Jean Katherine Friesen was an amazing woman. My mother, after some gentle prodding, loved to reminisce about her early life and I loved to hear her talk. Mom was born in Avonmore Ontario to Esther and John McRae in 1925. Her father owned a prospering lumber business that, a few short years later, he lost to the great depression.
Having been stripped of everything they owned, Mom's parents headed west and bought a house in Pitt Meadows. This was home, but it didn't have many of the amenities we appreciate today, amenities such as running water, indoor toilets and electricity. Water was fetched from a nearby river and there was an outhouse in the backyard.
My mother loved rhubarb. Her appreciation for this most sour of snacks began when she was a child. Her family had a large garden which included a tantalizingly large patch of rhubarb. Mom and her brothers and sisters -- all nine of them -- would run out to the garden and break off stalks of rhubarb and then troop through the house and dip them in sugar.
The result was a muddy floor and an empty sugar jar so my grandmother decided to that something had to be done.
"After this," she said, if you think the rhubarb is too sour then either don't eat it or use salt instead of sugar."
I can't help but think that grandmother's intention was to stop her children from eating so much rhubarb but, amazingly, they did as she suggested and started to dip their rhubarb into salt! Mom told me that, over the years, she developed a fondness for salted rhubarb.
Because there was a river close to their home Mom's parents decided that all their children needed to learn to swim. Grandfather took all the kids to a nearby lake and, one by one, tied a rope around each child's waist and told her to jump into the deep end of the lake. If she swam, fine, but if she didn't then grandfather hauled her to shore and made her try again.
It will perhaps come as no surprise that all mom's siblings learned to swim in record time!
My mother had many fond memories of her home in Pitt Meadows but, soon, she was off working in Vancouver. Her very first job was as a housekeeper in a hotel and then as a practical nurse.
Mom loved nursing and especially loved caring for children. I remember that when I was in the hospital getting my tonsils out, mom visited the other children on the ward and talked to them and told them stories and held their hand so they wouldn't feel as lonely.
Mom's heart broke when one of her young charges died and she decided to become a secretary instead. Although her family didn't have much money, they supported Mom in her decision and helped her get secretarial training.
Mom was happy working in the Steno Pool but, a few years later, something happened that was to change her life forever. I'm talking about the day she met the love of her life: my father.
My parents owe their 53 years of wedded happiness to their landlady. 54 years ago mom moved into the same apartment building as Dad lived in. Dad just happened to be walking by as mom moved in and her new landlady asked my father to help mom carry her suitcases up to her room. Dad was happy to oblige. That part of the story I knew my entire life. I loved mom's stories and I asked her to tell me this one often. It wasn't, though, until I was older that mom told me the whole story. After Dad had carried mom's suitcases up to her room he looked at her, nodded, and said, "You'll do."
Mom thought Dad had an awful nerve but, obviously, he improved in the wooing department between then and their wedding.
Mom and Dad were wed on August 16, 1957. Mom was 32 years old and Dad was 37 so they decided not to waste time and, before the year was out, Mom was pregnant. She gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, David Anthony Friesen, but little Davie had a congenital heart defect and passed away three months later. My parents were devastated.
Soon afterward, Dad -- with Mom's loving help -- decided that he wanted to be a carpenter and set about building his first house. Mom was pregnant with me at the time and she told me stories about how she -- two weeks before her due date! -- went up on the roof of the house to do work. When she told me that story she would shake her head, laugh, and say, "I don't know what I was thinking!"
Up until the very day I was born my mother couldn't decide what to name me, so she gave me her first name as my middle one and her middle one -- Katherine -- as my first name, and shortened it to Karen. I couldn't have asked for more loving parents.
That first house held many fond memories for all of us but, when I was seven, my parents sold it and moved two blocks into the second house they had built. That was the last time we moved as a family. Mom and Dad sold their second house after I had grown up and moved up to 108 Mile House to live. After this I didn't see mother as much, but, without fail, she called me once a week and regaled me with tales of the church they were attending, their friends and the animals they befriended.
I have already mentioned Mom's affection and concern for children, but the truth is that she cared about everyone.
This was especially evident when Mom was head of the Prayer Chain at Christian Life Assembly. She devoted much of her life to the church and to the service of the community.
Mom was an amazing woman. If I have learnt anything in life it is that for one person to love another wholly and unreservedly is very, very, rare, but that was how Mom loved Dad and I.
Dad and I loved Mom very much and we miss her more than words can say.
Arrangements under the direction of Henderson's Langley Funeral Home, Langley, BC.
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