They have travelled the world, built families and helped build Squamish. Many of the residents at Hilltop House in the Valleycliffe neighbourhood have also known great loves and great loss. The Squamish Chief sat down with six residents to get to know them a little better and to hear some of their best advice for a life well lived.
From England, with love
Soft-spoken Myra Caulfield, 99, sits on her bed, a stack of novels and magazines at her side. She reads anything she can get her hands on, she said.
Photos of her children – three sons and a daughter – watch over her from the shelves around her bed. On the wall is a framed certificate from former prime minister Stephen Harper in honour of her 90th birthday. She came to Canada in the 1960s after retiring from a career “in service” in England and retains her British accent.
“Be as happy as you can,” she said in offering advice for those just starting out on their adult lives. “Make the best of things.”
Her daughter and three sons have given her the most happy moments of her life, she said. “I love them. There are none that are perfect though, of course.”
Her advice for the many parents of young children in Squamish is to, “Let them know that you love them, that is the important thing,” she said, adding finding out what children want to do in life and then supporting them is better than trying to mould them into what the parents wish them to be. “Don’t push them, just let them choose.”
Proud RCMP spouse
Ruth Wilson wears a bright smile and jewelry that coordinates with her matching black-and-white outfit. She’s quick to strike up a conversation with strangers and fellow-residents alike. On the wall in Wilson’s room is a historic drawing of the old Squamish police station that was once her home.
The building is currently home to the Alano Club of Squamish on the east side of Third Avenue downtown. For Wilson, 90, her marriage and family were the centrepiece of her life.
She was married to her RCMP officer husband, Don, for 60 years and before coming to Squamish almost five decades ago, they moved to many places around the country following his career. He rode in the internationally renowned RCMP Musical Ride for a time, she said, proudly taking down a photo of her husband in his RCMP red serge riding a thoroughbred when he was a member of the ride.
“By the time we came to Squamish he was a sergeant,” she recalled. The couple moved to Squamish 48 years ago and lived in the house attached to the former Squamish police station with their three sons.
When he left the force, Don became a lawyer and practiced in Squamish for many years. He died last year, Wilson said.
World traveller
Hamid Taimuri, 77, was born in India and travelled the world before landing in Squamish. A former economist, Taimuri estimates he has made his way around the world four times. His advice for the young is to travel as much as they can.
“You learn a lot,” he said. “You mix with different people from different cultures.” Of all the places he has been, Canada is his favourite. “It’s very peaceful,” he said.
A self-described people-person, he added travel allowed him to interact with individuals from many different walks of life. He has learned that “people are the same everywhere. I love people very much.”
Taimuri was married twice. The second marriage has lasted 38 years, so far. “Tolerance” is the key to a happy marriage, he said.
His beloved wife was key to his ability to travel because she took care of their children while he was away.
Taimuri has four children – two daughters and two sons. "My children are very talented,” he said.
One of his sons is an engineer who works for Squamish’s Woodfibre LNG.
Former city girl
A black-and-white photo of Dorothy Dawson, 99, on her wedding day in 1943 at her family’s home in East Vancouver, sits on her shelf. In it she is wearing a pill hat atop her sharp curls and a delicate dress suit. Her husband is in his sailor’s uniform. Both look impossibly young and confidently happy.
Asked what the secret is to a long marriage, Dawson thought about the question for a few minutes. “I think young people give up too early,” she said, finally.
“If you have two people who are brought up under totally different circumstances it stands to reason you are going to have different opinions on things and you aren’t always going to get along together. You have got to have a little bit of give and take.”
Her family had a long history in Vancouver. She grew up in a home on Battison Street that was named after her family (her maiden name is Battison) and belonged to her grandfather. When her grandfather died they found out he hadn’t been paying the taxes on the large property, Dawson said with a quiet laugh. “There’s a school on it now.”
She grew up in the city long before it was a cement jungle, Dawson said.
“One of my favourite pastimes in the summertime was going picking berries – we picked blackberries and huckleberries,” she said, adding her mom would make jam with the berries.
Squamish Nation proud
Stacks of DVDs sit in piles around Karen Lewis’s room. A leather case holding her cellphone is strung around her neck as she maneuvers around her spacious Hilltop House room in her wheelchair. Lewis, 67, is a Squamish Nation member “and proud of it,” she said.
Some of her favourite memories involve cooking and baking, especially strawberry or blueberry cheesecake. She likes that cooking pleases people and “makes people happy,” she said. “I could cook for two to three hundred people.”
She doesn’t like the change she has seen in Squamish over the years. “They are chopping all the trees down,” she said. “When I first lived up here there used to be apples, cherries, cows walking around and now there’s nothing. Just houses and white people,” she added with a hearty laugh.
Her advice for young people is to “take care of yourself because you are going to suffer. It is never too late to start looking after yourself.”
Longtime Squamite
Ray Gaumond, 86, clutches a homemade green “scribbler” that is held together with silver duct tape. The pages are filled from top to bottom with the broad strokes of his neat handwriting. It is a science fiction story he wrote. Writing has been a favourite pastime for many years, he said.
Gaumond came to Squamish from Quesnel in the 1960 in search of work. He was in forestry, “sawmilling and falling,” and later worked for BC Rail, he said. When he first arrived in Squamish it was a “pretty rough town,” he said. “It only had one street paved.”
He remained a single man all his life, which wasn’t always easy, he said, because people expected him to settle down with someone. “I didn’t feel like raising a family,” he said. “I was strange because I didn’t chase the girls around… I didn’t drink.”
He said there was a girl he had a crush on back in Saskatchewan where he grew up. “I told dad, ‘I am going to marry her,’” he recalled. He never approached her though.
Gaumond said his only advice to young people today is to “do what you can, keep straight and you will make it… Just try to survive and not cause too much trouble.
