Barbara Butler’s life story as told to Margot Leigh Butler


Barbara Elizabeth Parry was born in 1926 in Saskatoon, and lived with her dog Joey, her sister Joan, her mum Lil and dad Harold in a house that was built by her father (who came from a Liverpool lumber family) and was surrounded by a lilac hedge that would bloom the white winter away. Her school, City Park Collegiate, was a little too nearby; to gain her freedom, she’d cycle—while singing—wherever she went. Early on her talent for singing was recognized, and she was a soloist in the cathedral, accompanied by a pipe organ, and sang at many events and weddings, delighting in joining the congregation by introducing the bride’s side to the groom’s side of the family. She had the gift of bringing people together with such ease and grace. During this time, Barbara’s voice, like her bicycle, carried her to interesting spots, including singing on the local CBC radio station.

As we all know, voice travels. Barbara had a host of close relatives in England with whom her Mum had kept constant postal connections since she emigrated in 1917. When Lil’s mother died in Liverpool, it turned out that every stitch of her bed linen had been sent from Canada. During the WW2 food rationing, Lil sent food, too, including all the ingredients for Christmas cakes, cleverly concealing fresh eggs in melted lard that firmed up inside baking powder tins. In 1953, Barbara decided to take herself on a Cunard liner to England to meet her distant family in person; her Uncle George was the Purser, and invited her to sit at the head table.

This first visit to England, to the bosom of her extended family, was a cardinal point in Barbara’s life. She often talked about the joyousness of being there when the food ration came off, so much later than people in Canada assumed. The year 1953 embodies another cardinal point: the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Barbara only recently told her family that, as a Canadian citizen in England, she had been invited to the coronation! She wasn’t able to go, but their lives were in lived in counterpoint (though it’s doubtful that the Queen rode around the English countryside on the back of a handsome fellah’s motorbike….).

Barbara returned to Saskatoon sooner than planned to be with her beloved mother during the last weeks of her life. Working as the Assistant Credit Manager at the Hudson’s Bay in downtown Saskatoon, Barbara spied a fresh Englishman in the China Department (a tall, thin young man from Stoke-on-Trent in the Potteries). She invited him over for supper where he would meet Lil and Harold. The story goes that the sound of the vacuum releasing on the pickled beet jar sealed the deal! Barbara and Frank’s first date was a double date with Marie and Colin Elliott, from Nottingham, who became their lifelong best friends. When Frank popped the question, Barbie said “Yes, please!”, shook Frank’s hand and kissed her father! We later figured out that their ships had literally passed in the night, when Frank was immigrating to Canada and Barbie was on her voyage to England.

Frank soon moved into hospital administration, first in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, where Jody (Joanne Elizabeth) was born in 1956; then in Selkirk, Manitoba, where Margot (Margot Leigh) and David (David Mark Ormond) were born in ‘59 and ’63. In ’59, Barbara and Frank flew their little family to meet their English relatives (Margot, 4 months old, was placed in a “carry cot” in the upper luggage rack!). Barbie saw her own dear relatives from Lil’s Bowman family again, and met Frank’s father Austin, known as Joe, and his mother, Alice, his sister Eileen, and brothers Dave and John who also had young families in Stoke.

Barbara was always a great one for giving, and she especially loved finding just the right gift and card for the special people in her life. She was carrying on the tradition she’d had spent her childhood learning from her mother: staying close to loved ones near and far through letters, cards and gifts (not to mention the phone!). Butler family holidays, taken twice a year, involved throwing gifts and bags into our capacious trunk (weren’t they all, then?) and meeting the Elliotts—Marie, Colin and sons Allan, Philip and Keith—, family and friends for some fun, and if possible, a little mild danger. In the late ‘60s, the Butlers and Elliotts moved house to BC, far enough apart to make seeing each other a special treat, yet near enough to be close. We’d spend time with Marie’s sister Hilda, her husband Bill Brown and their children; Colin’s sister Betty, her husband Tom Nonay and their daughters Elizabeth, Gillian and Jennifer; with Barbara’s sister Joan, her husband Mac and their daughter Barb; with Val and Tony Cox and their sons David and Mark, and of course, with other assorted rogues and rapscallions. There were parties, there was dancing, martinis were quaffed, roasts, left forgotten in the oven, burned….

