The Legend of Emilie

Emilie's House

On the hill overlooking the harbour their stands a house, where before the great war lived a young artist named Emilie.

Emilie moved  to Tempelhof straight out of art school, and even though was an outsider her quick wit and charm was very appealing to the community and she was quickly accepted by the locals as one of their own

Although Emilie was never really that well known to the greater public, she was very skilled and she did have a reputation locally and in the art world for creating the most memorable paintings of the Tempelhof area, particularly of the residents and the village of Tempelhof itself.

Bar on harbour front

Emilie's work was very popular in the village and she was considered somewhat of a local treasure, always friendly and with a whimsical sprit.  She enjoyed spending a lot of her time "people watching," as they worked in the harbour and the theatre, on a weekend late in the evening she would go down to the bar on the harbour front, and just sit and watch people interact as they drank.  Occasionally Emilie was known to sing with a local folk band there. Emilie did not have a strong singing voice, but was considered very memorable,  her voice has been described as a musical whisper that was enchanting to those who heard. 

Emilie spent quite a bit of time talking to fishermen at the harbour and became quite interested in the sea and talking about how she wanted to capture the "Emotion of Ocean." She spent ages painting the sea from all different directions on Tempelhof, the most wonderful scenes of the sea, but she was never satisfied with the results no matter how much people praised them.

Emilie came to the conclusion that the only way she could really paint the sea was to understand it better, so one day Emily simply took a small boat and went out to sea with her painting kit, while out the sea started to get choppy and the fog rolled in taking Emilie from sight of the shore and Emilie was never seen again.

Many local residents claim that on certain days when the sea is rough and the fog rolls in you can  still hear Emilie's whispering song in the wind.

While Emilie's paintings never became that well known, the story itself inspired the song "Emilie."

As a special offer "Tempelhof in SL" offers a free copy of a record of the song Emilie with the purchase of this edition. (Click the Youtube link below)

 

 

EDITORS NOTE

 

This story was actually inspired by this song which was written and performed by "The Box" a French Canadian (Québécois) band that mostly performs in English and was from the album "Closer Together." The lead singer Jean-Marc Pisapia was an early member of Men Without Hats (you may remember them from the song "Safety Dance"). He recruited guitarist Guy Florent and bassist Jean-Pierre Brie for the band, The band was originally known as Checkpoint Charlie before settling on the name The Box.

This song may be far from everyone's taste but as a child I found it very moving and emotional and so I wrote this story as an excuse to share the song with you. 

Special thanks to Clyde Barrow for finding this song online for me.