Evelyn's Biography (part 9/9)

In 2002, enrolled at Mount Royal College in a Women's Studies class, we were asked to interview a woman in our life and write their biography. Leading up to grandma's 75th birthday, I would like to share what I wrote.
Part 9/9

Evelyn feels that in her time, she has not changed her values but has them more strongly defined within herself; “I haven’t changed, I’ve only become more of myself”.

I think that I have been a feminist for at least the past 35-40 years and for me that means, always being aware of the different ways men and women have been [and are] treated, the ways that language treats women differently, and that I’ve always, well for a long time, been a nuisance about. [This is most common when people call] us girls or ladies instead of women. Ladies [in my mind] wear white hats and gloves, and girls are giggly.

I remember when I was forty I felt a weight had been lifted from my shoulders because I didn’t have to fight to be a feminist anymore. I was really pleased to be forty because, oh god, I didn’t have to keep fighting about the things that are so… I think that the attitudes of men are so inbred that they don’t see them, and when you call them on it, they haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about. That language, around power, helps to keep women down.

I think the women’s movement is like a dance. In that sometimes you’re very showy and prominent and sometimes you’re just sort of shuffling along. We have made changes to the movement, but they are very slow and very slight. I remember one time I had a young women working for me who couldn’t do this and couldn’t do that because her boyfriend didn’t like her to and I thought what on earth have I been fighting for, for twenty years when this women is still saying these same sort of things. I mean, don’t you know that you don’t have to say that anymore? You don’t even have to think that way anymore. I don’t think that women of my generation look at what they want at all.

Evelyn doesn’t feel that women should take over the world, she feels that they should take an equal partnership in decisions. It takes the respect of both men and women to make proper decisions. As for her husband Bob, “he was drug kicking and screaming into modern life”.

Evelyn's Biography (part 8/9)

In 2002, enrolled at Mount Royal College in a Women's Studies class, we were asked to interview a woman in our life and write their biography. Leading up to grandma's 75th birthday, I would like to share what I wrote:


Part 8/9

Although obtaining information was not readily available about birth control, it was not difficult to obtain either. Evelyn read a lot and that is how she personally knew about diaphragms.

First of all I found out about menstruation from a film that Kotex puts out called, very personally yours and it was shown to all of the girls in grade seven or eight and the boys separately. So, I came home from school and told my mother that we had a film on menstruation and she said “oh, I was going to talk to you about that any time now, I’ve actually ordered a book for you and when it comes I will give it to you.” Well, then I don’t know how long it was. It was a Saturday morning when I started to menstruate and I just remember that I was so excited. I came out of the bathroom and I said to my mother, I’m a woman at last, and I was fourteen. And then I began to hear all sorts of horror stories that mother told me. A Jewish custom with girls is when they start to menstruate their mother slaps them on the face. Another girl didn’t know what was happening, thinking that they were bleeding to death. I remember thinking that if I had daughters that they were going to know and they are not going to have to feel that.

Evelyn did not think that she had known any other girl who felt that much excitement about getting their period. She knew that she wanted her children to have the same experience that she did, so she did everything that she knew how to educate them. Her dad, Dean, had actually bought Evelyn’s first bra for her. She told me that it was his acceptance of her growing up. “It was a really pretty peach one,” she said. To her it meant that her father was proud of her for growing up, for her becoming a woman, and to her that was very special. Her father used to tell his daughters to “stand up and be proud that you’re women”, as most young girls who were tall usually hunched over. Evelyn tells a story about her oldest child and daughter, Nola.

When [Nola] was about eleven I got a book on intercourse and conception, and I gave it to her. We were out some place and she was reading it. She brought it to me and she opened it to a page that talked about intercourse, in very dry terms, and she said to me, is this right? I said yes, and she closed the book and walked away.

The only other information Evelyn’s mother gave to her came right before she was married. Her mother asked if she had kotex with her because often a woman would menstruate during this time due to stress or poor timing.

Evelyn's Biography (part 7/9)

In 2002, enrolled at Mount Royal College in a Women's Studies class, we were asked to interview a woman in our life and write their biography. Leading up to grandma's 75th birthday, I would like to share what I wrote:


Part 7/9

Evelyn had every educational opportunity available to her all throughout her high school years. She said that she thought she might want to pursue something further, but that she had married Bob when she was nineteen and you didn’t go to school and get married, it was one or the other.

