Georgina Victoria Anne Brown (Watson)

November 05, 2024

May 24, 1934 – July 6, 2023

Born May 24, 1934 in the heart of the Great Depression shaped my mom’s life.

Born to Dorathy and Albert Watson in Rimbey, Alberta my mom was an only child. There was another baby born the following year but did not survive so it was Mom, Gramma Dot and Grampa Albert moving from Hutterite Colonies to First Nations communities where Gramma Dot taught school and Grampa Albert looked after the home front, a rare occurrence in those days.

Music was a big part of my mom’s life growing up. She played the guitar, piano and accordion and was quite well known around the Calgary Stampede as she played in the barns and on a chuckwagon in the opening parade for many years. I do remember her playing accordion but it was the piano that sticks in my mind. She would not play for months and months and then sit down and just bang out a tune like she’d been practicing for hours. She never used sheet music, she simply played from memory. One of my favourite tunes was Running Bear, a love story that mom often sung along to. I am not sure why, given her musical background, that music was not a part of our home life growing up.

Mom had a grade 10 education. Having heard stories over the years my understanding is that she did not get along well with Gramma Dot, who was likely her teacher, and that she was quite sick growing up so much of her schooling was done at home. She did attend a nun’s school to complete her grade 10. One of my favourite ‘Mom’ stories is that when she was 37 she quit her full time job and went back to school to complete her grade 12. While I now understand how difficult that must have been all I could think of at the time was that I wasn’t excited about her attending my high school, which is exactly what happened. Gramma Dot was also taking a French ‘refresher’ so there were many days where Randy, myself, Mom and Gramma Dot carpooled. At any rate, with much hard work she graduated from Vanier Sr. Secondary the same year as me and my brother.

I often wonder if my mom ever had dreams that she never got to achieve, if she did have them she certainly never spoke of them. She married quite young and had three babies in three years (the time before birth control!). My dad was Armed Forces so she would have known that life would not be settled and that there would be many moves. Mom always worked as far as I can remember. I am sure she was a very hard worker, she never did things half way, that’s for sure! The only long term position she had though was as the town clerk in Donalda after Mom and Dad had both retired. She loved this job as she had an office to herself and she didn’t have to deal with anyone else in the office or the public.

I often think back to our growing up years and think about what a hard life mom had. Dad was alcoholic and spent a lot of time at the bar. He was extremely social where Mom was very private and I do know there were many arguments over the years after Dad came home from the bar (or those times where he didn’t come home for days and days). I cannot remember Mom ever having a life of her own or friends of her own. She went to work and came home, not much else.

Mom and dad both were extremely good at figuring things out for themselves. I remember them canning salmon when we moved to Comox, growing a huge garden wherever we lived and canning and freezing were a part of life. The kitchen chairs I now have were recovered by Mom and Dad in about 1970 and they still look brand new. As I said earlier, things were never done half way in our house.

Mom’s later years were spent working on jigsaw puzzles and watching the Toronto Blue Jays. After Dad passed she spent most of her time alone and seemed satisfied with this as she did not enjoy small talk. There will be more stories to come but this is the Coles Notes version of Georgina Brown Watson’s life.