Anne being my mother
On January 12, I wrote a post about the tedium and demands of care giving to a dying mother, and how I went out for three brisk 30-minute walks that day (to get fresh air and exercise but not leave her for longer periods), and how I did stretching exercises while waiting for her to…
ALERT: Not an entertaining post. Don’t read if you are looking for an uplifting Christmas story. My 91-year-old mother has been declining. I don’t intend to post daily depressing accounts but I need to acknowledge this period, in all seriousness. When my extended family gathers (likely before too long) I will welcome our raging black…
[To see the whole series of Anne’s Story, click on the menu tab at the top of my Home page.] When last we left Anne on this blog, she was in her 20s, had committed her own mother to a mental hospital, been found by her long lost foster mother, was married to Ray and had…
One morning while her husband was out, Anne was at home caring for their young son. They were caretakers of a small apartment building and, in exchange, had a suite in the basement. After the war, Ray enrolled as an engineering student at the University of BC. She was dressed in the typical cleaning clothes of the day –…
In early 1944 Anne had stopped working and was pregnant with their first child. Meanwhile, Ray got fired as he didn’t get along with his boss. This was a cause for some soul-searching and shame. Not only was he not fighting overseas like the rest of his peers, but he had been fired from his civilian…
In June 1942, Anne and Ray got married. She was almost 20 and he was 22. The most popular songs of 1942 included The White Cliffs of Dover by Vera Lynn. They were married for almost 65 years, until death did them part in 2007. I cannot explain my own marriage, so I won’t attempt to describe…
Anne attended Vancouver School of Art on a scholarship one year after high school, but couldn`t continue, for financial reasons. She went to work as a keypunch operator for BC Packers, a big fish-packing company in Vancouver. A mutual friend introduced Anne to my father, Ray, at an ice skating rink. He drove her and her friend…
In the summer of 1931, family friends took 9-year-old Anne on a driving trip to Vancouver, BC, so she could spend 3 months with her mother. The 2-week trip from California was in a big old touring car, equipped with running boards full of camping gear, staying in river-side campsites on the way north. She remembers being…
Seeing Clarely 