This is a photo of my mother, Edna May Minons taken in the 1930s. Mother worked in Woodward’s as a seemstress in Ladies’ Apparel. The picture was probably taken on her lunch break.

Back in those days, my mother was the only one of the mothers in our neighbourhood that worked outside of the home. She would travel from our house on 17th Street in West Vancouver, catch the 8 am ferry to work at Woodwards downtown on Hastings Street. She didn’t get home until 7:10 pm. In the meantime, as the only girl in the family, I had to make dinner for my two brothers and my father.

I was the 6th May Queen of West Vancover in 1936. Vancouver Mayor Telford invited my maids of honour and I to be in the Labour Day parade celebrating the city’s 50th Jubilee. We were in a carriage drawn by four horses down Hastings Street. As we passed Woodward’s, I heard someone call “Norma!”. When I looked up it was Mother and her whole department were leaning out the window waving at me.