In the treasury of books, art and family heirlooms that is Fran Ashdown’s home, three pieces define Fran and her parents, Ruth and Frank Arnaud.
A library card catalogue represents Fran’s career as a children’s librarian with North Vancouver District Library. A ham radio in the kitchen: promises Fran and her father, a radio operator, made to one another.
“Dad promised to install the radio when I got my amateur radio license. It was very difficult but I did it, and I remember Dad’s joy the day he set up the radio.”
And then there’s George, a large puppet resembling Raggedy Andy crossed with a Sesame Street character. Ruth made him to be a companion for Fran at storytelling at the library.
“After I retired, I wanted to continue telling stories, and I do, for the YWCA at Crabtree Corner and Emma’s Place. George is always sleeping when we begin, and the children help wake him up so he can listen to the day’s stories.”
George, the radio and the card catalogue belong to a story that began in 1949, when the Arnaud family was posted to Estevan Point, on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
“At Estevan, I had the best of worlds: a stay-at-home mom, correspondence lessons in the mornings, and the rest of the day off on my own, always a huge adventure waiting outside our door.”
A day’s adventure might be a visit to another family – there were five in total nearby – but Fran’s best friend was her imagination. For rainy days, there was the trunk (made by Frank) to house a set of doll clothes (made by Ruth). When the weather was fine, Fran was outdoors, immersed in nature and in the small worlds she created from driftwood and shells and seaweed.
Then, as now, access to this remote piece of coast was by air or water to Hesquiat Harbour.
Supplies offloaded from the Maquinna steamship were trucked five miles along a plank road to the lighthouse and weather station at Estevan. Sometimes the delivery would include a book.
“Every package was a present, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. I would untie the string and open the paper and there would be a book. My mother read to me every night. I always begged for one more chapter and she would soldier on.”
In this remote place, Fran absorbed lessons about self-reliance and self-sufficiency along with her schooling. Fran’s parents encouraged the development of her creative, active mind, an essential condition for those values to thrive, and nature in all its elemental glory offered boundless scope for a curious child.
Three years on, when Fran was six, the family was posted to Victoria.
“Mom went back to work as a nurse. I would watch as she put on her black cape with red lining and her white cap with its black velvet band, all starched, pristine and wonderful.”
By 1957, the family was settled in North Vancouver. Fran read her way through the community library, met Dave, her future husband, in the chess club at Delbrook high school, and went on to library school and to raise her own daughters.
Ruth was director of the North Vancouver Victorian Order of Nurses. She started the first homemaker service on the North Shore, providing meals, cleaning, laundry and companionship.
When service clubs built seniors housing, the VON brought nursing to people in residential care. In 1991, to mark North Vancouver’s centennial, Ruth was one of 100 people presented with a Distinguished Citizen award.
Fran and Dave moved into the family home when Ruth and Frank relocated to Vancouver Island.
“We walk through the rooms they walked through, we sleep in the bedroom they slept in. Their kindly spirits watch over us, and remind us when it’s time to paint the house.
“I remember Mom reading A.A. Milne’s books to me until I could read on my own and then I read them until they disintegrated. One of his poems reminds me most of my mother:
Tattoo was the mother of Pinkle Purr, a little black nothing of feet and fur;
And by-and-by, when his eyes came through, he saw his mother, the big Tattoo;
And all that he learned, he learned from her.”
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275 or e-mail her at [email protected].