What happened in my family was that my father always wanted to go to university but for some reason the three girls all got educated and he and his brother didn’t. When I asked my Aunty Kate about it she told me that “when her father came back from the war the boys had to have a good trade. So, the girls could go to school.” I think that my aunts just did a couple years of school learning to become teachers and a nurse.

Evelyn told me that her dad had always resented that fact that he hadn’t been able to further his education. When Evelyn’s brother, Albert, had the chance to go to school he felt that the family wouldn’t have enough money to put him through and so he didn’t go. He did not take the necessary courses he needed to go to University. When the time came for him to graduate, their father told Albert that they could afford to send him for at least one year. 

Evelyn was very nervous about going to university and as she had been dating Bob for two years he told her that if she wanted to go to school (and the school that she would be going to was in Vancouver) then they would drift apart. He gave her an ultimatum, go to school or get married, so, she got married. Many years later, after all five of Evelyn's children were grown - she went to university and received her Master's degree.

Evelyn's Biography (part 6/9)

In 2002, enrolled at Mount Royal College in a Women's Studies class, we were asked to interview a woman in our life and write their biography. Leading up to grandma's 75th birthday, I would like to share what I wrote:

Part 6/9

Evelyn didn’t date anyone before her husband.

I did go out with one fella, but what I liked about him was his family. He’d come and pick me up and we’d spend the day with his family, and I really thought that that was fun. After about the fifth date he asked me if he could kiss me, and I was just so disgusted that he would ask that that was the end of the relationship”.

When I asked Evelyn why she was disgusted she finished her story telling me that, “because I felt that he should just kiss me if he wanted to”. She was 16 at the time. When I asked Evelyn how she thought dating was different now that it was back then she told me the following:

It was more formal. When I was in the Okanagan you could date three or four different guys and it didn’t matter, but when I came to Golden if you went out with more than one guy you were considered fast. So, I didn’t really want to go steady when I first met Bob (her husband).

She told me that there was a dance that Bob had invited her to. She decided against going with him, but told him that she would see him there. Once there, Evelyn saw Bob dancing with another girl and when he finally came over to ask her, that was it – she decided that she would go steady with him after all. This was when she was seventeen.

Evelyn's Biography (part 5/9)

In 2002, enrolled at Mount Royal College in a Women's Studies class, we were asked to interview a woman in our life and write their biography. Leading up to grandma's 75th birthday, I would like to share what I wrote:

Part 5/9

Evelyn’s family had very strong values. There was an especially heavy emphasis put on helping your neighbors. There was always a huge garden when they were living in the Okanagan and half of it was given away to friends and neighbors. When there were problems in the town – no matter what town they were living in, people would often come to her parents for someone to talk to. The family was very community orientated. For further examples of her family values we look to her family when they moved to Golden B.C in 1953.

Whenever mom and dad did something [to help someone out, and the person that they helped said that they didn’t know how to repay them], the comment was just to pass it on.

So, one time when I was going down to our cottage in Windermere, I had my three youngest kids with me. I had a car accident. I went off the side of the road, and I over corrected and there was a little ditch there and [as] my steering had just been fixed so it was really sensitive, and I went right across to that little gravel pit that’s just before Brisco. All I could think about was that I had to get back on the road, I should have just stopped there and I would have been fine. [So], I tried to get back on to the road and I rolled the car right over on its top and back. It was a Ford station wagon, so it was a big one. Some people stopped to help me, and brought us to the Brisco store to phone the police, and everyone was fine, a few little bruises but that was all. Geordie (this is Evelyn’s oldest son) was talking to the people, telling them all about his grandpa Crandlemire. The women said “Crandlemire, is that Dean Crandlemire? I once went to Lottie Crandlemire, which was Dean’s mother, and she helped me. When I asked her what I could do to repay her she said just pass it on.” She said that she was so happy to be passing it on to her granddaughter.

Her father was involved in building the swimming pool and the curling rink as well. He was also on the hospital board. Evelyn was the leader of the Canadian Girls in Training with the United Church. The group was a Christian training group, similar to Girl Guides and Brownies.

As a youth she worked very little except for babysitting in the summer time for neighbor mothers who worked in the orchards. When she started she got 25 cents an hour. She also worked one season in the orchards, but she hated it so much, so she never did it again. Pay was based on how much a person picked so there were no wage differentials between males and females. For entertainment there was a hall where you could play badminton, but if she wanted to go to a movie they had to drive to Kelowna B.C. In the summer her and her friends spent every afternoon at the beach lying in the sun. There were school dances, but for those they had to take the bus. “One time the bus broke down, so there were about five kids who had to walk five miles over the hill back home. Thankfully someone that we knew picked us up along the way”.

