The past few months have been difficult. We’ve lost close friends, all of them much too soon. And during those months, we were also slowly losing my mother. At 99, it wasn’t unexpected. She didn’t have dementia exactly, but she was getting confused and seemed to be spending more and more time deep inside herself. It is, I’ve been told, a characteristic of people who will soon leave.
And leave us she did. One Monday morning in September, she woke up as usual, ate breakfast, walked to the park just down the road, and continued her typical day. When she woke up the next morning, she didn’t want breakfast. Then she didn’t want lunch or her usual rye and water. Or dinner. And that was that. Ten days later, September 23, resting in her bedroom of over 50 years with my sister nearby, she quietly stopped breathing.
As we sort through the markers of her long life – letters, photographs, jewellery, clothes, books – I keep thinking about her. About our lives together and apart. About the last four and half years when we shared a home. Remembering, wondering, and mourning. Feelings I want to write about and will, but first I want to give you a sense of her by sharing the eulogy my husband, Lynn Shervill, wrote for her funeral.
Born on the Shetland Islands north of Scotland in 1924, Elizabeth Malcomson Berger (nee Anderson), or the blonde Viking as her second husband called her, emigrated to Canada with her parents in 1929. The family was sponsored by former North Island MLA Mike Manson and spent their first months in a tent on Hernando Island before moving to Westview. That was 95 years ago, back in the days of the Union steamships. Today, Betty is gone, just shy of her 100th birthday. But her family continues to receive reminders of the impact she had as a teacher on students in her beloved community.
For instance, when Stubberfield funeral home director Patrick Gisle was notified of Betty’s death, his immediate response was ”She was my Grade 1 teacher.” Another time, as Betty and I were leaving the hospital, an ambulance attendant walked up to her and said “JC Hill was the best school I ever went to and it was because of you.” When one of Betty’s care aides arrived at the house a few weeks ago she told us Betty had been her principal at JC Hill. One of her former students, Mike Slade, along with his wife Ulie, was a regular dinner companion. Such was Betty’s career she sometimes taught three generations of students from the same family.
Hundreds, probably thousands, of Powell River young people benefited from Betty’s 40-plus years as a teacher mostly at JP Dallos and JC Hill schools here in Powell River. This would not be surprising but for the fact she had always expected to settle into the traditional role of housewife for her first husband, Saskatchewan farm-boy Herb Peters, and their three children, Susan, Herb Jr. and Sheila. But it was not to be. Herb Sr, fell victim to polio in 1953 and, while he was able to live at home, he was unable to return to work and needed lots of physical assistance. Betty went back to teaching in order to support the family and somehow managed to earn a Bachelor of Education degree through summer school sessions at UBC and be promoted to principal at JC Hill.
Her family were an ever-present support to her and Herb over these years, arranging for the completion of the house Herb had been building on Quebec Street when he got sick, helping sell their little house on Butedale, taking care of the kids when Betty went back to work. Her mother, Kate, kept house for the family on and off over those years and even welcomed the whole bunch of them back into her home when they sold their Quebec Street house in order to build the beautiful waterfront home at Grief Point, a place Betty adored in spite of her father’s warning about building “in yon windy hole.”
Only two years later, Herb’s ability to breathe was severely compromised by post-polio syndrome and he died in his sleep just hours before they were to leave for Vancouver to seek medical advice.
While missing him greatly (she had two teenagers still living at home!), she kept her sense of adventure. Her mother, Kate, was a passionate fan of Robert Service. In 1969 Kate, Betty, 17-year-old Herb and 16-year-old Sheila set out in their 1968 Acadian for Dawson City, 3200 km away, half of it on gravel roads, with communities about 200 miles apart. After a stop in Barkerville to stoke the goldrush fever, they continued north. Herb Sr. must have been watching over them because, although they carried no more than a few snacks assuming they could stop at restaurants along the way, they never went hungry and always found a hotel room. The car did well and Sheila remembers only one flat tire along the way, though they met many people along the Alaska Highway, waiting days for car parts.
Betty survived a couple of years as a single mom of two teenagers still at home before they left for university. A year or two later, a local mill worker and avid reader by the name of Albert Berger came into her life. She wasn’t interested at first, but he was persistent and finally, instead of closing the door on him as he stood in the howling wind on her porch, she invited him in. Albert brought his two adult children, Alison and Lawrence, into the family along with a lot of humour and adventure. They had thirty wonderful years together. He and Betty played bridge, danced at the Beach Gardens, and were members of the Myrtle Point Golf Club. But their favourite activity was frequenting casinos in Las Vegas and Reno. Betty especially liked watching the musical headliners in Vegas and Albert, with his betting systems, was a star at the Craps table. He was such a good gambler that Betty didn’t have to get any cash from her bank for a year after Albert died, she kept finding money in pockets, envelopes, drawers and cupboards as she sorted through his belongings.
Another of Betty’s passions was swimming in the ocean, something she as a child in Shetland and did right up until last year when she went for a dip with Sheila. A couple of years earlier, she tried to talk Alison into joining her. Alison is not a fan of cold water and believes something scary is going to rise from the ocean deeps to get her. “Alison,” Betty said, “There’s nothing to worry about” and dove in, swimming right into a big jellyfish. She flew out of the water with stinging welts over her face and neck. As Alison tended to her, we know she was feeling at least a modicum of vindication.
One of Betty’s favourite pastimes was bridge. She played with both Herb Sr. and Albert and continued on even after Albert’s passing. She admitted she wasn’t a very good player but never, until about two years ago, missed a Friday afternoon game at the home of neighbour June Vogl. Her eyesight was failing and she had trouble hearing. As the months ticked by she was easily disoriented and had memory problems. But up until a month ago she would still sit at the breakfast table and help us with the New York Times crossword puzzle and Wordle, using our verbal clues to divine the correct answers.
Betty was the middle child of five. Her four siblings, two sisters and two brothers, all pre-deceased her but she was able to connect and say goodbye to her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren in the weeks before she died. She was loved by all and we will carry her in our hearts forever.
Sheila Peters 