258_Seniors-Honour-Kay-Catlin.mp3

otter.ai

18.04.2023

no

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Okay, so welcome to everyone to come to this meeting and to enjoy que Catlins work and to hear who Pope a little bit of history and a few stories about K. And we're hoping that some of you may have some stories as well, because of the show been put together by Terry Manik you'd like to stand and let everybody know. See you back there behind the MOE Terry is going to have a little chat.

Unknown Speaker 0:44
Yes, yeah. Is there anybody in here who does not know, Kaplan, is that possible? If you're a corporate uncertain okay. For those of you who maybe don't know, leave Hill is named after my great grandfather. And a case Father Ted was Ted Lee. And he was the son of the people who established the farms on the hill. So Kay was born April 22 1924. She was the oldest child at TED Lee, and Phyllis James. And I don't know if any of you know the James Seed Company. She was a seed company, James. And she was followed five years later by twin sisters, which almost killed her mother, Gladys and Francis. Francis and Kay, both grew to over six feet. Gladys was about I don't know, four foot 11 No, she was a little taller than that, but maybe five foot one or two. And when Francis and Kay were so in their, in their 30s, they may have had to make all their own clothing because there was absolutely nothing for a woman who was over six feet tall, and they may see oughtest clothes, you have everything. And when the two of them were walking down the street in Vancouver, it was like Moses parting the Red Sea. People would literally park like this and turn to watch because they really did look like their Viking ancestors. Francis actually, they are all buried over here in the church. Kay and her husband George, her sister, Frances, her mother, and they are very about halfway off the main road on the left with the LEA grandparents. So Gladys married a Maxwell and they lived at footprint for a while Kay and George got married in 1948. And they lived in Vancouver where their children daughters, Sean and twin boys, Mike and Pat were born and raised. And they had a very traditional marriage, sort of George wet work and Kate sent the money. And no, she was an extremely busy person. And she was artistic in in every sense of the word. And anything she saw that she hadn't tried, she had to do, and you would not believe some of the things. I remember her son Mike had scoliosis, and when he was in his late teens, they put two steel rods in his back and he had to be lined down for a long period of time. And Kay nursed him But Michael for some reason rather wanted his room painted black. So she painted his room black, and she made him the most enormous light fixture I've ever seen. It was about this big across. It was white in the in this little bedroom, this black bedroom, and it was made up of all things, styrofoam coffee cups, and it made an enormous ball. And when the light went off in the center of that, all the bottoms of those cups all glued. If she made her living room carpet, I would have carpet samples which she went around to the carpet places and gathered and then put together with duct tape she was they were are a very generous people when all my cousins and I from Salt Spring all moved to Vancouver, two of my cousins were looking for an apartment in case at night you can come and live here until you find what you want. So now they're with twin boys and teen, teenage daughter and my two cousins, and K and George and it was then my brother decided to move to Vancouver. So she Kirtland off part of the basement and put a light in there and a bed and that was kids bedroom. And it was just a really loud, raucous, incredible household. When Katie decided that she and Frances were going to go to Hawaii, they had no money for such a thing as the air fares and nevermind stay in a place that coypu so she took up bread baking and it was not unusual for Kay to bake 16 loaves of bread or 20 loaves of bread in a day. And the next morning, she would put that ball in basket and she had a regular route of places houses that she went to. And she thought bread and any anytime it snowed, she's no shoveled, she shoveled people's walkways, and driveways until she had enough money to go to Hawaii with brown. Did that for years. So she, her art was she did everything. Absolutely everything. And as you walk around this afternoon, you'll see examples of her oil painting and her ceramics. Her fabric painting. I do have two samples of that. I'm amazed that we got those because she did those probably back in the 80s. But I did find two T shirts. She made life size dogs out of mink coats, which she got at thrift shops and those days you could get mink coats and muskrat coats and she cut it all sewed it all stuffed it all. And when I very proudly got my main dog. It was like a Pomeranian and I was walking down town in Ganges the day that I picked it up. And I have this thing stuck under my arm. And you can't believe how many people pet it. My main dog. She not only painted but she drew and she sculpted she