The North Vancouver Lawn Bowling Club is winding up its biggest season with a celebration. The Presidents' Tea will take place today, exactly 90 years from the day the club was established in 1923.
Members Dora Caruso, 88, and Isobelle Houston, 78, recently took some time away from party planning to talk about the club's history. They begin in the present and rightly so. If ever a lawn bowling club had an event-packed season, it was 2013.
In August, the North and West Vancouver clubs hosted the Canadian National Lawn Bowling championships, the first time since 1980 for this prestigious sporting event on the North Shore. Planning for the nationals included the deployment of 250 volunteers from North and West Vancouver, and from other Lower Mainland clubs. Volunteers looked after every aspect of the competition, from transportation and catering to greens grooming and game co-ordination.
With the nationals over, the club moved on to the 90th anniversary. The celebration will bring the North Vancouver club's regular season to an end. .. almost.
On Sept. 12, the annual friendly rivalry with the West Vancouver Lawn Bowling Club will culminate with the Rose Bowl, the women's competition, which began in 1942.
The Leyland Cup, the men's prize, held since 1938, will reside with West Vancouver until the trophy's home is decided again next year. The Battle of the Sexes, the North Vancouver club's season closer, will be played on Sept. 15.
The North Vancouver Lawn Bowling Club was established in 1923, though bowling had been popular on the North Shore well before the First World War.
The founders were progressive, supporting the formation of a ladies auxiliary in 1924 to assist men in inter-club games and social events. In 1926, the auxiliary became the North Vancouver Ladies' Lawn Bowling Club. In 1988, 62 years later, the two clubs amalgamated.
Isobelle Houston joined the club in 1978, 10 years before amalgamation, though she had been a spectator since 1960. Isobelle and her husband, Robert, new Canadians recently emmigrated from Scotland, would wheel their baby son up the Lonsdale hill from their apartment at 12th and St. George's to watch the night bowling, the greens illuminated by lights donated and installed by volunteers.
Isobelle's sponsors, Rose Woodward and Muriel Holness, were also her coaches. Isobelle recalls others from that group of mentors - Duncan and Peggy Mitchell, Ida Meldrum and Nellie Hunter - adding a pithy, affectionate description of each one. Mary Milligan, for example, was, "a great little singles player, tough as they come."
It took Isobelle until 1990 to persuade Robert to become a bowler.
"I'm not wearing white clothes with a bunch of old fogies," he'd say.
"You don't know what you're missing," Isobelle would reply.
Robert finally gave in and was an active member and volunteer until he passed away in 2006. Over the years he coached countless new members including Nannely Lawson, the club's current president and fellow southpaw, when she joined in 2000.
Dora Caruso was born in 1925 in Vancouver's Cedar Cottage neighbourhood where, on summer evenings, she watched the Cedar Cottage club at play and dreamed of becoming a lawn bowler. Dora married artist and teacher Gordon Caruso, raised four children and worked for 32 years at The Bay before she joined the North Vancouver club in 1989 and realized her dream.
In 1994, Dora helped organize the club's history, rescuing papers and photographs from the boxes where they had rested for more than 70 years. With the bulk of the material sorted into binders, the archives are relatively easy to maintain. Not that there's much time available. Even in winter, the club is active.
By mid-September, the Rose Bowl's winter home and the Battle of the Sexes will have been decided and the season archived with the 90th anniversary records. The bowls will be put away and the greens will be at rest.
Over the winter, club members will plan tournaments and lead coaching clinics for members new and old. Members will devise strategies to prevail over the West Vancouver club. Darts, crib and bridge tournaments will keep the social and competitive flames alight until it's time to break out the bowls again and the tradition of sportsmanship and camaraderie, played outdoors on deep green lawns, will resume for another season.
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275 or email her at [email protected].
