– Abraham Lincoln
Irma Facchin (1926-2019)
Irma Facchin (Nee Faedo) was born on March 11th 1926 In the picturesque town of Chiampo in Italy and was laid to rest on January 13th 2019 in West Vancouver after living a full life and fulfilling the Canadian Dream.
The eldest daughter of 8 children, Irma was forced to become an adult at the tender age of 12 after the tragic death of her mother. She became the champion of her family and defacto mother to her siblings Amerigo, Cirillo, Carmela, Cecilia, Bianca, Cipriana and Maria.
In the aftermath of a war ravaged Italy, Irma met her husband Primo Facchin and together they began to build their future from the despair that surrounded them. Newly married, poor, and with bleak job prospects, they traveled to Belgium where her husband found work in a coal mine and her first born child Eliana was born. Work in the mine shaft was back breaking, excruciating work, and soon the young couple moved back to Italy after Primo developed health conditions due to the deplorable conditions in the mines. Filled with determination and dreams of a better life and now with their newborn son Doriano, they doggedly hung onto hope as they turned their gaze towards America.
In 1952 Primo landed in Thunder Bay. Greeted by the bitting cold weather Primo slowly worked his way west across Canada, one of the many immigrants who built the Canadian Pacific Railroad connecting Vancouver to the east. A year later Primo sent for his family and in 1953 Irma and her 2 children set foot on Canadian soil. From the moment she arrived Irma showed her work ethic and proved her worth as a partner. No job was below her, she worked tirelessly, first at a lumber mill, then as a housekeeper at the colonial motel. It was Irma who proposed the idea to her husband that they buy a motel, and it was that idea that would set up her family for generations to come.
Irma is a woman who will be remembered for her humility, tireless energy and incredible work ethic, a woman ahead of her time she passed on her ambition for “progresso” to her children and grandchildren who inherited her passion for land and who to this day carry on her legacy in her memory.
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