quilted. I remember two quilts distinctly that she made when she was living at Fulford they had black background and I couldn't find any I'm sorry, I did try because they were such amazing things. And if you're quilters, you'll understand the amount of work that went into this to that I remember one was a daily a quilt. The balloons were about this size. But every pedal was individually sewn and stuffed and applied to the quilt. So they were a three dimensional and I remember her doing one in dailies and one in chrysanthemum every petal sewn and stuffed and apply. They were absolutely amazing. I had never seen anything like them before. I never have since there's just so much work involved in it. But I think she thought them all and probably didn't get nearly enough money. But she sewed she knitted she crocheted. She just did everything because as she said she was so very easily bored. And after doing one of those daily quilts if she did two more, so probably the bored with it and moved on. So there might only be those two, who knows. And that was the same with her knitting she needed incredible sweater. And then she got bored because she had mentored herself out she's done everything she wanted to do with knitting needles. So they moved back to Salt Spring in the 70s. After George retired, he worked for the city of Vancouver Cooper, and we used to call him art because he worked in the sewer system. And we always did the Jackie Gleason thing with them and it never failed to annoy him. We were all kids that were 18 and 19 when we moved to the city and we spent a lot of time at Kent George's because they were totally people we knew we were lonely. So then, later on as she took up dollar making now there's a table in there with 19 of what I call the double dolls. But she called them fairies. So she not only made the doll she made the wigs she made all the clothing. Most of them were wearing underpants because Emily and I checked to make sure everything was up idea that there are more doors because she did sell them. This, believe it or not came from one collection and I can't believe I was lucky enough to fall into it. I just happened to phone this woman one day and I said, Do you have any idea where I could find any of those fairy dolls that came in? And she said, Well, I don't know. I've got about 20 Do you want them? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 10:49
And anybody who lives that Fulford knows that cave was the official Fulford parking police. And if you ever had a run in with the parking police, it wasn't easy. She was determined that people were not going to park where they weren't supposed to. And she made little things to slip under your windshield. And she used to get after the tourists something terrible because they insisted on parking in front of the old gas pump in front of the old Patterson store. She wasn't having that. So she went for coffee every morning at the cafe with Brian Rowley and I don't remember who else used to sit at that table. David MC, yes. Right. And then she went out and harassed all the tourists with her parking police policies. We need to now we need her now. You ever St. Mary's Church and how have a look at your headstone. It's just about halfway up on the left. And after all of the wonderful ideas that she translated into fabric and Canvas and painted, Kay developed dementia. And it was really horrible for all of us who knew her and loved her and all her eccentricities. And eventually, all of her children lived in Australia, it was a very difficult time for everybody. And finally, Kay went to Greenwood. And she had several extremely sad falls and got several golf fractures. And it was a very untidy end for an extremely talented person. So too bad. Life is odd. So have a look at all the wonderful paintings, we've got a beautiful collection of canvases, in all kinds of styles. Even she, she tried acrylic, and I do have one example of the acrylic. She did photography, and I do have to have her nice photographs framed. You didn't think I was gonna let Terry do all the talk. No. Kerry's giving you a great background on I just wanted to point out a couple of things. As you go into the other room, there's a list there with the names of the paintings and the people who donated them for our use for this art show. So I'd welcome you to pick up one of those as well to browse the different items. We have a number of packages of case cards that she produced. I don't know if it was a slip of whatever. But if you want to have package of cards, you're welcome for a donation of $2 to have a package, but be forewarned that each package contains two cards and two envelopes. We don't know we're not going there. But the card

Unknown Speaker 14:09
case, let's put

Unknown Speaker 14:10
it that way. And I just want to end by thanking Carrie for helping to put this all together. Because Carrie has been through a great deal in the last few months with Joe's passing and with her own illness. And so it's just been great that she said catered herself to doing this for us and I personally am very, very grateful because she knows where to find things.