Monday, April 22, 2013


Why we named her Vavielle

 

When I was a girl my Mother and I had lots of talks, I know every girl talks to her mother.  But ours were special, Edna and I had real conversations. Perhaps they had been going on for many years but the ones I remember best began when I was fourteen and we inherited my Mother’s family farm.

We always talked when we were working, and it seemed we were always working.   Doing dishes provided a great time for our discourse, Laundry, ditto.  Making beds, cleaning, cooking, pickling, gardening, chasing cows; I recall chats from all of those time.  Then there was berry picking!  That was when the serious tête-à-tête took place.
“Vavial, is that not a beautiful name?” began Mother on one of our raspberry picking jaunts.
“What….
“Vavial, is a nice name.” Mother replied.
“For who?”
“A girl”.
“You are not going to have another baby!!!!” I protested!
(By way of explanation, I was the oldest of six.  When I was 14 Mother had her last baby, my only sister.  I was not impressed.  And I had stressed there were to be no more babies!)
“No – let’s take a break,” said Mum.

So we located one another through the raspberry canes, found a patch of grass and had a long drink of water. Mother had survival down pat; she was freezing partial bottles of water as soon as pop came in plastic.  Then the story…

In the 1940’s my mother was a student, and a teacher, at Emmanuel Bible School in New Castle Bridge, New Brunswick.  One summerMother and some of the other students travelled to Maine for camp meetings.  This was an annual summer occurrence for evangelicals where for a week or more they would meet, visit and have three services a day.  As well as preaching the services highlighted singing, both congregational and “special singers”.   Now one of those soloists was a beautiful francophone lady with dark haired, wonderful smile and a magnificent voice.  And mother said her name was Vavial.

Edna, that would be my Mother, was so taken with the name that she vowed any future daughter would be called Vavial.  Then in 1949 enter Talmage Vail and v’s abounded.  I was born June 1950 and Edna decided that Vavial Vail would be too much, so called me Valerie.  (I was named Valerie Vail which was no treat for a kid with a lisp!)

And now Mother is telling me this story, which she repeated several times each year.  Fast forward a few year and I am pregnant, however, I am still in high school so it was not a happy time.  As the pregnancy progressed I thought of names; “Leif” for a boy and “Vavial” for a girl.  The most wonderful baby girl arrived on March 25/1968; all dark hair and dark eyes.  We called her Vavial Rae Brooker (yes her father and I had married).

baby Vavial 5 months
Vavial was the perfect baby, slept through the night, good traveller, not given to vomit.  I loved her name, yet many people asked if I had “made it up” from my Christian and surnames!

Vavial said she did not like her name but she was always a beautiful, intelligent girl and I felt it set her apart from the pack.  When Vavial was in grade three French immersion came to our area and the program included Quebec born monitors.   During a chat with one of the monitors the origin of Vavial’s name arose.  So I recounted mother’s story. 

 
 
“Mais oui”,  said the monitor “Vavielle!”
“Excuse me?”
“C'est le nom pour une fille, comme Michele, Danielle et Gabrielle. Tu comprends?”
Then she explained that my mother had anglicised a French name.   Vavial and I discussed the subject and Vavial  came to understand that she had a unique French name.  
 
Now Vavielle
with sister \leisa
 
When she entered middle school she was Vavielle Rae Brooker.  People seemed to be more able to pronounce her name.  I liked it when I chose that name, I like it still. 

 
And my Mother?  When Vavielle was five a second daughter, Leisa, was born to our family.  As soon as Leisa could talk Mother referred to Vavielle as “Sissy” and so she has been to Leisa and Grammy Edna for the past forty years.

 

Vavielle (aka Sissy) &
Grammy Edna
 
Now that we are all on line a few more Vavielle’s have surfaced.  There are now five Vavielle's on Facebook. Google searches always turn up a few Vavielles and occasionally it surfaces as a surname.

 

 
 
 
 
Vavielle has had a love hate affair with the name and in later years has shortened herself to “Vave”.  She has been Auntie Vave to her niece and nephews and now Mommy to her little guy Jonah.   Whatever the moniker, I love her dearly.  And I think Vavielle’s name suits my special, talented, competent, loving daughter and Vavielle she will always be, to me.
Vavielle and I ( Valerie Vail Brooker Bauer)
 


Friday, April 19, 2013


Leaving home

 

Marcia & her father
My granddaughter, Marcia, has been talking to me about leaving home.  She is graduating from High School in a few months.   I do not think that I responded in the manner she expected.

