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Switzers stitch a great life together

Clarence Switzer was born in Vermillion, Alta. in 1927. His wife to be Irene Kaiser was born in 1931 in Wetaskiwin, about 200 km away. The name Wetaskiwin comes from the Cree word 'wtaskiwinihk', meaning "the hills where peace was made".
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Clarence and Irene Switzer built their Prince George life seamlessly around family and their thriving sewing centre.

Clarence Switzer was born in Vermillion, Alta. in 1927. His wife to be Irene Kaiser was born in 1931 in Wetaskiwin, about 200 km away.

The name Wetaskiwin comes from the Cree word 'wtaskiwinihk', meaning "the hills where peace was made".

Clarence and Irene participated in an inter school Christian fellowship group; a group of various denominations that regularly got together and put on weekly events and monthly parties for the younger people. It was at one of these events, a hay ride to be exact, that Clarence and Irene happened to meet. That was over 70 years ago.

They courted and married in August of 1949.

Clarence was working for the local Singer Sewing Centre at the time. He was learning the business through on the job training when the person training him just took off and moved to California and left the business for Clarence to figure it all out.

Everything went well and a few years later Clarence was offered a transfer to Prince George where he would manage the Prince George Singer Store. Clarence, Irene and their young family moved to Prince George in 1959.

Clarence said, "We drove into Prince George via the Pine Pass. It was a long trip and as we entered Prince George I can remember being shocked. I was expecting a city. There was the small Overwaitea grocery store - there were no big stores - and to my surprise there were some wooden sidewalks. I promised Irene that we would only stay two years and then we were out of here.

"The store wasn't doing well at all when I took over. My staff and I worked in the store every day and after a very short time of good management and hard work our store went up as one of the best shops in Western Canada plus we had two salesmen working the areas west to Terrace and south to Williams Lake.

"I was so busy that I hardly noticed that the two years had passed by - a long time ago. When we arrived in Prince George there were less than ten houses for sale. We bought a house and it has been our home ever since.

"In 1969 we started our own business and named it the Switzer Sewing Centre. Our first store was located in part of the SpeeDee Printer building on Brunswick Street. The part that we rented was previously a dentist office. Our working relationship with SpeeDee Printers was excellent and we still thank them to this day for all the great memories."

Irene said, "We branched out and sold Bernina, Elna and Janome sewing machines. Clarence ordered and sold sewing machines and their accessories, spoke to the customers and did repair work in the back of the store. I did the book work and helped order all the fabric. I can remember getting ready to open the store. I had to bring in my kitchen table so that I could cut fabric for our customers. We soon had fabric from the floor to the ceiling and a huge and wonderful pattern cupboard. It was a perfect set up."

The fabric for their store was originally shipped from Vancouver by either a freight truck, the bus or through the postal system. It wasn't long until fabric salesmen started to come to see them. They ordered fabric that would be shipped from various wholesale outlets from all across Canada.

Irene was excited to be the first store in town that brought in the new stretch and sew fabric. She said, "It was exciting to sew with the new fabric. I gave my customers all the tips I knew on how to handle the fabric.

"The Mormon ladies and the Christian ladies group asked me for a demonstration on the method of sewing with the new stretch fabric so I taught them the basics. I can remember that so well and I enjoyed every minute of the time I spent teaching them. They were eager to learn and learned well.

"We had displays and demonstrations at the fall fair and introduced our machines and sewing to many people. We met so many wonderful people; they were all keen to learn and later we could see our fabric walking around town in many stylish outfits."

They moved into the McLeod building mall on Fourth Avenue for a while, along with a small restaurant and Dandy-Lines.

It wasn't long and Clarence and Irene bought their own building. They purchased a lady's wear store next to the old Royal Bank building on Third Avenue where the Plateau Clothing Company is now located. They renovated and fixed it up to suit their business needs.

They worked every day in the Switzer Sewing Centre. Clarence left for the store every morning and Irene followed later. She sent the children off to school, tidied up the house, did the laundry, made plans for dinner and looked after many other details and then went to the shop until the children got home from school.

Irene said, "We had six wonderful children; Sharrol (Steve) who live in Australia, Shelley (Len) live in Victoria, Calvin (Jan) live in Edmonton, Sharleen (George) live in Kamloops and Orrin (Colleen) and Bernie (Joan) live in Prince George. They blessed us with 11 grandchildren and ten great grandchildren.

"Clarence and I worked in our business for 30 years. We were busy all year around and when things slowed down during the summer we used that time to catch up with the family.

"A highlight of our business was when Clarence received the Excellent Sales Award and along with the award was an all expense paid trip to the Bahamas.

"We managed to do a bit of traveling over the years. We had the opportunity to travel to Israel and on another occasion, we traveled to Japan during their historical and beautiful cherry blossom season. While in Japan we toured the Janome sewing machine factory and then toured the country from top to bottom. It was such a beautiful trip and I remember it vividly. "After 40 years in the business we both agreed it was time to retire and we were ready. We closed our business in 1999, did some traveling and of course we are still enjoying our retirement.

"I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of our wonderful customers, or should I say friends, who shopped at our store. We are thrilled when you see us, stop to say hello and you tell us that you remember us and our store.

"We always did our best to give good customer satisfaction, we loved helping you to select a sewing machine or to pick your colors and your fabric. That was our life and it was a good life."

Clarence ended by saying, "Prince George ended up by being a great city to raise our children and to make a living. Some people dislike their jobs but I can honestly say that every day that I went to work I was happy to put that key in the door to open my business to our many customers. Thank you for being such an important part of our lives."