Page 6 - June Issue 2021

rosalie drysdale
Life - Love - Music - Faith
When Helen Keller said “ A Bend In The Road is not the end of the road...Unless you fail to make the turn” , she may well have been talking about the amazing
music lessons. He also still jokes about their little
stops for pizza or hamburgers on the way to or from life journey and career of Rosalie home. He was proud of the hard work Rosalie did at
Drysdale.
Rosalie’s story actually begins in post war Austria, her parents, as children, fleeing war torn Europe for a better life in Canada. As a first generation Canadian, and the eldest of four daughters, Rosalie only learned English when starting in the public school system. German was the language spoken in her family home at that time, and she remains fluent to this day.
Very early in life Rosalie was introduced to Music, and by the age of two, she would sing in her parents Church. Her parents recognized a musical talent in their young daughter and by the age of eight she was enrolled in classical piano lessons, which she continued for 11 years, along with weekly vocal lessons from a variety of vocal schools around
such an early age, and felt that rewarding that hard work was only fair.
As her musical skills developed and flourished, she, and everyone around her, took for granted that her vocation in life would most certainly be in music. By 1974 she recorded her first album with her parents and sisters titled “Family of God”, by 1979 Rosalie and her sister Emilie recorded another studio album “Butterfly”.
During her growing up years, she regularly played the piano, sang and accompanied singers in her parents church in Barrhead, Alberta and later, when her parents were transferred to Winnipeg, she sang and performed there. At the age of ten she was doing piano improvisational performances at the family church.
After graduating high school, in Winnipeg,she attended Bible College in Alberta, and on graduation she returned to Winnipeg, and soon became engaged and got married.
Life changed from a promising career on stage and in the music business to becoming the wife of a pastor, starting a family and working as a choir director in her husband’s Toronto based church. These years were very difficult, with the isolation from her family who remained in Winnipeg. Rosalie had three children worked in the church and after ten years in Toronto, suddenly found herself and
western Canada. her family being relocated to Winnipeg. A career in
To this day, her proud father, boasts of making music had long s since become a cherished dream that three hour round trip drive from Barrhead to in the past.
Edmonton, each week, so Rosalie could take her 6