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Deep Cove resident and former wartime 'passer girl' ready to celebrate 100 years

Hazel Best helped build Deep Cove after catching red-hot rivets at the North Vancouver Shipyards
Hazel Best credit Janet Pavlik WEB
Deep Cove Hazel Best is looking sharp as she gets ready to celebrate her 100th birthday.

With her 100th birthday coming up on Nov. 17, Hazel Best will join many centennials on the North Shore!

It must be the mountain air that does it. However, this Deep Cove lady is certainly a legend in her own time, and still has a memory like a steel trap.

I first met Hazel in the 1970s when I was writing a weekly column for the North Shore Citizen newspaper, a forerunner of the North Shore News. The column was called Around Deep Cove. Meeting local residents like Hazel inspired me to seek out other old-timers to learn more about the early days in Deep Cove. I started a photo collection which went on to become the Deep Cove Heritage Society.

We were a new family to the area with young children, and I soon learned how difficult it was living here without medical facilities, little or no commercial businesses, or good transportation services in the area.

Hazel filled me in about life as it was when she arrived here in 1942. Born in Kamloops and brought up in the mill town of Salmo, she was familiar with small town life and found the atmosphere of the small village of Deep Cove a very happy place. Having emerged from being a summer resort, the Cove was beginning to grow during these war years with very inexpensive lots for sale. Away from the waterfront, building lots were being sold for $50. She recalls that these lots were very wet and soggy and there was little or no hardpan.

She and husband Norm rented a house for $15 a month with no hot water or phone, and they quickly became very active in the community with life revolving around the church, a small hall located behind Dupre’s store on Gallant Avenue that provided space for social gatherings including dances every Saturday night. There were card parties, meetings, dinners, and services for all denominations. It was lovely, she says.

During the war years Hazel worked for the North Vancouver Shipyards as a passer girl, (catching red hot rivets in a tin cone and passing them to the riveter!). It is worth mentioning here that North Vancouver Museum and Archives have displays and presentations on these marvellous girls and their contributions to the war effort and ship building.

Hazel remembers dances later at the pavilion at the foot of Gallant Avenue on the beach when fishing boats full of Italians would arrive from East Vancouver for a fun night out. A roller rink was later built in front of the pavilion. The log cabins of the Deep Cove Motel followed later.

Getting to and from the Cove was a huge challenge in those days. There was only one commuter bus in the morning to downtown Vancouver and one home in the afternoon. Hazel had to connect with a local ferry back over to North Vancouver in order to get to work. We think we have problems getting to Lonsdale these days! It took her all day to get over there and back for doctors appointments.

Today we think of home delivery of goods as something new, but catalogue buying was essential in those early days. Hazel remembers some locals ordering all their furniture by catalogue. Delivery up steep driveways, or up hundreds of steps to houses built in the bush, caused companies such as Eaton’s and Woodward’s many headaches! In the 40s milk, bread, eggs, and groceries were also delivered.

Hazel recalls that talk of a third crossing goes back more than 40 years. A plan still exists in the archives of the Vancouver council for a crossing from foot of Mount Seymour Parkway to Port Moody connecting to Highway 1. This would have given ferry traffic to Horseshoe Bay a bypass of Vancouver. She said locals and others screamed that they didn’t want any of that. Imagine those living in Seymour and Deep Cove would have been living under a huge causeway!

It is no wonder that Hazel has always said “my car is my life,” and into her 90s she was still driving and giving anyone a lift if they needed one.

Husband Norm worked as a carpet layer for Eaton’s downtown for 32 years and Hazel worked for Woodward’s for 22 years. With three children – Susan, Marjorie and Bill – life was busy. She attended PTA meetings at Roche Point school, and became the health convenor. Active with her kids in Brownies, Guides, Cubs and Scouts, Hazel says there was never a dull moment. She says there was never a worry about the kids as they swam at the beach, climbed the mountain skiing or went out in a boat. Neighbours and friends watched over them. Some years the water was so cold the ocean froze some distance from the beach and they even ice skated!

When Norm died Hazel moved into the Gary Ham Lions complex at Parkway, a housing project built by Mount Seymour Lions Club and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. She continued with her volunteer work, especially at the new Parkgate Seniors Society in the new community centre. She involved herself in all their activities and became one of the principal chefs at the weekly lunches.

But it wasn't all work – Hazel had itchy feet and loved to travel. She travelled back into the interior many times and visited family who are spread out across Canada. She joined me on many of my “ladies cruise groups” and loved Florida and the Caribbean sun.

Hazel tells stories of a river flowing from Deep Cove Road down into the Cove and flooding many years ago, reminds us that the storm sewer replacement taking place in the Cove as we speak is long overdue.

Today Hazel lives a very comfortable life with many friends around her in the Parc Cedar Springs senior residence at Parkgate, and delights in visits from grandchildren and great grandchildren. She told me last week she certainly has lived in the best of times. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Hazel my friend.

Janet Pavlik is a former columnist with the North Shore Citizen newspaper, a precursor to the North Shore News, and a founder of the Deep Cove Heritage Society.