“Move away, well of course…when I was a girl in rural Carleton County everyone had to move away. There were few jobs and if one wanted to go to college or university you had to move. I grew up with the realization that I would move away after I graduated”. 
 
Of course this brought eye rolling and mutters of the good old days on her part.  For my part, it brought a flood of memories.

July 1968, forty five years ago, I had my newly minted high school diploma, a three month old baby, a husband and we had a debt of $8000.   This was 1968 when wages in our area were $1.00 an hour.  I had planned to move to Fredericton and attend Teachers College but that was not to be.

Instead, we packed our possessions into a wooden tea chest and a trunk, took down the baby crib and taped it together, tied 2 pillows together and packed a lunch and drove to Juniper to catch the train west to Vancouver.  Coach, you set up 24/7.  Our baby, Vavielle, was wonderful; she ate, slept and filled her job description.  Thank goodness we had received a package of the newly invented Pampers!  My husband Ronald was not so easily assuaged and either smoked or paced.  By Quebec he was ready to jump train.
Union Station July 1968
Ronald, Valerie & Vavielle Brooker
Marlene, Dan, Grace & Frank Rogers
I do not remember whether it was prearranged or by chance, however when the train pulled into Toronto we were met by my cousin Brenda.  In fact we were met by many of our Ontario relatives!
Brenda was ready for a visit with an infant and fashioned a bed for Vavielle by lining a dresser drawer with a towel.  We had not been in Toronto long when someone suggested we trade in our remaining tickets and purchase airplane tickets for the rest of the journey.  Good plan!  A few days later we stepped off the plane in Vancouver and were met by my Uncle Gifford, aka Buck. 

Our ultimate goal was Port Alberni on Vancouver Island.  The day after we landed Ronald and Buck went to the train station to claim our baggage.  CPR seemed puzzled as to how we were requesting baggage when the train had not yet arrived.  Buck smoothed it over and they returned a few days later.  Our few days in Van were filled with adventures; being guest in a home that also housed a number of hippies, cruising downtown on a Harley and being introduced to the drug culture.  Oh Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore.  We made our escape in an old VW van Buck had donated to our cause and feasted on our first Big Mac, twenty five cents, at the Golden arches.

We stayed in Port Alberni three years.  We truly had left home.  My cousin Brenda Rogers never moved back from the GTA and over the years her entire family migrated to Ontario.  My brother Rodney went to Toronto in 1969, many of his friend were there looking for work.  He found a job with Facelle tissue Plant in the GTA, where he worked until he retired this year. 

My Rogers grandparents raised a family of eleven, two were casualties of WWII, the eldest Ira never left New Brunswick and of the remaining eight only my mother returned and has spent the remainder of her life in the province.  While Uncle Earle raised his family in NB when they had all left home he and Aunt Effie followed them.

"Go West, young man" is a quote by American author Horace Greeley , and my family certainly took this admonishment to heart.  Some of our family stopped off in Ontario but many continued on to British Columbia.

My siblings and I number six; only two have spent their lives in New Brunswick.  My elder daughter Vavielle lives in Burlington; my sister Virginia  lives in Jamaica, and my brother Allen is in Texas.  I have eleven nephews and nieces; five are living outside of the province.  Nephews Tim in Toronto area, Dallen in Banff and Ashley in Medicine Hat; Neices Rebecca in Winnipeg and Patti in Pennsylvania.

So Marcia, you have your Gram’s approval to pack your bags and go.  Your family before you primarily went for work, but there are many reasons to move on.  Spread your wings, try something new, and see something different (this is a big beautiful country in which we live).  Make a fresh start; leave old habits behind (a good time to give up smoking?), and reinvent yourself.   I will give you all the support you need; just text me every day, eh?  

Note: After sleeping on it I realized that my brothers David and Bruce also "left home"; they both went to NBCC; David in NS, Bruce in Moncton and they both spent a year working in Calgary.  So we are six for six!