Dorothy Margaret Hamilton

Dorothy was born on August 7th, 1922 in the Vancouver General Hospital. She was the first of four children of George Alexander Hamilton and his wife, Margaret Kerr Jamieson who were married in Vancouver almost exactly one year before Dorothy’s birth.

Their family home at 3874 West 13th Avenue had a commanding view of Burrard Inlet and the North Shore mountains, and Dorothy grew up there with her parents and three younger siblings. Her brother George was born in 1924 and brother Jack came along in 1927. The 1920’s were a prosperous decade with a lot of new building in the neighbourhood and a general feeling of optimism after the First World War and the Spanish Flu. Their father, George had been trained as a master mechanic in Providence, Rhode Island and was employed full-time by an engineering company in Vancouver, and on weekends took the children to nearby Jericho beach as well as the whole family on Sunday drives. Their mother, Margaret had taken secretarial training and worked for one of the top law firms in Vancouver before she was married and was now a full-time Mom with the help of a live-in maid to assist with cooking and cleaning on the home front.

Dorothy’s life-long interest in china and pottery began in the late 1920’s when she and her Mom would venture out together via streetcar to look at the latest floral designs on fine china in Burkes on Granville Street.

Many things changed for Dorothy as the 1920’s came to a close. At age 7 she became ill with streptococcus. This was in the days before antibiotics and on May 1st, 1930 she was operated on at the Vancouver General Hospital, which was just being built at that time. It was a 4-hour-long surgery during which she needed to have the infected porous bone removed from behind her ears (a double mastoid), and then had to stay in the hospital another month with her Aunt Kathleen acting as her day nurse and another night nurse by the name of Miss Strong. This was considered a major surgery in that day, so after Dorothy returned home, it was decided that she should not return to school in Sept 1930, but rather take a whole year off to fully recover. Even though she had her two younger brothers to play with and a new baby sister Betty, Dorothy remembers this as a difficult year when she spent a lot time alone on the backyard swing or walking her neighborhood while the other kids her age attended Langara Elementary School. Once she started back to school, Dorothy was always very aware of being older than all her classmates and recalls that she struggled to make friends as she tried to fit in again.

The 1930’s also brought big economic changes on the home front. The stock market crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression and for about a decade times were

tough for many in North America and around the world. Their father, George was out of work for much of this time, although for about a year he ran the compressor at Uncle Edgar’s Ashcroft Gold Prospect around 1937. At least the family felt fortunate to own their own home and have some inherited family real estate in New Brunswick to sell at this time. Father George grew a big vegetable garden in the backyard, taught his kids to swim in the ocean on summer days, and their Mom Margaret often gave odd jobs to homeless men who knocked on their door to work for a meal. The depression ended at the end of the 1930’s, just as the Second World War began.

Dorothy attended Kitsilano Middle School for grades 7 to 9, followed by Lord Byng Secondary School, from grades 10 to 12. She took a street car to middle school, but could walk to high school. These were the years of food rationing, blackout blinds, savings bits of scrap metal and listening to the latest war news via radio.

When Dorothy graduated from High School in 1941, World War II was well underway, so after a year of training at the Willis School of Business in downtown Vancouver, Dorothy took the civil service exam and applied for a job with the airforce. She succeeded in getting work as a typist at the Jericho Air Station, near her home on a decommissioned golf course. Dorothy recalls mostly typing a five letter code developed by the Germans. The Allied powers had managed to crack this code and she was sworn to secrecy at that time. Dorothy started on the night shift and worked her way up and became supervisor of the teletype section. Messages were sent via teletype all up and down the BC coast including Pat Bay, Uclulet and Prince Rupert. When working the midnight to 8am shift, Dorothy and her colleagues would often eat bread with a slice of raw onion to keep them going until morning. She recalled it tasted remarkably good at 4am and she continued to enjoy onion or garlic on toast into her late 90’s!

After the war, Dorothy obtained a degree from UBC. She recalls that her brothers had both attended University, her younger sister was just beginning her degree and she felt left out. Since she was interested in biology and the sciences in general, she took a pre med course for four years including physics, chemistry and with electives in German and Slavonic studies. After graduating, Dorothy worked at UBC with Dr. Freedman, the head of the anatomy department. He used white lab rats to study heart function and Dorothy’s job involved caring for the rats and assisting with their surgeries. She became quite fond of rats at this time and respected their intelligence. Dorothy also worked for a while as a lab technician taking blood at the Vancouver General Hospital.

