oral histories

Tell us about your family.

My parents arrived from the Netherlands with very little money, less than $100 in their pockets each. Their immediate concern was, obviously, to get a job and, eventually, they were able then to start their own farm because my dad wanted to be a farmer. My mother wanted that as well. So, in 1956, they bought the farm on Westminster Highway. It was an old farmhouse with a single barn, very primitive as you can see in the picture but it was progress for them because my mother liked the house. It was a new home but, as you can see, there was no white picket fence. It didn’t have the American Dream that most people would be looking for at that time. My mother wanted to be on a street where there would be traffic because she wanted to start a roadside business and sell vegetables to customers. Eventually, that dream became a reality establishing W & A Farms Ltd.

What was Richmond like when you were growing up?

The winters here were very cold in the years of the ‘50s, ‘60s. I remember playing ice hockey on Westminster Highway and there wasn’t a car to be seen. We used to skate on the cranberry fields during the winter and there were opportunities for barbecues then as well. We ended up doing a lot of tobogganing, when there were opportunities like sand piles… I remember the Lansdowne Racetrack, the farming communities that Richmond had, bus service along Westminster Highway on a Friday evening… so we could go shopping or do some skating in Richmond at the Richmond Skating [Arena].

Who worked on your farm?

My dad would go to John Oliver High School in Vancouver to pick up our strawberry pickers for our farm during the early years because a lot of high school students spent their summers picking strawberries or picking farm vegetables, because that was the thing to do. They earned their money during the summer. There were no adults to do that…. I learned to be the strawberry boss. I think I learned some of my working with students because of working in strawberry fields and strawberry patches. Strawberry fields forever, as the Beatles used to say!

How did you go from being a farm girl into an academic?

It was a family effort to be successful, and if we were successful, my parents felt that they were successful. That certainly brought lots of opportunities. I played a lot of sports in high school. I did a lot of public speaking in high school. I won a number of trophies by doing Bible reading and doing public speaking. That was all part of my high school experience and, I think, leant itself to going into the teaching profession, eventually. I think all that students who do extracurricular [activities] in high school have great opportunities and benefits in the future… There’s so much that this world has to offer. A child can never see all the opportunities that lie before them, unless we as teachers open doors for those children. I travelled with students across in Europe and across Canada. …our students experienced life in Grand Falls, Newfoundland and in Chicoutimi, Quebec, in Chicoutimi, and in Ottawa, Ontario. Those student experiences are remarkable and open up an awful lot of opportunities for students outside of the school.

Tell us about what you have learned from your extensive community work.
I have learned that I cannot do anything alone. I can create ideas and I can start a project, but I need people to help me to carry out the missions, and I need people to help me carry out the visions that you have. The more people that you’ve networked with in life, the more people will come back to help you in the future.

…My father, with the “Holland Revisited Society” in 1995, coordinate the 50th Liberation [of the Netherlands at the end of World War II by Canadian soldiers].  The Society sent 35 Canadian soldiers to the Netherlands to see the country they had liberated.  So, I thought, well, now it’s 25 years later since my father played that role. Again, he didn’t do it alone. He did it with a group of people that helped him to carry out the vision. I thought, well, maybe there is a message here. So, I, with my vice president of the Dutch Network, which is the Netherland’s Association “Je Maintiendrai,” we created the Dutch Liberation 2020 Canadian Society as a non-profit organization. [One idea we had was to] colour the province red in tulips. Well, how are we going to do that? So, we got a grower on board… through my networking, he trusted my vision and came on board. Together, we sold many tulips throughout British Columbia. We made presentations to city councils. The Royal Canadian Legion had partnered with us then, to carry out the vision. They were going to do commemorative services in May 2020 and our Society was going to be hosting a very significant send off for the Seaforth Highlanders and a Candlelight Vigil at Mountain View Cemetery on May 2, 2020.  Over one million tulips were planted across Canada.  Vancouver, Richmond and others bought thousands and thousands of tulips.  But in March 2020, with the onset of COVID, many commemorative events and gatherings were cancelled.

No one can do anything alone. You need to have people that share in your vision, that trust you, and your reputation is all you have to go on. If people have known that you’ve done work in the past that’s been successful, then people will frequently come on board when they see a new vision or a new opportunity. Does it take a lot of hard work and extra work on the part of the leader? Yes. … I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the geese, how they fly in a V, and if you watch the geese, how they exchange positions when the goose on the front gets tired, he switches positions with someone at the back who then takes the leadership role.

You have an opportunity to grow as well. So, community and working together goes a long way… It’s a give and it’s a take but, often, it’s more giving because through giving you also enrich the lives of others. It’s important for a leader to see the potential in others and that’s what you do when you network, you also see the potential in other people and you can enrich their lives. So, then they grow and then they start to network and they can start to make the circle even bigger creating a better community for all.