Evelyn's Biography (part 4/9)

In 2002, enrolled at Mount Royal College in a Women's Studies class, we were asked to interview a woman in our life and write their biography. Leading up to grandma's 75th birthday, I would like to share what I wrote:

Part 4/9

When talking about discipline Evelyn tells us that she was a “sensible kid.” She didn’t remember getting into any sort of trouble.

I can remember getting a spanking when I was little, when I was younger than four, because I dropped the flashlight down the outhouse toilet bowl, and I wasn’t supposed to take the flashlight out in the first place. Any child wants to look down the hole, to find out what it looks down there. I remember getting put to bed after that. As a teenager [however there was never a need for punishment].

Evelyn's Biography (part 3/9)

In 2002, enrolled at Mount Royal College in a Women's Studies class, we were asked to interview a woman in our life and write their biography. Leading up to grandma's 75th birthday, I would like to share what I wrote. 

Part 3/9

Evelyn explained that there wasn’t much difference in the treatment between her and her brother. She knew of families that did have significant differential treatment but that, that didn’t happen in her house. She told me that she also had quite a different father than many young girls did.

I don’t remember when I was younger, but apparently my father was very good with each of the babies. My dad would come into a room full of people and if someone was holding a baby, he would go and talk to the child before the adults – which was kind of unusual for that time and age.

Her family did not have a highchair and so they always sat on their father’s lap until they were big enough to sit in a chair. Evelyn told me that she thought he was very good with little kids, but not very good with those ten to fifteen year olds, where they think they know everything. “Teenagers he was pretty good with as well, but not that in-between stage.”

Evelyn felt that it was expected that her father was the head of the household and as such he made the major family decisions.

He took after his mother, Grandma Crandlemire, as she was the matriarch in her family. He was naturally strong willed and that is why he was a head of the household, not because he had the status of ‘husband’. So he grew up that way, it was a personality trait, and as her mom was much shier and quieter, she didn’t assert herself. Evelyn felt that she was quieter, but not because of the way she grew. She said that she felt that her mother had an equal partnership with her husband. She felt that way because her grandfather Stauffer had a blacksmith shop where he worked alongside his wife.

“I don’t think there was anything I couldn’t do that the boys could do”. Evelyn went on to tell me that although she thought she could do anything that the boys did, she know that there were societal norms that were expected of her. 

She was never told what these were exactly, but she only saw women as nurses, secretaries, and teachers, if they were working at all. Evelyn did not want to be “an ordinary person,” and she said that perhaps that is why she pursued her education later in life. She thought that she might be a home economics teacher, as she liked cooking and sewing – just not housework. “I do remember when I was in grade ten; we had to do a study of a job. I did a lawyer, thinking at the time that if I was a man, that is what I would be. I didn’t think that was what women did.” Evelyn thought this because she had never heard of a women lawyer. Evelyn also knew that she wanted to get married and have children. She felt that it was important. 

When asked if she wanted to have children because she thought she should do it, she found difficultly answering. She replied that it is what she has done, “and it’s also something that’s given [her’ a great deal of pleasure and [she] would not have missed it for the world”.

Evelyn's Biography (part 2/9)

In 2002, enrolled at Mount Royal College in a Women's Studies class, we were asked to interview a woman in our life and write their biography. Leading up to grandma's 75th birthday, I would like to share what I wrote.

Part 2/9

Evelyn’s mother Sarah was a house wife; she looked after the children and took care of house hold affairs. Dean, her father, was a carpenter, however, when Evelyn was five he went overseas to go to war. She knew that she did not want to do what her parents did, and especially did not want to be confined to housework like her mother was. When Evelyn was a mere babe, before the war, her family did not have a lot of money. Her grandmother “could make a pot of stew big enough to feed half the neighborhood with just the smallest amount of meat” – and she often did, because there wasn’t anything else. During the war it was actually better for their family economically. Her father’s wages from the war were sent home – it was an allowance which was based on the number of children that they had – and there were five children. They had a huge garden and did a lot of canning; living on an acre lot they always had a lot of food that could feed many in the neighborhood.