During the mid 1950’s, Dorothy bought a 14-foot hand crafted wooden sailboat from a fellow pre-med student. She recalls a group of students towing it to the backyard of her family home. It was also moored part time at the Jericho Beach Sailing Club dock. Although she rarely sailed it, Dorothy enjoyed working on her boat, painting it and being part of that community. During this time Dorothy dated a lab tech co-worker by the name of Jim. She says they became good friends, he helped her with

her sailboat refurbishing and they attended art shows together. Sadly, he ended up marrying someone else and moved away, and Dorothy felt devastated and sought out a counselor to help her through this difficult period.

Life carried on and Dorothy’s sister, Betty was married in May of 1954 with a small reception at the family home. Their father George died from a stroke at home later that summer. In July 1955, her brother Jack married Amerlys in the Chapel of the Christ Church Cathedral and Dorothy attended both their wedding and their reception in the York Room of the Georgia Hotel. In 1958, brother George and Dixie decided to elope and married in Reno, Nevada. Dorothy continued to live at home with her Mom while working and maintaining an interest in fashion and the arts. Her Mother Margaret died in hospital from ovarian cancer in December 1964, but Dorothy stayed on at the family home until the new owners moved in during the spring of 1965. Dorothy then moved to an apartment in Kerrisdale for about three years, followed by a move to an apartment in Kitsilano. Around this time Dorothy began growing vegetables in a community garden plot along SE Marine Drive. The soil in the area along the Fraser delta was very fertile and Dorothy became known for growing very large zucchinis. At one point, Amerlys shared part of Dorothy’s garden plot and they would drive out together, and share their zucchini largesse with other family members and neighbours.

In 1978, with the encouragement of her brother George, Dorothy purchased a suite on the 13th floor of a residential tower under construction in the Ambleside area of the North Shore. She chose this suite for the expansive views of mountains, Burrard Inlet and the Capilano River. Even after many years when the evergreen trees grew up so high they obscured the river, and Dorothy became legally blind, she delighted in her favourite pastime of watching the sun go down, the moon rise, the lights of the city and Lions Gate bridge come on and the stars come out from her balcony or living room windows.

Dorothy ultimately chose to remain single and enjoy the company of family and friends. She often chatted with her neighbours in the Whytecliffe building at the Woodcroft Complex where she lived for over 40 years, she occasionally socialized with friends from work or at a new garden plot that she leased on the North Shore, and she was a frequent guest at the homes of her two brothers and her sister and their families who all lived nearby in North Vancouver. When Aunt Dorothy came to dinner, she always dressed fashionably, often with colourful scarves as accents.

Dorothy’s interests ranged widely from the sciences to social issues of the day to the arts. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Dorothy put herself through art school, attending what would become the Emily Carr School of Art in Vancouver. She completed two full-time years, and another two years by attending night school classes while working. Her work at this time was as a teletype operator at the CPR. At art school Dorothy produced many unique kinds of prints and paintings most of which remain in the family. At one point, Dorothy took university level courses in city planning, read widely and produced essays on this subject. She was inspired by

her contemporary Jane Jacobs, an author and activist in the late 1960’s. Jane argued that “urban renewal” often did not respect the needs of city dwellers and she became an early voice in opposing gentrification.

After her art school years, Dorothy accepted a job in communications with a large engineering firm called H.A. Simons with offices near Chinatown and later in downtown Vancouver at Georgia and Cambie. As in her earlier work with the Civil Service, Dorothy worked her way up in this company until she was head of her department. She worked at H.A. Simons from the mid 1970’s until her retirement in 1988.

Dorothy enjoyed travelling and had the opportunity to explore both locally and abroad. As a young woman she joined the UBC Varsity Outdoor Club and hiked some of the North Shore Mountains including Hollyburn. In 1955 she went on holiday to Ohahu, Hawaii with her Mother and her Aunt Bessie. Throughout the 1960’s she frequently accompanied her sister, Betty on summer holidays to help with her nieces. One summer in 1967 when holidaying at Bowser, north of Parksville on Vancouver Island, Dorothy produced an iconic beach painting that is treasured today. In 1971, Dorothy flew to Sapporo, Japan to visit with her sister and family who were temporarily living there, then travelled by herself down the Sea of Japan to the island of Honshu to visit some famous historic towns and big cities including Kyoto and Tokyo.

In the early 1980’s, Dorothy ventured out to the Queen Charlotte Islands (now Haida Gwaii), with Ecosummer Expeditions to attend a photographic basecamp. She also toured Europe in 1984 with her brother Jack and his wife Amerlys. They flew to Germany and drove the autobahn southwards, eventually touring Switzerland, northern Italy, France, Spain and even Morocco. The belly dancing in Morocco intrigued Dorothy and twenty years later, in her early 80’s she took up belly dancing “just for laughs” in her own words. Dorothy said it was a great conversation starter at family gatherings, but she also found it fun socially and great exercise!

