Today's story involves longtime residents of the Toombs Drive area, Gerry and Mai Dulmage, and how they came to make Prince George their home in 1966.
Gerry was born in 1935 in Mullingar, Sask., to Adeline (a teacher) and Claude Dulmage (a farmer) who in 1945 moved to Vancouver to ease their eldest son's asthma. After graduating from Kitsilano High and Normal School, Gerry began his teaching career.
His first job was at Upper Fraser in a one-room school. He eventually earned his Bachelor of Education and taught English at Duchess Park secondary.
In 1964 Gerry requested a two year leave to teach with the Department of National Defense in Europe. His students would be the children of Canadian forces serving with NATO in Soest, Germany. It was there that he met Mai Jaansalu, who had come from the Rockcliffe Air Base in Ottawa where Canada's Air Material Command was stationed.
Mai Jaansalu was born in 1941 in Tallinn, Estonia, a small Baltic country south of Finland. Estonia is a former republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and is bound by Latvia to the south, Russia to the east, the Baltic Sea to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the north.
By the fall of 1944 her parents and her three siblings Tiiu, Ants and Ann, fled from the advancing Soviet Red Army. Unfortunately the ship that was to take them to relatives in Stockholm docked in Poland; now began the bitter winter trek with horse and buggy to get to Berlin. Her parents sat in front with baby Ann while the older three huddled in the back with all the household goods.
Mai said, "My eldest sister Tiiu always referred to herself as the only real Estonian since my brother Ants and I were born during the Soviet Occupation and my sister Ann was born under the German rule.
"On our way to Berlin my father traveled on ahead of us and for some unknown reason he went missing and we never saw him again. My mother continued westward and managed to reach northern Germany just as the Second World War ended. We ended up in a refugee camp that housed Estonians and Latvians where the children attended a school that was run by the camp residents."
In 1947 Mai's mother married Estonian Julius Jaansalu and the family applied to come to Canada. Julius arrived in Canada in 1948 and one year later the rest of the family joined him in Ontario and along came Tiina, another sister for Mai.
Mai said, "All five of us completed Grade 13 and went on to further our education; Tiiu, Ann, Tiina and I became teachers and Ants became a chemist."
Gerry and Mai were married in the summer of 1965 in Soest, Germany; they returned to Canada the following August. They landed at the Royal Canadian Air Force Base in Trenton and then drove their brand new Volkswagen across the country, arriving in Prince George one day before school was to begin.
Mai said, "The principal of the Duchess Park school was extremely happy to see us since our worldly goods from Europe were taking up classroom space in a school that was on double shift.
"We rented a home on Burden Street but the smell from the pulp mill was unbearable. By November Gerry had found a place out of town on Toombs Drive. How wonderful it was to be on the Nechako River. We have been there ever since."
With the arrival of their son Scott in 1968, Mai decided to stay home and raise the family, but first she had to work a full year in Mackenzie in order to qualify for permanent certification to teach in B.C. By 1974, they now three children - Scott, Tianna and Andrea.
Mai tried to improve the education system by taking an active role in the francophone program. Her greatest contribution was to volunteer as an English teacher; her volunteer work enabled the school to hire French-speaking teacher aides since the anglophones now outnumbered the francophones.
Gerry continued to teach English another 30 years and retired in 1995.
Mai said, "Gerry and I enjoy our life in the North Nechako area. We love our neighbours, cross country skiing, hiking, traveling, reading and relaxing in our paradise on the river."
