Retired school teacher Joyce (Armstrong) Unrau was born in Princeton, B.C., in 1936. Joyce said, "My mother was not able to raise me so by the time I was 10 years old I had been farmed out and raised by 12 different relatives. When my father remarried, I was able to have a permanent home and I helped my step mother with my two little brothers.
"I graduated from Similkameen Junior Senior Secondary in Keremeos and in 1956 I started a one-year emergency teaching program at the Victoria College of Education. They called it an emergency teaching program because of the extreme shortage of teachers at the time.
"I took the program and went straight into teaching with the agreement that I would attend summer school for the next four years, take required extension courses with assigned professors and other courses by correspondence. I always said that God designed this program just for me. I had no money so the program was a perfect chance to save the money needed for summer school while I worked as a teacher."
Joyce was teaching in Fort St James when she met B.C. Forest Service engineer Norman Unrau at a church event in 1961.
Norman, a widower with a nine-year-old son, was born in Grunthal, Man. in 1927. He moved to British Columbia in 1952 and found work with the B. C. Forest Service in Hixon in 1960.
They married in 1962 in Fort St. James. Norman's work caused them to move to Aleza Lake in the Willow River/Giscome area, then on to Victoria where their son Tim was born in 1963 and then to north Surrey (Newton).
They moved to Prince George in 1965 where their daughter Elizabeth was born. That fall, Norman was sent to work in the Finlay River area and the family moved into a forestry trailer in the Finlay Forks Camp.
The Forest Service established a centre of operations at Finlay Forks to oversee the clearing work as they prepared to flood Williston Lake as a reservoir for the W. A. C. Bennett Dam. Norman's job as an engineer was to map out roads and the logging processes to prepare for the flooding.
Finlay Forks (also called Finlay Junction) was located at the confluence of the Finlay River and Parsnip River. The town no longer exists. It is not a ghost town, but instead it lies submerged beneath the waters of Williston Lake.
In the spring of 1967, when Norman's work involving the flooding of Williston Lake was completed, the family moved to Hudson's Hope for work around the W.A.C. Bennett Dam. Months later, they made their final move back to Prince George.
Thirty-five years later and in his mid 70s, Norman found the time to write a book about his work at Finlay Forks entitled Under These Waters. Few people today will remember what it was like before Williston Lake was flooded but thanks to Norman you can read his accounts, of those who were there, in his book written in 2001 (or find it online at www.bcfs100.ca/docs/pdf/0/380.pdf).
Norman was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis while working at Finlay Forks. He had to move from field work to office work until he retired in the mid 80s.
After 50 years of marriage, Norman passed away in 2013 due to a massive heart attack.
Over his lifetime, he wrote a total of seven books with several of them relating to his medical condition.
Joyce was a stay-at-home mom and later went to work as a part-time teacher. Over the years she worked as the principal's relief, program advisor, enrichment, learning assistant, preparation relief and librarian in schools mainly at Ron Brent, Central Fort George and Buckhorn. She retired in 1998 after a 35-year teaching career and then took over as a full-time caregiver for Norman.
They had three children: Roy - a retired pulp mill worker, Tim - a councillor for juveniles at the University Hospital of Northern B.C., and Elizabeth (Scott) Clements - a Northern Health administrative assistant.
Joyce has been an active member of the Evangelical Free Church of Prince George since 1967 serving as a Sunday school teacher, deaconess, working with catering and in the church library.
Other volunteer work consisted of many years of delivering books to seniors on behalf of the public library. She served as a guide and the secretary treasurer for the Pioneer Girls for 23 years and currently volunteers with the Gospel Singers choir at the Elder Citizens Recreation Association.
Joyce said, "I now live at Fort George Manor and I love it there. I have been blessed all of my life by the Lord. I am enjoying my retirement with my biggest joy being the time I spend with my two grandsons Zachary and Nicholas."
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The Gospel Singers at the Elder Citizens Recreation Centre are proud to present their spring program Joy in the Lord on Saturday, May 11th at 7 p.m. and again on Sunday (Mother's Day), May 12th at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10 and are now on sale at the office at 1692 10th Ave. Tickets will also be available at the door.