After the war, finances improved more as her father got a job as a carpenter. As well, after the war, Evelyn’s mother worked in the fruit packing houses in the fall. The women worked just part time, and the men would have full time or management positions. Working in the packing line however, men and women were paid on commission so some women could have made more than some men. “We would pack apples in the packing houses. Back then they wrapped and graded each apple individually, not like now how they just jumble them together in a box.”

Evelyn's Biography (part 1/9)

In 2002, enrolled at Mount Royal College in a Women's Studies class, we were asked to interview a woman in our life and write their biography. Leading up to grandma's 75th birthday, I would like to share what I wrote.


Part 1/9

Evelyn Jessie Keenleyside, born October 5, 1936, was named after her parent’s friend Evelyn Cooney and her father’s older sister, Jessie. Her mother’s name was Sarah Hazel Stauffer and her father’s Dean Phillips Crandlemire. She was born in the Hospital in Kelowna. In those times women were routinely given anesthetic without the choice of opting out and so Sarah did not actually see Evelyn until they day after she was born. Evelyn revealed that in the morning, Sarah could hear the nurses coming down the hallway saying “oh look at this beautiful baby, she’s got the most perfect head” and she continued with “and that was me”. Her father was not in the hospital for her birth or for that of any of her siblings and her mother was kept for several weeks after childbirth for monitoring as was typical in the 1930s.

Evelyn’s father’s family was Baptist and her mothers’ were Seventh Day Adventists, but she was not baptized into either. To explain why she wasn't, she tells this story:

My father had very definite ideas about what you should do if you belonged to a religion. He felt that if you were a member of a church you shouldn’t dance or play cards or drink, all of which he liked to do. If you were going to join a church you had to do those things, so he didn’t join.

Her family did go to several different churches in Alberta during the war years. Despite the fact that Dean, her father, would not join the church he was still very active in the community. After Dean returned home from the war he and a friend of his built the United Church in the Okanagan Center. It was a small wooden church that they had donated all of the wood and labor for. Evelyn was ultimately baptized as an adult and joined a church at 18 by her own choice.

Nola Milum

Nola's adult involvement as a volunteer in the community of Golden began twenty some odd years ago as a Parent Volunteer with the Parent Advisory Council. She was with the School District #6 for ten years doing everything from providing teacher aid/support in the classroom to support the schools with lunch time supervision. During this time she was was also a Brownie Leader for Girl Guides of Canada for eight years at the Nicholson Elementary School followed by two years as a Cub Leader with Scouts Canada.

What stands out for me is that her support of the community started where I would argue, we often need it most - with our children. As they are the ones that will grow up and support the community later on. As her daughter looking back, I feel absolutely privileged that my mom spent so much time with my brother and I through her volunteer work. It has been nothing short of inspiring.

As Nelson and I grew up and moved on to an extent, mom's career path turned and she went on to work as a bookkeeper for Husky, then as the Store Manager for the Golden 7-Eleven and now as the Store Manager for the Golden Liquor Store. As her career has taken her along this path, her hours of work increased steadily until she began working for the Liquor store where she works about two thirds of the hours she did at 7-Eleven.

Nola is excited that she is at a time in her life where she can commit to volunteer activity again.

Nola has been involved in the Golden and District Community Foundation (GDCF) for the last two years and was elected in 2010 as the foundation's Director. The GDCF’s mission is to attract and effectively grow permanent funds; provide leadership and administration that helps in addressing significant community needs; and help donors fulfill their philanthropic interests. It is her involvement in the GDCF that helped to inspire our Family Legacy Fund.

A strong example of the work that the GDCF does was the raffle event held through September to December of 2010. Over 800 tickets were sold at local events and over $3,000 was raised. Two locally-made quilts went to the winners, one made by none other then Nola's mom, Evelyn Keenleyside.

She currently sits on the Vital Signs Steering Committee of the GDCF which is planning, researching and publishing an indicator report on the Kicking Horse Country community in 2011. If you haen't seen her request for Golden residients to complete a survey - please click on HERE to help out.
In her bio for the GDFC, she is quoted:

I believe's strongly in the value the Foundation brings to our community and would like to contribute to that value.

I think that Nola not only believe's strongly in the value of the Foundation but in our community as a whole and I believe that it is long term volunteers such as her that make Golden an amazing place to live. Thank you mom for inspiring me, and countless others with your selfless giving of your time and energy.