Obituary of Bernice Ellen Harper

Bernice Ellen Harper 1924 ~ 2012 Bernice Ellen Alexander Harper was born on June 19th 1924 in Bethune, Saskatchewan to William and Jane and passed away on June 8, 2012 at the age of 87. At the age of 5 the family moved to Taylor, which she always referred to as Peaceview. Those were happy times for Mom. All five of her uncles and an aunt and their families moved at the same time and the school was filled with Alexanders. In fact for years she would talk about the "its” who were the only other kids in the school. We thought it was quite rude to refer to non-Alexanders as "its” until we found out years later that the kids’ last name was Itz. In 1934 Mom’s family left Peaceview and moved to Rolla and rented the Hostrum quarter to farm. These were tough times for the family and Mom talked about the year the hail wiped out the crop and there would be no Christmas presents that year. But being resourceful all the kids got a home-made gift. Mom got a baby carriage made from a grape carton. Lasting friends were made in Rolla but they were able to purchase the Harper homestead in 1937 and so moved to the farm where Mom lived until she left home to go to school. She lived with families in Dawson Creek to help with the children in exchange for room and board so that she could continue going to school. But she later moved in with the Glover and Jean Lawrence family and her good friend Georgine. Famous bush pilots would spend the night and there were dances to attend. On weekends Mom would return home to the farm. At sixteen Mom was asked to return to the farm to help feed the thrashing crews as Grandma was ill and needed to be hospitalized. Mom took great pride in the meals that she would serve the workers. This is when Mom learned to cook. She always wished she could have completed her high school but she enjoyed the time of looking after her father and younger siblings. She could make a meal from next to nothing. And her baking was the best. The freezer always had squares and butter tarts. When anyone came to visit the goodies would come out of the freezer. The grandchildren thought butter tarts were supposed to be eaten when they were chewy from the freezer. In 1944 mom worked at the Rexall Drug Store on the corner of 10th street and 102nd avenue. She sold perfume and cattle immunizations and sometimes by accident, Agua Velva to some of the guys who would drink it. This was the time of the building of the highway and her work was one block from the railway station where all the troops would disembark. She had stories of GIs coming in to buy perfume to court the girls. The town was booming and dances and parties were held every weekend. In 1945 Mom met Dad at a South Dawson dance. Everyone had to pile into the rough box in the back of Linklater’s truck to come back to town. Dad started spending a lot of time at the drug store and in 1946 they were married. Mom said she thought Dad looked like Clark Gable and that she was marrying a movie star. Mom then went to work at Harper store where she worked in the ladies wear. She told stories of GI’s lined up the whole block to buy silk stockings for the women. Mom knew clothes and loved them. She had beautiful formal dresses that later became dress-up clothes for grandchildren. While managing the ladies wear, the profits were high, the ladies wear and hardware made the most money those years. Her work life came to and end when the first baby was on the way. Doug was born on Christmas Eve in 1947. One and a half years later Jane was born. The family seemed to be complete. But once Jane went to school, Mom didn’t want to have no kids at home so John was born. Then six years later when John started school, Tom was born. We went on lots of picnics, Sunday drives, snowball fights, tobogganing, skiing, picking crocuses every spring, picking saskatoons and chokecherries every fall. There were family vacations to Vancouver Island, the Okanagan, lots of gravel roads and running out of gas, stranded in towns when one of the kids would end up sick, John catching our tent on fire, and all kinds of adventures. Mom was always telling Dad what to do. Once leaving a motel in the early morning she heard whistling and told Dad it was too early to be whistling, that he would wake up the other guests. Then she realized we weren’t alone and it was some other man doing the whistling. But he did stop. And Mom would just laugh. Catching herself doing something embarrassing was very humorous to her. In 1961 the land was purchased and a cottage was built at Moberly Lake. Summers were spent fishing and swimming and bonfires on the beach. Mom made homemade wine and sometimes the kids would get into it at the lake without Mom knowing it. Once Tom’s friend had to be taken home and explanations made to his family because he was so inebriated. The kids’ teen years were fun times in the house. There was always laughter. If we were out partying Mom always wanted us to tell her about the evening, who was there, who did we dance with. As long as we were having fun and no one was hurt, she was happy. Playing tricks on people, finding humour in ourselves and others made the home happy. Mom would laugh so hard, she wouldn’t be able to tell us what was funny. Finding a turnip with a really long root would be a good opportunity to pull it through the door where little Tom would think it was a rat’s tail. Or letting John drink a glass of water that was on her painting table and then telling him it was turpentine. Mom and Doug were making root beer one summer and there were empty beer bottles all over the room, then the door bell rang and it was some religious visitors. She was embarrassed and tried to explain that it they were making root beer but after they left she thought about how the room looked with bottles everywhere and a mother and son brewing something up and giggled until she couldn’t talk. Mom learned to paint and loved her time with the art society. Her station wagon always had an easel and drawing and painting supplies. And every pan in the kitchen had paint on it. Some days there would be tissue paper covering the whole kitchen floor if she was making a collage. And the table always had a tea pot with strong tea, maybe luke-warm with real cream. And bread baking and sometimes fried dough after school. Mom loved her flower garden in pastel colours and loved to paint them. Mom loved her trips to Hawaii. On the first trip Dad rented a limousine to pick them up at the airport. Mom was feeling pretty special with everyone wondering who the celebrities were. Until Dad got in the limousine and not realizing how far back the seats were, sat on the floor. That’s the kind of thing that would break Mom up. When Robbin and Heather were born, Mom devoted her life to her grandchildren. She loved to babysit all of her eight grandchildren and watch them play. She also adopted Tom’s Rottweiler, Zeus. Everyday she and Zeus would go out for a walk. And he protected her from any stranger coming into the yard. If her children or grandchildren got into some trouble, well mostly Tom, it was never their fault; it was the kids they were hanging out with. Mom was fierce in her mothering. She would take on anyone to protect her family, whether it was her own kids, her sisters and brothers or her nieces and nephews. She leaves a legacy of loving nature, protecting the environment, loving animals, her art work, her devotion to family, her humour, her home-cooked meals and the close family that we are today. She will be missed but remain in the hearts of her husband of 66 years, Robert Harper, her children Doug (Rose), Jane, John (Pat), Tom (Tracy), her daughter-in-law Rhonda Harper, her grandchildren Robbin Rae, Heather Harper, Aaron Harper (Maria), Quinn Harper, Matti Harper, Tyler Field, Cassandra Harper and Wes Harper and her great-grandchildren Audrey Jane Baker and Rosalie Harper. Recently found in a letter Mom wrote to a grandchild was this quote. "Sometimes when one person is missing the whole world seems depopulated”. Alphonse de Lamartine. Our world seems depopulated without Mom. A funeral service was held at the Bergeron Funeral Chapel on Wednesday June 13, 2012 at 11:00 am, officiated by Reverend Marilyn Carroll. Internment followed at Brookside cemetery, Dawson Creek.