Valerie Ariel Hassell Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1914 - d. 2001

Valerie Ariel Hassell (Richardson)
1914 -2002Valerie Hassell

Val, as she was known, was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, the second child. Frank Richardson, her elder brother was her protector as they grew up in the rough mining areas of the Canadian North. Her father, Harold Richardson, a pharmacist, married Dora - a Cockburn. This proud and industrious family had emigrated from Burrick-on-Tweed, Scotland in the first half of the 1800's. Dora's father, Jeremiah Daniel Cockburn settled in North Bay, Ontario where he was a powerful person; the Factor of The Hudson's Bay Company and the local magistrate. In her later years,Val often spoke fondly of her grandfather, recounting him telling her to keep her chin up.

Life was not easy for the family. Their cabin burned to the ground when she was still a child and the feeling of loss from that event never left her. The family stood by them however and she got to know her cousins, grandchildren of Alexander Peter Cockburn (acknowledged as the father of the Town of Gravenhurst). AP Cockburn, the son of XX was the entrepreneur who brought steamships to the Muskoka lakes (RMS Seguin has been beautifully restored and is still in operation).

Val did well in school, matriculated with honours and should have gone to University but instead, because she needed to earn money to support her brother in his engineering studies and her mother who was by then, separated from Harold, went instead to teacher's college. She did well , graduating with honours and got a job teaching in Lorne Park. The family home on Lakeshore Rd. in Port Credit (at Elmwood - yes there were lots of large elms then) was quite a hike to school. There were no busses but the train was an option.

She married in 1941 after being courted by Hilton who was, at that time, a fledgling artist. He painted this portrait of her in 1940.

Together they raised two children. Val was very supportive of Hilton. She accompanied him on most of his painting trips and Valerie, who had also attended the College of Art in Toronto, was his greatest critic and his greatest enthusiast.