Alma Pauline Houston

It is with great sadness that the family of Alma Houston (Engelhardt) announce her passing on October 28, 2024, in Kamloops, BC. Alma was born in Winnipeg and was predeceased by her husband Orville, her parents Amalia and Henry Engelhardt, her brother Edward, and her oldest daughter Carole Robertson. She will be greatly missed by her surviving daughters Arlene and Wendy, her six grandchildren Gregory, Heather, Dale, Dianna, Laura, and Jeremy, seven great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.

Alma had a long and eventful life. She grew up in the farming community of Starbuck, Manitoba, along with her older brother Eddie Engelhardt, and attended a one-room prairie schoolhouse before moving on to Jackson Collegiate in Winnipeg. In 1939, she married Orville Houston just as World War II broke out, and during the war years, she raised her two oldest daughters until he returned home, after which they built the family home in Starbuck, where they welcomed their third daughter in 1951. While living in Starbuck, Alma enjoyed curling in the winter and was an avid flower and vegetable gardener in the summer. She was also very active in the local Ladies Aid organization and cooked her famous lemon meringue pie for many a fall supper. Alma and Orville loved to dance and took every opportunity to attend local dances whenever the occasion arose.

Alma later lived and worked in Winnipeg, first at a doctor’s office and then at the Misericordia Hospital, before moving to Burnaby, British Columbia, where she and Orville lived until they retired and moved to Abbotsford in the early eighties. They enjoyed travelling in their retirement, visiting Indonesia and, on many occasions, joining family in Palm Desert during the winter months. After Orville’s death in 1987, Alma continued to live in Abbotsford, where she was part of a bowling league, played canasta with a close group of women friends, and enjoyed the companionship of her cats, who would be part of her life for many years. In 2003, she moved to Vancouver to live with her daughter Arlene, and in 2013, she moved to Kamloops to spend time near Wendy’s family, where she lived until her passing, not long after the family celebrated her 105th birthday.

A memorial service will be held for Alma in Vancouver in June of next year. Her family will gather to honour her memory, recreating an annual celebration of her June 27th birthday, which at her request, they will continue to do every year.