When Karen Bonner Harmon takes a walk through her neighbourhood, she is truly walking down Memory Lane.
Born in North Vancouver, Karen grew up in the Grand Boulevard area a few blocks from where she lives today. The walks along familiar streets brought memories. The more Karen walked, the more her memories returned.
“I realized that memory is like a muscle. The more we use it, the stronger it gets,” she muses.
As a fitness instructor, the analogy made sense to Karen. As a mother and as a woman moving onto the next stage of her life, the walks helped Karen look at her childhood with different eyes.
Karen began to record those memories. With the encouragement of family and friends she shaped them into a memoir she called Looking for Normal.
The book is a tribute to Karen’s parents, Vince and Frances Bonner, and a legacy for her children. It’s also a spot-on portrait of family life in North Vancouver during the 1960s.
Frances Bonner was a homemaker and also managed the family business, Vince Bonner Bulldozing. Vince was known for his ability to estimate and execute jobs accurately. Together, they sponsored a Little League baseball team, known as Bonner’s Dozers. OK, the team ranked near the bottom of the league, but it was definitely the most fun, thanks to Karen’s outgoing father, she explains.
For a sense of the community in those days, here is an image to consider: Karen’s sister, Linda, riding her horse home from Laura Lynn Riding Stables, as it was known back then. The word would spread and soon the neighbourhood kids would be lined up for their turn to ride Tosca up and down the back lane.
The youngest in the family by several years, Karen grew up virtually an only child. Her parents encouraged her dream to become a teacher. The little teacher-to-be set up a summer school with desks donated by the school district, and notebooks purchased with her allowance, leavening the lessons and homework assignments she dispensed with recess, snacks made by Frances and the occasional field trip with Vince.
Vince had a dream too. His came true in 1972 with the purchase of land in Mission. The property was remote and rustic: a log house, wood stove along with a well that ran dry in the summer.
Frances did not share Vince’s dream. She liked their life in North Vancouver: playing bridge, curling, the PTA and neighbourhood block parties, making a home for the family.
The prospect of making a home in 50 acres of forest was too close to her own past. Life for Frances thereafter was clouded by bipolar disorder, with periods of depression alternating with manic highs that continued after she returned to North Vancouver.
“It was like going back in time for my mom, returning to her youth and family members with mental instability, but we didn’t know it at the time. As I move into my own senior years, I’m thinking differently about my parents’ lives. They were products of the Depression and of their own family histories,” explains Karen.
Frances left her home and family in Alberta on Feb. 26, 1941, her 19th birthday. She was bound for Vancouver with a dream of becoming a reporter or a private detective. In the meantime, Frances worked at Boeing Aircraft and lived at Miss Sylvia’s Boarding House for Young Women.
Vince was five years old when his mother left him and her hard-drinking husband, and 13 when he left home. In the logging camps of Northern B.C., the Prairie boy grew into a man with a contagious zest for life, and a need to ensure the happiness of everyone he met.
Vince and Frances met on a blind date at the Cave Supper Club and married in 1946. In 1952, after years of saving and planning, they moved into the new home they built in North Vancouver. The Bonners set about raising their three children and building their business until the day in 1972 when the family moved to Mission.
By 2009, Karen and her own family had returned to the North Shore, and eventually to Grand Boulevard where she spent her childhood. Karen’s dream of becoming a teacher came true. She is a special needs education assistant and a fitness instructor who designs innovative programs for youth with special needs, marginalized people and seniors, in addition to teaching mainstream classes.
In recognition of her work, Karen received the Fitness Leadership of the Year award from the British Columbia Recreation and Parks Association on Sept. 15.
Writing her family story was another dream come true for Karen. “My dad was the storyteller. My mom talked when she was in a bipolar high phase. Seeing their stories unfold as I wrote helped me remember their guidance and essential goodness, and the laughter that filled our home,” she says.
On Sept. 28 at 6:30 p.m., Karen will read from her family memoir, Looking for Normal, at Bean Around the World Coffee at 1575 Pemberton Ave. in North Vancouver. For more information, email Karen at [email protected].
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275 or email her at [email protected].
