Good turn out at the Alexis Creek Hospital centennial reunion on Saturday. Some of us were surprised to realize we are now the “old folks.’’
I was a patient in the hospital twice. Once for a week for the birth of Son #4, (the nurse, Kathleen Telford, known to my children as Nurse Granny, didn’t believe in sending mothers home asap). Some time later, again with Mrs. T, I had some kind of flu/infection with a high temperature and she nursed me through that.
She also saw Son#2 through a tick bite (often fatal in those days).
A goodly number of people were born in the hospital. My sister-in-law Mary Knoll may hold a record, though. She was born there, later worked there, and her first child was born there.
I hadn’t been out to the Chilcotin for a while but it is just as big and beautiful as it was when I first saw it in September 1951.
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Two things have been bugging me lately. One is the wide variation in reports on the Mount Polley Mine tailings pond breach. Deciding who to believe was resolved last Friday when the Freshwater Alliance and the Council of Canadians hosted an hour-long program on YouTube. Speakers Jacinda Mack from Xat’sull First Nation, Amy Cook from Fair Mining BC, and Ramsey Hart from Mining Watch Canada had the latest information. It is well worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nff6DZ0VZAg&feature=youtu.be
Thing # 2 is the number of teacher-scoffers who claim class size can’t be a problem because there were 30 kids in a class when they went to school and everyone did OK.
Well, I attended a school once with 48 kids in grades one to eight (it was known as the worst school on the B.C. coast) and I turned out OK, too. I even taught some large classes BUT anyone who does some homework will learn it’s a very, VERY different world today, and classrooms reflect that.
Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.
