Elaine Turner

Mom was a wonderfully strong, kind and generous soul, who lived a full life and taught us so much about how to live well on very little. She was always ready for an adventure and to offer some sage advice. Some of her last words were …’ I don’t want you mopping about. I want you to go and enjoy your life.’ We will remember… your daughters Kathryn, Patricia and son-in-law Rod.

Mom grew up on a farm and as a young girl she could haul and lift 80 lb. bales of hay, that weighted as much as she did. She learned to drive at 12 years old and driving became a lifelong passion for her. It was her freedom. She even drove the Dempster Highway, in Northern Canada, at 75 years old – by herself - sleeping in her car, an 84 Ford Thunderbird.

Mom started working very young during the depression to help the family. She only went to grade 8 before she had to leave to work full time. She worked first as a maid (slave, her words), then on the Circle 8 Dude Ranch. During the war Mom went to work in the Zinc plant in Comino in Trail, cleaning huge sheets of zinc. Later she came down to Vancouver to try to join the war effort but did not have the nursing skills that the army wanted. So, she returned to Trail and Comino, where she meet Dad, who was a Lead Burner in the Zinc plant.

They married in 1945. In 1946 Kathryn was born. They lived in East Trail till the Vet told them their little dog Buster has having seizers because of eating the contaminated grass. So, they decided to move, and Mom found them a small home on one and a half acres in Lower China Creek along the Columbia River, no electricity or running water. But they both worked hard and made a wonderful home, that became the hub of the community. In 1955 Patricia was born. It was during this time that Mom always said they seemed to be doing well financially. But then prices went up, but wages didn’t, and it became harder, though it always felt like we had enough.

Mom and Dad learned as they went, and both seemed able to tackle anything they set their minds to doing. She canned everything from our garden and all the many fruit trees on the property. Even ironing the bed sheets for us. Mom was a wonderful cook and our home often smelled of fresh baked bread and cinnamon buns. She became famous for her Nanaimo bars, Chocolate Grand Marnie cake, Cream puffs and Pumpkin Chiffon Pie.

Dad was sick a lot and passed away in 1969 after almost 25 years together.

Mom was only 44 with a child at home and no pension, since Dad was 9 months short of retiring, so Mom went out to work at the one thing she loved doing- driving. She drove cabs till we sold and moved to Nelson. We bought a smaller home and lived there one year, while Mom upgraded her education to Grade 12, while working in a Seniors Care Home.

Mom and Dad had purchased a home on the coast, but Dad passed away too soon for them to enjoy retirement together. We moved from Nelson in 1971, after a month-long road trip to Alaska and back, in the back of her Ford Station Wagon with our little dog Fawn, who buried milk bones all the way there and back.

Mom attended BCIT to study and receive her Psychiatric Nursing Degree and then went on to also complete her Registered Nursing Degree. She attended SFU during the same time Patricia attended, often taking the same classes in Psychology and Brain and Behavior. Mom worked at Riverview hospital, in the extended care ward of St. Paul’s Hospital, as well as in many Senior’s Care homes.

Mom said she went into nursing because she wanted to support and care for people when they were most vulnerable, especially the elderly. The Care homes she worked in never lived up to her standard of respect and care that she felt people deserved. She had the most healing hands and all her patients wanted her to look after them. They could feel her genuine kindness and compassion. She could take away a headache by just a touch.

Mom loved to travel and went to places like Bhutan, Mongolia, Easter Island, Patagonia, Uzbekistan, Siberia, and the Amazon, as well as all the usual places like China, Britain, Russia, Germany, Holland, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Thailand, Peru, Ecuador, etc., etc. But Mom loved Northern Canada the best and took several road and boat trips there, as well trips on the Alaska Highway and the Inside Passage.

She was incredibly knowledgeable about many topics always reading and learning all her life. She could spell anything and often had to for her daughter Patricia. She loved Elvis and Pavarotti. She loved Coronation Street, having watched it from the very beginning, but she said it should be renamed Fornication St., because there was so much hanky-panky going on now.

She was strong physically all her life, as well as being strong mentally. If there was something wrong on the roof she was up there helping. She only stopped mowing her lawn in her late 80’s because she had a hard time getting the mower started. So, she created a wonderful meadow out of her back lawn. Surrounding the property with huge sequoia, redwood and cedar trees, it became her small forest, where she could feed the birds, squirrels and strays, some of whom stayed.

Mom was incredibly frugal and at the same time very generous. She would tell stories of growing up in Invermere with her Mom cooking dinners for the 6 kids on a wood stove, living on the farm, moving to the Bell house, swimming in the slough with leaches, her one room schoolhouse, having to get eggs out of the isinglass in winter, and riding horses with her friend Babette. When her Dad had an accident and had to be hospitalized when she was 8 years old, the family knew great poverty and struggle, but everyone worked and they survived, and ‘making do’ became a way of life. She admired how hard her own Mom worked all her life and loved her brothers and sisters but did not get to see them much. Toward the end she seemed to regret not making more of an effort to keep in closer touch with them.

Mom was resilient, loyal, kind, generous, stubborn and always knew what she wanted. She could just give you a look… we all knew ‘the look’. We will all miss that look. Laughing and joking till she decided it was time to go… her way, on her own terms, in her own home, with her family there for her, as she was always there for them. She inspired love and loyalty, and she had very dear friends in David, Linda B. and Linda P.

Just as, when as children Mom would walk ahead of us up the hill to school, stamping down the snow in winter and clearing the fallen branches in summer, so the way was easier for us, she has gone on ahead of us now, on this next journey to clear and ease the path for us, for when it is our turn to follow her. Thank you, Mom.

Mom leaves a large hole in our lives. Please be kind and good to each other to honour her life. Do what you can, when you can, for whomever you can…

Predeceased by, her Mom and Dad, sisters Vera and Enid, brother Mervyn and husband Harold. She leaves behind to remember, her brother Gordon, sister Phyllis, daughters Kathryn, Patricia and son-in-law Rod.

Mom

Mrs. T.

Mrs. Turner

Elaine

Famous lines –

‘Turn off that light!’

‘Have you turned the furnace on again!?’

‘What would you like me to make you to eat?’