This is one of my favourite pictures of my biological mother, Elizabeth (nee Evans) Fleming, when she was about 11 years old. She looked confident and on some kind of business, walking downtown on Granville Street. She was a champion swimmer and became a journalist during WWII. She lost her job when the war was over as they were no longer interested in women journalists. She moved away and taught English in Quebec, then worked in Ottawa where she met her future husband, an American studying in Ottawa.

Betty has been living in a facility for several years. Over the past weekend her care has been downgraded to ‘palliative’, meaning they will provide what they can for comfort but no medical intervention. She is 87 years old. I have called my two sisters (Oklahoma, New York) to inform them of this change and to prepare to come to Vancouver for her funeral. The three of us sisters have never been in the same room all at once.

I walked up to Mountain View Cemetery today to find out more about costs etc. to have her buried with her father, Charles Edward Evans.

The Evans section is four plots at OLD/3/2/21 and is directly in front of the most prominent grave marker at Mountain View, just under the tree in the foreground on the left.

I want to be buried here in the plot on the far end, under the tree, in #16. This is where my great-uncle John W. is buried, who died as an infant in 1899. With him is his older sister Laura Winifred, who died in 1958.

Mountain View supports green burials. We will be burying Betty in a simple casket that Daniel is currently building. She will be at rest after a challenging life.