come.

Gloria was born in Ituna, SK, Canada, on August 30, 1952, the third youngest of four sisters. Growing up on a rural farm shaped her life-long love of nature. Her path took her first to the city of Regina and then to various places in the U.S. and Europe before finding her lasting home in San Diego. 

Once her daughters were grown, she spent a number of years working at the San Diego Zoo. She loved books, art, good food and animals, especially her late cats, Freckles and Emma, and the hummingbirds that congregated at her balcony and patio feeders.

Gloria was a genuinely good person, who was completely dedicated to her family, and always went out of her way to help others. Even in her last years, as chronic illness made her world ever smaller, she never complained or expressed frustration and bitterness. She will be remembered and deeply missed.

She is survived by her husband, her daughters, all her sisters and a number of other relatives in Canada.