Dorothy did two road trips with her brother George and wife Dixie. Both were in roomy sedan-type vehicles with 5 passengers. The first was a post wedding celebration in Dixie’s Mom’s back yard in Corronado near San Diego in 1958 after her daughter, Dixie and boyfriend, George had eloped and wed in Reno, Nevada while on a ski trip. George, Dixie, Jack, Amerlys and Dorothy all piled in and drove south together in weather so steamy that in Sacramento they adopted Dorothy’s suggestion of donning wet paper towels to cover their heads, bucking fashion trends of the day but feeling mighty cool nonetheless!

The second road trip was 30 years later, in 1988, when Dorothy was invited to accompany George and Dixie plus two friends from California on a trip to the Rockies. They chose a scenic route to get there, catching a ferry to Nanaimo, driving the length of Vancouver Island to Port Hardy, sailing to Prince Rupert with a mid-coast stop in Bella Bella, then taking Hwy 16 across BC with stops in Kitwanga,

Burns Lake and finally setting up camp at Tete Jaune Cache. Dorothy and “the girls” explored the area together while “the guys” attended an Alpine Club camp and climbed parts of Mt. Robson. Dixie recalls hiking up Mt Edith Cavell to a stunning lookout of the Angel Glacier, then slowly walking a circular trail while Dorothy took time to admire the many varieties of colourful alpine flowers in full bloom.

In the 1990’s, Dorothy accompanied Betty and Jack Souther on several trips to all-inclusive resorts in Mexico, both on the Mexican Riviera as well as on the Pacific Coast. There, Dorothy enjoyed soaking up the sun, wading in the warm water, listening to music and tasting delicious foods. Other worldly adventures that Dorothy initiated on her own included overseas trips with the Vancouver Botanical Garden Association, as well as a trip to China with another specialized tour company.

Dorothy lived to over age 100 and became an Aunt to many nieces and nephews, including “great” and “great, great” nieces and nephews. She helped mind young ones on several occasions. Dorothy also enjoyed the company of children and pets in her final two years of life on the Saanich Peninsula near Victoria BC at the home of her niece Barbara, where she was cared for by Barbara, her husband Bob and their friend, Angie.

For her 99th birthday, Dorothy was able to celebrate in North Vancouver at her sister Betty’s home in the company of many relatives during a summer reprieve in the worldwide Covid epidemic. At her request, Dorothy’s 100th birthday was a quiet one on Vancouver Island. When she died in Saanichton at home in the early hours of October 20th, 2022, Dorothy had completed her final two wishes: to know that her North Vancouver apartment was cleared, cleaned and sold, and to slip away peacefully in her sleep.

Dorothy supported many charities during her life, including many medical research causes and the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation. She also supported women’s shelters, environmental initiatives and charities for the homeless. In her final years, Dorothy chose to support the following four organizations and asked that any donations in her name go to:

The Loan Cupboard at the Mt. Newton Centre Society - mountnewtoncentre.org

The Red Cross – redcross.ca

The Farmlands Trust – farmlandstrust.org

Raincoast Conservation Foundation – raincoast.org

The Loan Cupboard and Red Cross both provided geriatric support equipment to Dorothy in her last two years. The Farmlands Trust grows nutritious vegetables to feed the homeless population of Victoria, as well as bee-friendly flowers to boost local pollinators. The Raincoast Conservation Foundation supports wildlife research, education and the protection of large areas of the BC coast.

Aunt Dorothy, often fondly referred to as “AD”, was loved by her extended family and will be remembered by many. She was predeceased by her nephew Geoffrey in 1982, her brother-in-law Jack (sister Betty) in 2014, and her brother Dr. John D. (Jack) (Amerlys) Hamilton in 2018. She will be dearly missed by her brother George (Dixie), her nieces, Anne, Barbara (Bob), Janet (Robert), and Alice and her nephews, John (Lynda), George, Fred, Tom (Susanne) and Nick. AD also leaves behind great nephews Chevy, Jarone (Rachel), Bryce (Richelle), Aidan (Karly), Rowan and Charlie as well as great nieces, Tara (Elad), Sienna and Ivana. Aunt Dorothy’s great, great nephews include Logan, and Asher and her great great nieces are Kenzie, Maya and Marley.

A celebration of life for Dorothy was held at the home of Janet Souther & Robert Campbell on Oxford St in Vancouver, BC on Saturday June 24th, 2023. It was well attended by family members from all her three siblings as well as friends old and new.

Note: This obituary/mini history of AD’s life was compiled by Barbara Souther from interviews with Dorothy Hamilton, written and oral contributions from George and Dixie Hamilton, and talks with Betty Souther, Amerlys Hamilton work colleague, Gladys Ballen and several nieces and nephews.