Our Mom had a wonderful life, she lived it on “her terms” and did it “her way”.
Gloria was born in 1925 when Port Alberni was small and the forest industry was big. While this girl was growing up in that logging town she did what some girls did back then, she learned to play the piano, never knowing one day this talent would earn her a bit of money on the side, playing in a dance band.
Right out of High School Gloria was hired to work in a local bank. Hiring women was a new practice for the bank. The bank only hired men but the men were off to war, so the girl got a job. Now, during wartime while this girl was working in that bank and playing piano on the weekends at those dances, her life changed again.
There was this young man from the Ottawa Valley who was stationed in Port Alberni and one evening he attended an Anglican Youth Dance. Of course everyone knew young men needed to try and stay on the “straight and narrow” in those days.These two would meet and Gloria and Lynden would begin their love story. Lynden had to go back to Ottawa when the war ended but they didn’t end there. A ring would come in the mail and a dress would be ordered from the Eaton’s catalogue. Lynden would come back and his girl would be right there where he left her and the two would have a wedding.
Years would pass and Gloria and Lynden found themselves with two kids and a move to Kamloops, now life was in full swing. The years were good and even when the years brought hard times they always made it through…together.
The kids grew up, left home, got married, had kids of their own. So, now there were these two seniors and they wanted to travel to every part of Canada. The north the south the east and the west. They wanted to see as much as they could of this country that they loved the best, so they did.
Now these two seniors were getting old and one of them got sick. Lynden left Gloria in the fall of 2004 and we thought her heart would surely break and she would follow Lynden but she didn’t. This old lady wasn’t done yet. She wanted to spend time with her children, her grandchildren and her great grandchildren and she did, even when it became almost impossible to do so.
Now this old lady has left, Gloria has gone to find Lynden. He will be there waiting for her.
Meanwhile us kids, Larry (Sheila) Martin and Terry Martin Guise, these grandkids Catherine (Jesse) Nash, Jennifer (Kirk) Stephen, Spenser Martin and these Great Grandkids, Alexis, Zoe, Lucas Nash and Hudson Madison will remember Mom, Grandma, GG.
Our Mom was not average, she was something else and we loved her for it. We have a lot of stories, a lot of memories, a lot of love and we still have each other. She will live on over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine or maybe sitting around a campfire. She will live on when we remember all the times we had together. She will live on in howls of laughter when we tell the stories of the things that she did. That girl from that logging town with that boy from the Ottawa Valley did good and that love story will live on forever.
There were a lot of people that took care of Gloria when she became a real old lady. Doctors, Nurses, Care Workers and we thank them all. Gloria’s last port of stop was The Heights at Mount View and those people really knew how to take care of such an old lady and so they did, right till……The End.
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