Pat Kearsey has only recently moved to Stoughton to be near two of her three daughters who live in Forget.
Pat originally grew up in southern Ontario: "I was born in Chatham just out of London, then moved to Toronto when I was a year old, we were there for 10 years and then we moved to Birch Falls and I was there for the rest of my school."
Recalling her parents, Pat smiled widely explaining how they met.
"In about 1919 or 1920 he was working at the garage [doing body and fender work, painting, and front end alignments] and that's how he met my mom. Mom used to drive the car so she ran it up the garage to get it serviced and it ended up that they went out and hit it off and everybody liked him, so that was the big thing there."
Born prematurely, Pat weighed slightly over two pounds, but was a determined baby.
She mostly grew up in Toronto and remembers their house being across from a Catholic Church in the city.
"It was across from the Catholic Church and when the Catholic Church built in those days it took up the whole block," Pat explained. "The nunnery, the priest house, the Catholic Church, the Catholic School, and all the fenced yard for the kids to play in."
She laughed saying, "It was just totally insane actually."
Remembering how the Church stood next to her house made her think of one of her best friends growing up.
"I used to play with all the kids down the street. One of my best girlfriends lived just down the street, just two houses down the street," she explained. Laughing heartily, Pat added, "We went to Church one day with doll's hats on our heads! I said, 'Haven't you got a hat? You've got to wear a hat in Church.' She said, 'No, let's just put the doll's hats on our head.'"
"We were quite a pair."
As a youth Pat attempted to figure skate, even though her balance was poor. She did find skiing and tobogganing much easier to do and thoroughly enjoyed riding a bicycle.
"I rode that for years, I used to ride back and forth to school," Pat remembered.
Following grade 12, Pat went on to take a business course.
Pat later married a military man and for 15 years she followed him to different bases, "I was just the tag along, every place they went unless we weren't allowed to go. I was supposed to go to Germany but they couldn't find large enough living quarters because we had three girls and they figured we needed four bedrooms."
"We actually slept in two bedrooms with us in one and the kids in the one with bunk beds, but they figured we needed four bedrooms. In the housing office was a single man, so how would he really know what a married man would need."
Together Pat and her husband had three girls: "I had all my kids before I was 25 - Virginia, Dorothy, and Peggy. I found out when I named my second girl my mother had that name picked out if they had a second girl, but they never had any more than me."
She smiled saying that her youngest, Peggy, was just Peggy. People always seemed to ask Pat if it was short for Margaret. This was not the case and Pat explained she never knew how they got Margaret from Peggy.
All three of her girls were taught how to sew, with help from not only Pat but from her mother and her great-grandmother as well.
"My grandmother did all hers by hand, quilts and everything, she was a little old white haired lady about 4'10'' because she had a big lump in her back," Pat remembered. "I don't know what that was from, but she came from England like that."
Her husband would later leave the army and take up cabinet making. Though they would split, Pat says they still talk and he in fact sends a newspaper from Ontario each week to her. After their divorce she headed out to British Columbia upon the encouragement of a friend already there.
While in Prince George, Pat would hold various jobs and later fall in love with a man originally from Quebec.
"I married a Frenchman [from Quebec], he did not speak much English and I didn't speak any French because I couldn't get that through my head to save me," Pat explained.
It was in British Columbia that Pat came across an area where her father had once worked.
"My dad came out here when he was about 15, he went through to the coast on the grain train from Ontario," she explained.
Once out in British Columbia he worked as a logger, not felling trees but transporting them to the mill. Later he would reach the coast and find work there as well.
"He worked near Frank's Slide skidding logs downhill with horses then he worked at the coast and worked on a tugboat at the coast."
While working with the tugboat he would take logs to the mill or help take flour, sugar, fresh water, and other necessities up the coast for the workers.
"Then he barged a pump up the coast to where the old [Vedder River and Sumas Lake] used to be, he took the old gas pump up there to pump farmland dry into the canal," Pat said.
"I took a trip down there one day and I asked where would the lake bottom be from here, she said, 'Well, would you believe you're standing on the lake bottom?' I pretty-near died, I never thought I'd see it."
Pat has now been in Stoughton for one year and has found it to be quite enjoyable. Her daughter Dorothy was already living in Forget, while her youngest daughter Peggy recently moved out to Forget as well. While her eldest daughter, Virginia, lives in Alberta.
