A force to be reckoned with

Even the Blitz couldn’t keep Rita Master down

By: Janine LeGal

For almost 93 years, Rita Master lived two very different lives.

There was the life that she was born into in London, England, in 1932, and then there was the one she made for herself when she moved to Winnipeg in the early 1980s, where she lived until her death on March 6.

The mother of two and grandmother of three had endless stories to share, and her family remained at the centre of each one.

In the early years in London, along with her older sister, Rita helped at her father’s market stall and at her mother’s kosher café. The family was poor but they had a strong work ethic, persistence and a dream to rise above.

With the looming threat of war, the girls, like many children during that time, were evacuated to the countryside. When their parents saw the conditions they were living in, they brought them back to London, but the city was far from safe.

Rita was seven at the start of the war, which lasted until she turned 13. Over the years she documented some of her most vivid experiences.

“The war raged on, the skies often glowing red with the nightly Blitz and aerial bombardments,” she wrote in her journal. “The relentless drone of sirens, the thunder of bombs rattling the earth, and the unknown of each night’s campaigns haunted me. We would flee to the Underground, deep beneath London’s streets.

“Oddly, amidst the chaos above, there was a strange camaraderie and even joy, below. People sang wartime songs, children played and strangers became family. There was an unspoken hope that floated in that subterranean darkness.

“Each night we packed blankets and food and headed to the tube station for safety,” she continued. “We slept on the platforms while bombs rained down above. Every morning we emerged, grateful to have survived, and devastated by what we saw: charred buildings, broken glass, streets turned to ash. Our windows were blown out, but we were luckier than many.”

She recalled an air-raid siren wailing, and having to run for cover. A German plane had been caught in the searchlights slicing across the sky. The artillery had opened fire and the plane burst into flames.

“I watched as the pilot parachuted down to earth,” Rita wrote. “Clearly visible were the black and red insignia of the Nazi cross burning in the night sky. The aircraft crashed into Regent’s Park, not far from where we lived. As a child, I felt victorious, as though we had fought back. The pilot, we were told, had been captured and was now a prisoner of war.”

Her journal also notes that when she was 11, a piece of burning shrapnel tore through her clothing, leaving a scar on her leg.

Rita often said that it was those early memories that gave her the courage and determination to forge ahead through all of life’s adversities.

In 1959 she married Charlie, whom she’d met at a London market. They lived above the shoe shop they’d opened together. Their successful business expanded and brought in not just the locals, but stars and royalty of the era.

In 1980, when Charlie died unexpectedly of a heart attack and life in London had become unstable, Rita’s concern for her two children led her to make a decision that would be the start of an entirely different life.

Though grieving, she embarked on a new chapter: they moved to Winnipeg in 1984, where her sister now lived.

Rita didn’t waste any time and, soon after arrival, opened La Grande Femme: fashions for plus-sized women, on Academy Road. With little competition for that market at the time, business was good. In 1991 she expanded the company on the same street and launched Boutique La Femme.

After selling the building on Academy, she spent 10 years at Grant Park Shopping Centre, then three in Tuxedo, before settling into her final shop — Masters of London — on Roblin Boulevard.

Rita’s son Ivan Master worked with his mother in both London and Winnipeg for most of his life and wouldn’t have done it any other way.

“There was a constant bond of business together,” said Ivan. “We were sort of unique in that way, very tight. We thought the same, we acted the same.”

Rita travelled all over North America in search of garments for her customers. She developed a rapport with every person who walked in the shop. Customers became her friends. They would sit with her and chat.

She took that connection seriously and never let anyone leave if they weren’t a perfect advertisement for the business. The clothes had to look just right on every customer.

“Whatever advice she dispensed, it was honest and truthful,” Ivan recalled. “She was a very good people person. She always had an entrepreneurial mind, a good sense of fashion and colour co-ordination. She was able to have that magic eye. That was some sort of a gift she had.”

Up at 5 a.m. every morning, there’d be soup on the stove. Rita cooked from scratch for every holiday and spent long hours at the store. She had tenacity and got things done.

“The thing that she loved the most was having her family over for dinner, having the grandchildren around for Passover, Hannukah, Rosh Hashanah,” Ivan recalled. “She’d be cooking, making it weeks before, from scratch. She hated not having people around.”

Rita’s granddaughter, Arielle Lofchick, remembers her grandmother as fierce, honest and unstoppable.

“She approached life with grit and determination, never backing down from a challenge and never doing anything halfway. She said exactly what she thought, sometimes blunt, often bold, but always rooted in truth and love. She had high expectations because she wanted the best for the people she loved. She took immense pride in her family, especially her grandchildren, celebrating our accomplishments as if they were her own.

“One of the things that inspired me most was how she spoke of my grandfather Charlie. She called him a wonderful partner and father, and even though they only had 25 years together, she said it felt like 50 because they did everything together. From her, I learned what it means to love deeply, to show up for others, and to keep moving forward no matter what.”

Hundreds of cards and emails poured in when people heard the news of Rita’s death.

“She came from poverty, worked her way up to make our lives more comfortable,” said Ivan. “She always remembered where she came from. She was fiercely loyal to her family. ‘Never complain, never explain, like the Queen.’

“Her mind was sharp until the day she passed away. She was such a larger-than-life character.”

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca