Today's story is about Eileen (Broughton) Hoagland, one of my Monday afternoons Hand and Foot Canasta playing cronies. Eileen, the youngest of four girls, was born in Forget, Sask. in 1928.
Eileen (and her girlfriend Joan Garringer) left Saskatchewan at the young age of 18 and headed west for some excitement. Eileen said, "Joan and I came to B.C. for the berry excursion. With the berry excursion all you had to do was sign an agreement that you would pick berries for the entire season at Browns Berry Field in Abbotsford. The agreement stated that room and board would be provided and pickers would be paid by the bucket of picked berries. Once we signed the agreement a $10 travel voucher was sent to us by mail.
"We picked a lot of berries but in the end they fired us both. We had decided to take a quick trip down to Seattle and we were pretty late in getting back for our shift, so they fired us."
The team of two made their way to Matsqui, about nine kilometres north of Abbotsford, where they landed jobs picking beans until the bean season was over.
Their next adventure was to head to Prince George. The girls heard that Prince George was a "wild west" kind of place so they said, "We had better get up there and check it out."
They caught a ride with friends to Chilliwack and from there they hitchhiked to Hope.
Once they arrived in Hope they caught a ride with a truck driver that was driving non-stop to Prince George.
They arrived in Prince George safe and sound and were dropped off at Arnold's Taxi Service on Third Avenue. Eileen got a job waiting tables at the CNR Caf on Third Avenue and Joan got a job at another caf on George Street near Third Avenue.
Time went by and Eileen met and married Roy Hoagland and they started their family. Eileen said, "We were true pioneers and over the years we had good times and some hard times. I will never forget the forest fire that we lived through at Hoodoo Lake. We were living in the camp at the time and we escaped with our two kids and the clothes on our backs. I had been doing the laundry at the time so I grabbed my two kids and some extra diapers as we fled to safety. I have to say thank you to the Canadian Red Cross Society because they got us going again."
Eileen and Roy raised four children: Darlene Gauthier, John, Candace (Gary) Goyer and Mark (Trina Helsoe), all of whom live here in Prince George. She now has four grandsons, four great-grandsons and one great-granddaughter.
Roy worked as a logger in the logging industry until he was killed in an industrial accident at the age of 46 while felling a huge tree.
Eileen said, "We bought a 62-acre farm on the Old Summit Lake Road just before the accident that killed Roy. Roy worked in the logging camp and I worked at the Simon Fraser Hotel in the catering department; I worked the farm at the same time.
"It was a good thing that I was able to figure out how to milk a cow and to mend fences because after Roy died I needed all those skills and more. The neighbours would phone me at work and say that my cows were either in people's gardens or they were roaming around the school yard."
Eileen reflected back and said, "It wasn't an easy time for me. I was a young widow, I stayed on the farm, managed to pay all the bills and over the years I paid off the mortgage. I never got behind and I am proud to say that I did it."
After awhile Eileen turned the farm over to her sons and headed to the Fort McMurray area where she worked long hours as a camp cook for the next six years.
Her next adventure would take her to Tuktoyaktuk, which is located in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, a settlement that lies north of the Arctic Circle on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. She worked in Tuktoyaktuk as a camp cook for the next four years and then went back to Alberta. She spent a total of 17 years in Alberta when she decided that it was time to come back home to Prince George.
Eileen said, "I retired at the age of 61 to a rather normal retirement. I like to watch TV, read a good book and play cards; but most of all I love spending time with my friends and my wonderful family.
"Then at the age of 80 I was inspired by the movie The Bucket List. It woke up the love of adventure in me and my life was never the same again. I started out by going sky diving, which was a real thrill for me. I did some motorcycle riding, zip lining near Ness Lake and a trip to Belgium and Amsterdam and some white water rafting, which I really did not like. I hated the cold and the wet rubber suit, but I did it anyway. I just had to be able to say that I did it"
Over the years Eileen had a great time as she traveled to Europe, Mexico, the United States and the Maritimes with her beloved sister Vicky Peters.
Eileen is quite the conversationalist and loves to tell everyone about her daring adventures from her bucket list.
She will soon be 87 years old and her advice is this, "Live your life; you don't have to quit living because you are old. If you feel like doing something just do it. Take some chances and create a bucket list. Everyone should have a bucket list and then go and live it. We are all going to go sometime so just do what you want to do and get started on it now."
I asked Eileen about the next adventure that was on her bucket list and she very enthusiastically said, "The next thing on my bucket list is to live to be 90!"
