Back in 1965 when Glenn and I relocated to Squamish from Woodfibre, we rented the one and only house we could find available at that time.
It was down in the Dentville area. We stayed there for five years and had as our neighbours Kelly and Fern Green. Their oldest son, Allen was married and already moved away, their daughter Judy had recently married Elmer Poole and chosen to remain in Squamish and son Carl was still a student at the Howe Sound Senior Secondary, the name of the high school in those days.
Fern worked at McKenzie's General store downtown, a big structure on the corner of Cleveland and Winnipeg, in fact, the entrance was diagonally across the corner.
The sidewalks were raised wooden slats as the downtown area of Squamish is below sea level and was in those pre-dike days, prone to flooding.
Kelly had previously been a contracted out boom worker, but now worked from home doing beautiful oil paintings and talented leatherwork. At the initiative of Tiny Christianson, a local logging entrepreneur, Kelly became the supplier of the leather pouches used by the minors at Britannia Beach for safely holding their blasting caps and pliers. Each was in itself a work of art.What makes this story truly remarkable is the fact that back in 1952 Kelly had become a victim of the polio epidemic that swept though BC and, indeed, all of Canada. Initially, Kelly spent three years in hospital, one of the years in an iron lung, in what is now known as the George Pearson Centre in Vancouver. Then it was merely a wing of the TB Hospital given over to the polio patients. As time passed and the polio victims and survivors became fewer, the wing became the Respiratory Ward and included patients with all kinds of respiratory needs.
Back in 1965, Kelly was managing to live at home with determination not to be handicapped more than was necessary by his debilitating disease. He had a wheel chair on stand by, had to rest periodically throughout the day - sleeping then and at night with a mini/personal iron lung-type contraption around his chest - and kept his limbs and mind as active as possible.From time to time, stays at the Vancouver hospital were needed, ever increasingly as years passed until 25 years ago, the Pearson Centre became his home and Squamish the place to visit when finally the greater need for respirators and specialized care kept him more permanently hospitalized.
Extremely strong family connections remained in place despite the traveling distances and admiration and pride for his continuous victories of making the best of an uncalled for life experience prevailed. Photography in all its aspects from the cameras to the prints became a great interest for Kelly.
Ten years ago a new phenomenon began to take place. Doctors began to realize that not just Kelly, but all surviving victims of polio begin, to varying degrees as they age, to re-experience the pain of the original onslaught of the disease, known now as Post Polio Syndrome. The last five years were particularly difficult for Kelly and hard on Fern and his family.
Kelly was actually born in England and did not get to meet and visit with his large extensive and closely knit family in England until he had a six week leave while serving in World War II.
Fern by contrast is a true Squamish citizen, her parents having come here from the American Midwest - her mother having made part of the journey as a child in a covered wagon from Missouri to Kansas. After leaving the Kootenay area and by way of Lillooet, Squamish became home and where Fern and her brother were born and raised.
Eventually Fern and Kelly met, married in Vancouver, settled in Squamish, had their three children and established the beginnings of close family ties. Then life took a decidedly unexpected turn that tested, but did not daunt those strong family bonds. As I recently talked to family members, the fact that came through most strongly was the great love and high esteem they all have for Kelly and how much Dad and husband in particular is going to be missed.
And so it was why, when on Jan. 6 at the age of 87, Kelly passed away, his funeral service was held at the George Pearson Centre. That was where the people who had known him best and cared for him for the last 25 were located and were in need of a final farewell. The family was amazed and gratified by the great turnout and the tremendous outpouring of love and respect from Kelly's fellow residents and caretakers.
The family had intended to have a gathering in Squamish also but found they themselves were too emotionally drained and it wasn't something they could put their mother through again. They hope instead that friends and well wishers in Squamish who were not able to get to the celebration of Kelly's life in Vancouver..
Since the day after the funeral, Fern has had her own room in the Intermediate Care portion of Hilltop House, transferring from the West Vancouver Care Facility. When Kelly moved permanently to the Pearson Centre, she moved from the Dentville home to a townhouse across from the high school where she lived for 14 years. Later she was on the committee for the establishment of the Eagle Grove complex with housing for seniors. Nine years ago she moved into one of its ground floor apartments thus bringing her even closer to the amenities of downtown.
After McKenzie's General Store closed down, Fern worked for a while at IGA until Sears scooped her up and there a generation of Squamish youth grew up knowing her as "Mrs Simpsons-Sears".
As time passed, Fern began experiencing transient ischemic attacks (TIS), mini strokes, interspersed with bigger, more debilitating ones, until hospitalization was required four years ago. It was particularly hard on the family having both parents in two separate hospitals, Dad in Vancouver and Mom in West Vancouver. Her daughter Judy expresses a huge amount of appreciation and relief that her mother is now safely ensconced nearby at Hilltop House.
This article can not yet be completed without mention of one more item. It is fact that Polio is considered to have been eradicated from Canada due mostly to the early immunization of children. Some places in the world that do not yet immunize still experience polio and other places have stopped the systematic approach to immunizing its populace because it is no longer seen to be occurring. Polio is a contagious disease. In my childhood it was referred to as Infantile Paralysis. Two of my schoolmates contracted it.
Now it is as if Kelly is leaning over my shoulder and whispering, as in the old days when we were neighbours, in that wheezing way through his tracheotomy: "Don't forget to mention the great need for parents not to underestimate the dangers of such diseases as Polio; remind new parents who have not witnessed in their lifetime the tragedies and ravages of such diseases and urge them not to forego getting their children immunized."
There. I think he just said it best himself.