In 1967, Barbara, Frank and their kids moved their nest to 407 Ashley Street in Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver, and lived there happily for 45 years. The house was almost hidden by seven tall cedar and fir trees in the front yard, and the back yard was a roomy suntrap, perfect for gardening and playing. Barbara was always interested in the north. She visited Jody when she was researching in the High Arctic, and later Jody’s family in Yellowknife and Whitehorse; and she and Frank had a sojourn of their own in the Arctic, living in the hamlet of Cambridge Bay from ‘88 to ‘90. In 2012, they sold 407 and moved to the 17th floor of a high-rise tower nearby. Without skipping a beat, they were suddenly erudite in the ways of tower living, ‘au fait’ with elevator culture and still independent, with a little help from Mum’s stylish red walker. With a view of Mount Baker and of the intricate building of a new Skytrain line nearby, they thoroughly enjoyed their three year stay, calling it their second honeymoon.

From her comfy chair, aloft, Barbara maintained her constant love of books (David is never without a book or three) and her love of learning, staying current with the world’s events, and applying her critical intelligence to connect possible futures with lively pasts (her grandson Nathan follows her there). She was an astute judge of character, clearly seeing, for example, a Prime Minister’s motivations, skills and shortcomings. She was wise. We sought her council on so many concerns and issues about people, love, work, our fears and our dreams. Barbara’s motto always featured: “If it’s productive, work at it. If not, let it go,” a trait that lives on in her granddaughter Zoe. She was both generous and discerning. Dad always knew that with the large number of murder mysteries she’d read (well into the thousands), she knew a lot of ways to bump him off, so he needed to watch his Ps and Qs….

In so many ways, Barbara was an education advocate. When we got home from school, our mother always asked us what we’d learned in school that day; around the dinner table, we’d have discussions. She took a real interest in our studies, and she engaged with our thoughts and questions as if we were peers. She taught us to love words—read, spoken and sung—and made it natural for us to go to the library and to do our homework; she helped us with our projects, and instilled a love of learning for its own sake that has lasted through two generations, so far (in fact, some of us can’t seem to get out of school!!). She loved to give magazine subscriptions and books to children, “OWL” to the children of their lovely neighbours, the Sivuchas, and recently spread this love to a third+ generation of family friends, the Harris’, who live in London. Barbara believed that self-confidence is the most important gift a parent can give to their children, and the dream of her life was to be a mother.

Barbara and Frank worked hard and thoroughly enjoyed their holidays to Mexico, Hawaii, Cuba, Australia, and Asia where David and Ayah treated them to an unforgettable stay at the legendary “Mandarin Oriental” in Bangkok. When Barbara was curious, interested, enthusiastic, her eyes shone, like her red tresses that turned peachy as she aged, carefully tended by her friend Wendy. She had a melodious voice, and though she lost her trained singing voice, she confessed that she sang silently in her head all the time, only sometimes along with the music the rest of us could hear (Margot and Jody have her voice).

Over her lifetime, Barbara was involved with many communities: active in the church when she was young, and avidly knitting socks and hats for Navy sailors (Zoe sure has her flair for knitting, and her groundedness); she was the Chairman of the Board of Fraser Health Homemakers, and also a Brownie tester for the “Tea Badge” (always take the pot to the kettle, not the kettle to the pot, boiling not boiled, and remember to warm the pot, well!). She was also a census taker; a volunteer librarian at a local seniors’ centre; and at 65 she was, for the first time, a university student, taking Women’s Studies 100 with her great friend and neighbour Joan Drobot. She had a special place in her heart for three more neighbourhood women—Sheila Fulton, Penny Sivucha, and Marina Evans who helped her so much in her later years. And she was still making new friends at the Belvedere, her last home.

Barbara’s steady commitment to those she loved has been passed to her children and grandchildren, no matter how near or far, and to her close friends and supporters. Wherever Barbara volunteered, worked, shared, there was love. Barbara taught her family all we need to know to carry on without her, and she will be ever in our hearts, our books and songs, our barbeque pork chops and our Yorkshire puddings, our knitting needles, our diction and our sensibilities.

Barbara is survived by her husband of 61 years, Frank; her children Jody Butler Walker (Rob Walker), Margot Leigh Butler and David Butler (Ayah Ouziel); her grandchildren Nathan and Zoe Walker; her nieces Carole Downward Mistry, Janet Hollingshead, Karen Jones, Dawn Butler, and Barb Barry; and by her many dear friends, long-standing and new.