How sadly fitting that Bea Dezell passed away on Prince George's 99th birthday on Thursday.
If an entire city could have a mother figure, a matriarch who quietly but steadily influenced the evolution of a community, it was Bea.
This incredible woman lived an incredible life and her death, at the jaw-dropping age of 105, speaks to how filled to the brim she was with life.
As the article written for Bea's 100th birthday in 2008 by former longtime reporter Bernice Trick shows, her life was far more than just being the wife of Mayor Garvin Dezell, the mother of former city councillor Cliff Dezell and community volunteer and philanthropist Noreen Rustad.
An adventurer, she left the comforts of her childhood home in the Lower Mainland to follow Garvin, first to Williams Lake and eventually to Prince George in 1946, when it was a sleepy town of just 5,000 residents.
During her life, she travelled most of the world, including what she called "the best trip of her life" from Hay River, Northwest Territories, my childhood home, across Great Slave Lake and then up the Mackenzie River to Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk on the shore of the Beaufort Sea.
The one and only conversation I had with Bea was by phone, back in 2011 when I was the communications coordinator at the Prince George Public Library. I was putting together a promotional campaign for the library's home service program, where volunteers deliver books and other library materials to local residents who are unable to come to the library. When I asked the community outreach librarian of the day, Gina Rawson, to suggest someone who could put a face to this great program, she immediately suggested Bea.
I was initially leery of calling a 102-year-old woman on the telephone, out of fear she wouldn't be able to hear me or understand why I was calling. My fear was entirely misplaced. Her care worker answered the phone and immediately placed a vibrant, jovial and well-hearing centenarian on the line. I thought I was speaking with someone 40 years younger.
She agreed without hesitation to be interviewed by local reporters about the impact the library had on her life and how home service meant so much to her. When I thanked her for agreeing to help promote the library, she thanked me in return for working at the library and told me all of the great books she had enjoyed thanks to her DAISY player.
DAISY stands for Digital Accessible Information System. The library's DAISY books allow visually-impaired people, like Bea was in later years, to still enjoy books. More than just a basic audio book, DAISY books provide something much closer to a reading experience, such as setting bookmarks, navigating through chapters of a book, searching by word and slowing the speed of the audio reading without distorting the sound.
Because of her vision issues, Bea was also active in the White Cane Club and was a passionate supporter of the Canadian National Institute For The Blind. She was known as Granny Gadget at the local CNIB office because of all the devices she had, such as a braille typewriter and talking watches, clocks and scales.
Her enthusiasm for technology illustrated her desire to remain as independent as possible but it also spoke to her true appreciation for modern conveniences, because she could remember a time when those things did not exist.
"I think we're living in a great age," she said during her 100th birthday celebration.
That statement stands in sharp contrast to many seniors today who long for the good old days and believe the world is going to hell in a hand basket.
Her optimism and her legacy will outlive even her.
Bea's Tree, a longtime fixture at the annual Festival of Trees, has raised more than $125,000 for the Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation since becoming part of the live auction at the festival in 2004. The three-foot silver aluminum Christmas tree that she bought 60 years ago for the Brownies and Girl Guides went for a record $52,500 during the festival's auction in 2012. Janet Holder, Enbridge vice-president and project lead on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, outbid Bea's son-in-law Jim Rustad for the tree.
Those funds have gone towards buying new medical equipment at the University Hospital of Northern B.C. in Prince George.
Gadgets to help sick people get better, in other words.
No doubt Bea is nodding in approval.
