FAMILY TIES

Roy Cammack

My Mom Eunice Cammack, Baker Extraordinaire!

It was 1930 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean aboard the SS Duchess of Bedford that my mother Eunice celebrated her 6th birthday.

My grandmother had taken her and her two older sisters to be re-united with their father who travelled to Canada ahead of them.

They left behind the gritty Lancastrian town of Prescott, England, to become settled in our “Beautiful British Columbia.” After years of hard work, the family purchased a home just down the street from Kitsilano High School where my mom attended.

After high school, she took a job with the BC Telephone Company, complete with headphones and a microphone in a Bakelite horn mounted on a breast plate, through which she would answer “Number please?”

During the Second World War, Mom joined the war effort to become a “Driller” at the Boeing Airplane Company plant located on Sea Island. They built the PBY Catalina Aircraft, an amphibious airplane also known as the Canso that earned its nickname because people said it couldn’t possibly fly.

During that time, Mother met Dad atop Grouse Mountain. He was freshly arrived from Ontario for training as a member of the Royal Canadian Regiment. After he returned from overseas, he and my mom were married and they moved back to his home of Ontario.

Mom would always say, “I miss the mountains,” and Dad would respond, “Mountains are nice but they block the view.” On it went until 1957 when she finally won out. Dad bought a brand new Dodge Suburban station wagon and we drove across the northern United States to Vancouver where life, as I know it, began.

She became a prodigious baker— she was known far and wide.

Eunice Cammack with wedding cake

Mom took a job as a meat wrapper for Canada Safeway and always had many stories to tell. She became a prodigious baker—she was known far and wide. Personally, I could hardly wait for her delicious loaves to cool enough for slicing and slathering butter onto its warm slices. Mom was always sending cookies to the office and had albums full of photos of all the creative birthday cakes she designed and baked for her grandchildren, great grandchildren, and many other family members.

Roy and Dawn Cammack

Sadly, Mom passed away in August, a few weeks shy of her 93rd birthday. Her well-used Mix Master sits idle on her kitchen counter. s Roy Cammack is a BC Notary in White Rock. Roy@CammackHepner.ca