Vivian Downing sits in her navy blue recliner knitting a pink baby sweater that is destined for the Squamish Hospital auxiliary gift shop. Surrounding her are photos spanning a lifetime in Squamish. Downing, 85, has spent her entire life in the district, raising a family of four, working for the railway, volunteering and watching the community grow up around her.
The Squamish Chief sat down in her cozy and bright living room in Brackendale for a conversation about her life in Squamish, and what she thinks of the direction the town is headed. What follows is an edited version of that conversation.
Q: Many of our readers may know you as Mrs. Claus. You have volunteered as Mrs. Santa Claus for 18 years at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park. How did you get into that and why do you keep at it?
A: I worked at the train for years, doing different things. They approached me one day and that was it. I have been doing it ever since. I enjoy being with the kids. I hold the kids on my knees and it is a fun thing to do, especially when you are retired. It is the same Santa too, he won’t have anybody else but me. I said I think it is time I start thinking about retiring and he said, “Oh, no. You aren’t.” I will keep doing it, as long as I am healthy that is.
Q: You were born and raised here, tell me about your early years in Squamish.
A: I was born in 1932 in about the fifth house up from the railway park, in the Northyards. I was born at my mom’s house because we had no doctors here at that time, so we had midwives.
Q: Where did you go to school?
A: I went to Brackendale Elementary School at Leski’s crossing. We used to have to walk for miles to get up to the school because there were no school buses in those days – it had to be a good three miles from the Northyards. Sometimes the taxis would come along and pick us up and take my sister and I up to the school. There were about 75 students. It just went to about Grade 3. Then we went down to the Mashiter School. That is gone now and was where the Howe Sound Secondary School currently is.
Q: How did you meet your husband, Frank?
A: At the railroad. He was from New Brunswick. He was in the army and then came out, got a job and stayed. I was railway coach-cleaning after high school and that is how we met.
We got married in 1949 in Squamish down on Third Ave. It was just a formal thing, it wasn’t a real fancy wedding. There weren’t any marriage commissioners in Squamish then so the local police officer and his wife officiated. It was quite nice, actually.
My husband was a railroad fireman, and then he worked as a machinist and then he worked for the school district. He was supervisor of the custodians at the school.
Q: What was it like having your four children here in Squamish?
A: I had my oldest boy in 1949 at my mom’s place. Dr. LaVerne Kindree and his wife Norma came and stayed overnight with me and helped me deliver the baby. I had three boys and a girl.
My second child passed away in 2010 when he had a heart bypass and infection set in. I lost another son when he had just turned 16. We hadn’t even moved into this house, in 1975. A bunch of kids were going to go up to Alice Lake for the weekend tenting.
They went up and hit a tree and it killed them instantly. The cops came to the door and told us his best friend and him were killed; they were in the backseat. So, I lost two sons.
Q: I am so sorry. That is every mother’s nightmare.
A: It is, and I am still here.
Q: We have had a lot of snow here this year, but I bet you have lived through much worse weather in Squamish?
A: Snowdrifts! Man we used to get a lot of snow. I walked from my mother’s place down to my aunt’s house in the Northyards because I had run out of milk for my baby. I started to walk down, but I couldn’t even go into the house. The snowdrifts were too high; I didn’t know if I should cry or try and climb over the snow to the house. My Uncle George came around and gave me the milk; he had been standing watching for me. There was no snowplow clearing the roads back in those days.
Q: Can you tell me more about your beautiful home, which is part of the Bracken Heights Housing Co-op that you helped found in the early 1970s?
A: We were managing townhouses in Valleycliffe at that time and we got interested in this property up here that was all Crown land. My husband and a neighbour decided to look into it with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and then just continued. There are 37 of us and it is a real friendly place. I really like it.
Q: What do you think of all the changes? Your property backs on to the land where the proposed Cheekye Fan development is planned, so what is your feeling on the proposed growth?
A: It has sure built up, I can tell you that; Too much growth. I have trees in my backyard so I probably won’t see all the new houses, but I feel bad for the people up on Ross Road.
