Pamela Hollington and her sisters grew up to the sounds of their mother at work. "She was the fastest two finger touch typist ever - and accurate," recalls Pamela, whose university digs were close to her mother's office at Women's College Hospital in Toronto. "I'd go to meet her at the office and there she'd be, banging away, a mile a minute."
The memories go back even further. In the evenings, out would come the knitting or the sewing machine. Jean's four daughters did their homework to the clickety-click of the needles and the hum of the sewing machine as it turned out winter coats and Sunday dresses.
"My mom could knit as fast as she could type. It's a family story that she could knit a sweater in two days: the front and back while on the train to and from work, then do the two sleeves the next day. All while reading a book."
Jean was working as a data entry clerk in Belfast, Northern Ireland when she met Arthur Boal, an architectural draftsman who worked in the same company. They married in 1955 and immigrated to Canada to begin their life together.
Art was called to the ministry and as Jean helped with his studies, she, too, felt the call. They decided Jean's turn for education in the ministry would come once Art was established.
The family was living in Climax, Sask., where Art was completing the settlement requirements for a minister in the United Church when he died suddenly. It was 1967 and Jean and her daughters were on their own. They returned to Toronto where Jean found work with the United Church and went back to school.
"I was not aware that my mother was going to school in Toronto until she was graduating," says Pamela. "I truly don't know how she managed in those times, as a single mother with a job, four children and schooling."
Though content to serve the church as a deaconess, Jean followed her minister's advice and was ordained as a minister.
After an active career as chaplain with Women's College Hospital, Jean retired in 1993 to spend more time with her second husband, Bas Crabtree. Cottage life and travel filled their lives until Bas died in 2011. The following year, Jean moved west to North Vancouver where she has become an active member of Highlands United Church.
For the church, Jean knits prayer shawls and for the Mission to Seafarers in Vancouver, she knits caps for the sailors. With Pamela, she volunteers at North Vancouver's Lookout Shelter.
Jean and Pamela were looking for another volunteer project they could do together. They found it in the neonatal nursery at Lions Gate Hospital. The connections with the hospital and with the babies and their families made sense for mother and daughter. Jean cherishes her memories of the babies in the nursery at Women's College Hospital and Pamela had donated her sewing expertise to neonatal nurseries in hospitals in Toronto and in Vancouver.
"I made up a pattern for incubator covers and mom and I got to sewing. The day we started was interesting. My mother had taught we four sisters to sew. Well, I'm not sure she taught us, but she made all our clothes for us growing up so we could have just 'absorbed' the skill. Mother had never used a serger so I got to teach her how to use my machine," recalls Pamela.
"I never thought to keep track of how many covers or receiving blankets we made. Once we got going, the projects just keep rolling in." Their next project: covers and blankets in seasonal colours and patterns.
"The sewing we do for the nursery is a real boost for both of us. Delivery days are great. The nursery is cheerful with brightly coloured blankets and we both light up at the sight of the little babies. Sewing for the babies helps everybody: the babies, the parents, hospital staff and it helps us, too."
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275 or email her at [email protected].
