Visitors to the Kitchener Market knew Curtis Tulk as the “Music Man.”
For more than two decades it was his second home, where he busked and delighted crowds with his voice and guitar.
But his booth now sits empty.
Tulk lost his battle with cancer at a Kitchener hospice Friday.
He was 83.
Tulk’s niece says his health began to decline earlier this year.
In June his doctor suggested he stop playing at the market. But Tulk refused and kept playing for his friends, vendors and customers.
Terry Ross sat beside him at the market for the last few years. He visited Tulk at the hospice just days before he died.
“My last interaction with him, I was smiling because of all the memories,” he said. “All the joy he brought. The people that stop here, the little kids that would dance.”
But music wasn’t Tulk’s only passion.
He was also an artist and his family took some of his work to the market last weekend.
“Within a couple of hours it was all sold,” said market manager Kim Feere.
During the last weeks of his life Tulk was still playing his guitar, but this time for residents at the hospice.
The market has set up a station where the public can leave their condolences.
The notes will be presented to his family at his funeral on Tuesday.
They’re also planning to put up a memorial plaque to remember their “Music Man.”
