A while back I met 87 year old Mary (Shawaga, Valois) Robinson at the Old Time Fiddlers Thursday night jam session. Mary and her friends Mary Brizan, Yvonne Stewart and Anka Vukovic, all from the Alward Place senior retirement home, were at the jam session enjoying the music and watching the people dance in their version of a night out on the town.
Here is Mary's story in a nutshell. Mary was born 1928 in the small farming village of Weeks, Saskatchewan. Mary said, "I was the sixth of eight children, we were farming on the homestead and as I recall we had nothing back then."
When Mary turned 19 she married Joe Valois; they first moved to Zenon Park, Saskatchewan and in the 1950's they moved to Quesnel where Joe found work in a saw mill.
Mary was 29 years old when Joe was killed in a saw mill accident. They had two children Robert (deceased) who was married to Paulette who lives in Prince George while Teresa (Wes) Mosure lives in Alberta.
Mary said, "I quickly realized that I was a widow with two small children to raise and no money to my name. I was left with no compensation from the company in the loss of my husband. This was a terrible blow to all of us. First I had to prove that my husband was not a partner in the company in order to be eligible for death benefits. That was easy to prove but I still did not receive any compensation. Along with many other related problems in the death of my husband my appeals to the compensation board were all unsuccessful."
Mary had no choice in the fact that she had to put her ten year old son in charge of his seven year old sister while she worked from 2 to 10 pm at the Cariboo Camp Store in Quesnel. It was a rough time for all three of them.
In the meantime Joe's cousin happened to mentioned Mary's dilemma to his friend Don Kennedy who happened to be a criminal lawyer in Prince George. His reply was that if Mary ever moved to Prince George he would do what he could to help her.
Eventually things got pretty bad and Mary had no choice but to move from Quesnel to Prince George. Mary and her two children moved to the Moran Trailer court and Don Kennedy was true to his word; he arranged for Mary and the children to get some much needed help from social services. Nearly 60 years later Mary is still thankful to Mr. Kennedy for everything that he did for her when she desperately needed some help.
Time went by and Mary met and married Ted (Theodore) Robinson. They had two sons Monty and Darren (Nicole) who both live here in Prince George.
They lived and worked out at Sinclair Mills for many years and eventually they moved into Prince George. Ted worked for Canfor for many years and sadly he passed away in 2011.
At the age of 60 Mary worked for the Central Interior Catering Company as a logging camp kitchen helper. Her favorite camp job was in the Hyder, Alaska area where her company had a contract with the Snip Gold Mining Company. She lived and worked in the Snip Gold Mining camp for four years and said it was her best job ever. She stayed in camp for four weeks at a time and then the company would fly her into Prince George via Smithers for two weeks and then it was back out to the camp for another four weeks.
Mary proudly showed me pictures of her six grand children, three great grand children and her one and only great great-grand child. She was particularly proud of the picture of the five generations in her family.
Mary belongs to a quilting group that meets regularly at St Michaels on Gillette Street. She has an album entitled "Mary's Quilting Book" with pictures of all the quilts that she made over the years and it looks to me like she must have made nearly 100 quilts. When Mary starts a quilting project she only stops long enough to eat and then she is right back at it.
"I am a self taught quilter and I have been quilting all of my life." said Mary. "I am 87 years old and I do not need to wear glasses and in fact I can still thread a needle without the aid of eye glasses."
March birthdays that I know about:
Caroline Nadalin, Frank Manfredi, Elaine Hughes, Karen Nielsen, Janice Arndt, John Meyer, Eileen Storozinski, Deanna Sauer, Linda Meise, Frances Roch, Doreen Denicola, Pat Coutts, Kathleen Soltis, Julia Cook, Peggy Vogan, James Dow, Marva Gibbs, Harold Moore, Sylvia Fowler, Ted Horvath, Ethel Drake, Wayne Jenkins, Joyce Bickford, Shirley Carless, Sandy Houston, Esther Swanson, Carl Wikjord, Andrea McKenzie (Jr.), Alan Dixon, Molly Eberle, Lydia Kral, Alice Olesen, Rose Dorish, Margaret Pearson, Maurice Trudeau, Owen Pitcher, Lynn Kedl, Ray Bouffard, Marvene Layte, Reg Pointer, Gordon Mooney, Janet Dahlberg, Robert Krekoski, John Mcclelland, Bettie Doherty, Alzora Hick, Marjorie Hannington, Hollis Wood, Susan Hunter, Carmand Wagner, Don Hollis, Roland Jean, Patricia Jago, Margo Hinchcliffe, Tom Pflanz, Reta Gagnon, Grant Collins, John Bachmann, Omer Regent, Dave London, Angie Mills, Alice Olesen, Agner Olesen, Richard McCormack, Ken Carmichel, Cecelia Bencher, Wilf Miller, Ada Turgeon, Luzia Torres and Irene Robison who just turned 94.
March Anniversaries:
61 years for Marg and Keith McLachlan, 51 years for Diana and Ernie Myers and 22 years for Janice Taylor and Joe Anderson
