Sandra Alice Screech

January 22, 1940-December 26, 2025

While known as Vicki throughout her life, she was born Alexandra in Brooksby, Saskatchewan. Her parents moved to Montreal during WWII.

Vicki and her older sister Beverley grew up singing and dancing while their father played the piano. Summers were often spent with loving cousins in Saskatchewan, where her parents were born. When Vicki was 16, her little sister Shannon appeared on the scene.

Already a consummate lover of people, in 1960 Vicki traveled to Europe beginning both a lifelong pattern of adventure and developing enduring friendships around the world.

After returning to Canada, Vicki headed west to be a cowgirl in the Chilcotin, then travelled to Vancouver, working at Drake Personnel, where she met her soon to be husband, Guy. They built an exciting life together that included skiing, sailing, and travel. They eventually relocated to Ten Mile Point on Vancouver Island, and along with Guy’s two sons, Martin and David, they welcomed their daughter Jennifer.

For a lovely period of time, Vicki and Guy were part of the “back to the earth” movement on a hobby farm near Beaver Lake. While Guy commuted to work, Vicki devoted herself to gardening, raising chickens and sheep, making almost all of their food, and bartering with local farmers. Vicki loved learning new skills, and even took a carpentry course to help build outbuildings on the farm.

Vicki was a talented cook and spent hours preparing meals for her family and friends. There were always extra people at her table, and plans underway to bring people together. She was a loyal and attentive friend who kept in close touch, helped with day-to-day life, remembered the details of people’s stories, and absolutely loved to party and dance. She was feisty and lit up every room she entered.

After several years on the farm, the family took a year to sail through the Caribbean – beginning in Puerto Rico and coming back through the Panama Canal. Vicki flourished during the voyage, homeschooling Jenny, learning from the locals, and arranging for friends and family to join them at different points along the way. It was the experience of a lifetime.

Vicki stayed active throughout her life and loved being outdoors. She figure and roller skated, skied, rode horses, sailed, swam, windsurfed, played tennis, and later took up golf. She also loved music and learned to play the piano, guitar, and eventually the ukulele.

As Jennifer grew older, Vicki returned to work outside the home, first in fashion at Ce Soir in downtown Victoria, and later in the travel industry with Marlin and Chartwell Travel. These roles suited her well, allowing her to plan trips and adventures for many people.

In 1987 the family returned to Ten Mile Point and Vicki once again became deeply involved in the Cadboro Bay community. She volunteered widely, and was rarely able to complete a quick errand without stopping to talk with friends and neighbors. The “Divine Nines” were hatched (a dear group of friends) and although they started with golf, their adventures quickly spread to rowing, travel, bridge, mahjong and various weekly outings.

At Christmas time Vicki could be found running the Salvation Army Christmas kettle in Cadboro Bay, where she organized a rotating group of volunteers and musicians who traded places every two hours. She loved the role-always meeting them at the transition with a santa hat, hot chocolate and a bottle of Baileys. It quickly became one of the most successful kettles in the area.

In later years, When Jennifer and her family moved in with Vicki and Guy, Vicki took particular joy in living and playing with her grandchildren, Eric, Owen, and Beth. What was meant to be one year, turned into nine. With Vicki, it was always the more the merrier.

Vicki was pre-deceased by her parents, Alice Amelia McNeill and John Douglas Mitchell, her loving husband of 56 years, Dr.Guy Screech, and her elder sister and partner in crime, Beverley Anne Mitchell. She leaves behind her younger sister, her daughter, her niece, great-niece and nephew, her two stepsons, her beloved grandchildren and step-grandchildren. We will never be the same without her.

Donations in Vicki’s memory can be made to the Alzheimer’s Society of BC.

A celebration of life will be held at the RVYC on January 15 from 1-4.