Agnes Grace Grice

Grice, Agnes Grace (nee Anderson): born November 29, 1920, deceased Sept. 10, 2013. Predeceased in 1999 by loving husband of 54 years, Bill; parents Celia Grace and James; brothers Bill, Alf, Pat, Herb and Bob, sister Belle, niece Doris, and nephew Jim; she is survived by sons Michael (Étienne) and Reg (Arlene), grandchildren Jan (Geza), Jes (Stephanie) and Jak (Danielle), great-grandchildren Eric, Danaka and Wyatt, and numerous nieces, nephews and grand-nieces and nephews.

Mom was born at home on NESec. 36, Tp. 27, Rge. 13, W.3, (now, isn’t that the address of a true Saskatchewan ‘country girl’?), just outside Wiseton. Her life, a rich and full one, included helping on the family farms in different parts of Saskatchewan, trekking with horses and wagons from Southern to Northern Saskatchewan in 1930 as the family sought to survive the Depression, earning “5 cents a tail” as a ‘crack shot’ with a 0.22 for doing her bit to wipe out Prairie dogs, ‘working out’ during her teen years in domestic duty on different farmsteads and homes, and serving in the Women’s Air Corps of the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII, first stationed in Ontario, then the Maritimes and finally, to the Jericho detachment in Vancouver, where she met and married William Earle (Bill) Grice, gave birth to Michael and Reg, and generally ran the entire family, both the Grice and Anderson sides, on a highly organized military model, with herself as ‘The General’!

Mom was also involved in different community activities, most often as a ‘driver’ for the things that Michael and Reg were doing – Cubs and Boy Scouts, community marching bands, school sports, etc.; but she and Dad also bowled for many years, with Mom winning a prized trophy or two for high score and high average in their East Van bowling league.

She also worked in a variety of jobs, especially during the tough times when Dad had been injured on his job (well before WorkSafe BC and its predecessors!); these jobs included sewing stiff leather and heavy canvas at Watson Gloves in False Creek, and working retail meat and seafood counters, first at Jones’ Market on Main Street and then for many years on the Food Floor at Woodward’s Oakridge.

She was an avid gardener and loved getting her hands dirty growing the best hydrangeas and dahlias in her East Van neighbourhood, and helping Tony and Rose, next door, in their great vegetable garden.

She was also an accomplished home cook, and invitations to a family or holiday dinner at 3950 were highly valued among family and friends; she prepared as though still cooking for the Jericho Mess Hall, so there were always leftovers for days! This was, in fact, a very difficult habit for her to break and when it came time to let children and grand-children take over the actual cooking duties, Ag could still be seen and heard – not always in the background! - asking: “Are you sure that’s enough potatoes/vegetables/buns/turkey/pie?” Memories of ‘going without’ during the Depression were never really far away for her and she always wanted to make sure everyone would have enough when they dined at her house.

She happily joined Dad in his love for travelling the highways and byways of Western Canada in various vehicles – at first, a borrowed car (with borrowed, and leaky(!) tenting equipment), trailers, (from puny to spiffily-equipped with actual toilet and shower!), and her all-time favourite, the Vanguard motorhome that allowed her to take her two(!) 30-cup coffee urns on holidays and treat an entire campground to coffee at the end of the day, around a blazing campfire, (Dad’s contribution – after she got it going). She could remember entire provincial maps, along with highway/road numbers and knew where every govt. campsite was located, how many spaces each one had and which had the best sun/view location, as well as the locations of great little bakeshops and grocery stores in every little town that would keep us all happily ‘fed up’ while traversing this great province. That same memory quirk made her the family ‘historian’, knowing every birth/death/anniversary date and the names of spouse/children – in chronological order! - for what seems like gazillions of the Anderson, Grice and Jones’ clans; in addition, she could tell you where they lived/had lived and, probably, what year they had their appendix taken out! If it was about a family member, she knew it. Best of all, she wrote it all down, (OK, not the appendix things), in the famous ‘Red Book’ and there’s a pretty complete history there of all of us. For the past few years, as her memory started to show the odd crack or space, she relied on Michael to get all the info transferred into one of his nifty (he thinks!) computer programs so that everyone in the families could share in this info…and be amazed with how much she knows about them! Thus far, Michael has proven to be somewhat less than efficient in completing this task, but will be headed back to it soon as a memorial to his and Reg’s amazing Mom – the toughest, in so many ways, human on the planet, a self-taught ‘home DYI-er’ who would take on any task, any time, any place, who could do anything she set her mind to and seldom, if ever, let anyone or anything scare her or get her down!

The world will be a different - and lesser - place without her; how blessed all of us have been to have had her in our lives.