For more than 70 years, Hazel Best has made her home in Deep Cove.
Until last month, she had no plans to move. On the morning of Nov. 25, one week after her 92nd birthday, damage from a fire in Hazel's building rendered her suite uninhabitable.
It wasn't the loss of her home that bothered Hazel. No, what was on her mind was, "Who would make the lunch today at Parkgate Community Centre?" Besides, this wasn't the first time that fire had taken Hazel's home.
She was born Hazel Dorey in Heffley Creek, outside Kamloops on Nov. 17, 1921 and raised in Salmo in the West Kootenays, where her father, Fred, was a topnotch sawyer in the local mill.
Every year on Christmas Day, Fred Dorey hitched a four-horse team to the mill's dray, on runners in the winter, and drove the make-shift sleigh around town, collecting all the children, everyone singing Christmas carols. The carolling party of 1932 was especially meaningful for 11-year-old Hazel and her family.
Fire struck the Dorey home in September of that year and burned the house and everything in it to the ground. By Christmas, the family had a brand new home, built by neighbours from lumber donated by the mill.
The new house stood on the highway at the edge of town, a frequent stop for men on the tramp or riding the rails. Not one of those men was refused a meal, Hazel remembers.
Times were hard in those Depression years; perhaps not as hard in Salmo as in other towns. The mines were working, Hazel's brothers ran the dairy and just about every home had a garden - and a piano. There were skating parties, sleigh rides and dances all year round at the community hall. The Salmo teams played baseball in the summer and hockey in the winter, competing against Fruitvale, Nelson and Trail.
Norman Best was a dairyman by day and a star hockey player on the towns' outdoor rinks. Hazel played hockey too, and baseball. "I was too short for first base, but I could throw," she says, and hit, run and catch.
Hazel and Norman married in 1941 and the following year, with baby Susan, they moved west to work in the shipyards. They settled in Deep Cove where Norm's mother and sister were living. He cut steel plates and Hazel was a passer girl, catching redhot rivets in a tin cone and passing them to the riveter.
They rented "the Lois house" on Deep Cove Road (no street numbers back then), furnished, no telephone or hot water, for $15 a month. Hazel and Norm purchased the house in 1943, adding on when children Marjorie and Bill arrived. They lived there until 1969, when they built a new house a block away.
Like Salmo, Deep Cove was a close-knit community where the Bests and their friends made their own fun - sleigh rides and picnics, card parties and dances at The Pavilion.
After the Second World War, Hazel went to work at Woodward's and helped out in her community. Besides the PTA, Brownies, Cubs and Girl Guides, Hazel served as health convener for the Well Baby Clinic and volunteered with the Keep Well community program.
As Deep Cove grew, activities for babies, seniors and all ages in between were crammed into the community hall and elementary school. Hazel was one of the many Deep Cove residents who worked to establish a permanent community centre in Parkgate.
She volunteers with the Deep Cove Heritage Society and has served on the Seycove and Parkgate Seniors Advisory Council, advocating for the interests of her fellow seniors.
Hazel has volunteered at Parkgate since it opened in 1999. She makes coffee and treats, dishes up her famous chicken soup when it's her turn on the lunch roster and helps wherever there's a need.
Hazel needed a hand on that cold November morning and her community of more than 70 years rallied round. Friends and family pitched in to cover lunch that day, preparing sandwiches and Hazel's famous chicken soup.
Through the good offices of Parkgate Seniors' Centre and Hollyburn Family Services, Hazel has a new home at Cedar Creek Retirement Residence.
She moves in Jan. 2, 2014.
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. 778-279-2275 [email protected]