Clara Johnston

Clara Johnston passed away very peacefully in Shuswap Lake General Hospital on Friday Jan. 20, 2012. At her bedside were her dear friend Joan Ellenor and her son Jim. She was pre-deceased by her parents and husband Norman Johnston (1965).

Clara was born in the small Grand Trunk Railway divisional point town of Rivers Manitoba on Aug. 11, 1910. She was the only child of James and Lily McNeil. Clara’s childhood years were spent in a variety of small southwestern Manitoba towns until her high school principal father secured a permanent position in Brandon MB.

Despite wishing a career as a children’s book illustrator, Clara entered teacher training (Normal School), graduating from Brandon College in 1929. At age 19 her first teaching position was in the small community of Rorketon MB in the proverbial one room country school teaching grades Kindergarten to Grade 10. She found room and board with the David Johnston family and their son Norman, who would later become her husband. However, after a year of teaching, Clara followed her parents in their retirement move to Vancouver. She often talked of her years working in Blackburn’s market and from Clara’s accounts it was clear Vancouver’s downtown eastside was colourful even in those depression years.

True love must have beckoned for after a couple of years she moved back to Manitoba to re-unite with the Johnston family, and to marry their son Norman in 1937. A teaching position was available so it was back to work in Rorketon and it was during this period that Clara and Norman became lifelong friends with Bert and Helen Ackerman. Helen was the other school teacher in the rural area and she and Clara no doubt valued each other’s mutual support.

In 1945 Clara and Norman came west by CPR to visit her parents in Vancouver. A stop over in Salmon Arm to stay with friends resulted in them picking fresh cherries off the tree on the Tiernan’s Gleneden farm. What a delight! The decision to move to Salmon Arm was made. A cherry tree always remained an important backyard feature of their Salmon Arm home.

They arrived in 1946 and Norman’s parents followed a year later. Bert and Helen Ackerman moved to Canoe shortly thereafter. Norman and Clara moved into a new house on Okanagan (Merton Hill) where Clara resided until she made the decision to move into Picadilly Terrace at age 97.

Clara found a teaching position at South Canoe Elementary and Norman managed to make a fledgling insurance agency successful. Son Jim was born in 1950, but with the shortage of teachers in the growing community Clara was soon back teaching at Salmon Arm Elementary. In 1956 South Broadview Elementary was opening and Clara transferred to this new facility. Here she had many happy years but moved back to Salmon Arm Elementary to finish her career in 1976.

Retirement after 47 years of teaching brought a whole new life for Clara. She continued her passionate involvement as a founding member of the local SPCA, the hospital auxiliary, the Retired Teacher’s Assoc. and the Canadian Cancer Society. Oversea trips (Europe, Israel, China, Russia) were organized often with her great friend the colourful Elizabeth (Bunty) Lowe. Tours of Great Britain with close friends Les and Joan Ellenor were cherished memories. The summer sojourns at the Shuswap Lake cottage at Annis Bay were of great importance.

A big moment for Clara was the celebration of her 100th birthday at the SAGA Art Gallery. There were over 300 signatures in the guest book! How honoured she felt!
By this time she had outlived most of her own generation of friends but typical of her, she had simply replaced them with a younger group.

Clara’s final four years at Picadilly Terrace were good ones … she made them good! She was actively involved with life until one week before her death and as would have been her wish, she did not linger on.

Clara will be deeply missed by her loving son Jim, her legion of friends, old and new, as well as the vast number of students from her Grade one and two classes. Clara was in essence an optimist and made the best of whatever life handed her. As Rae, one of the Ackerman sons said, “Clara was always so forward in her thinking, alive with curiosity and supportive of people in their endeavours.” She loved this community, and believed it returned her love in many ways.

A Celebration of life service will be held in South Broadview Elementary School on Sunday afternoon, January 29, 2012 at 1:30 p.m. with the Reverend Doctor Daryl Auten officiating. Tributes will be shared by family and friends followed by a reception.

Email condolences may be sent to Clara’s obituary at www.bowersfuneralservice.com

Funeral arrangements are in the care of Bowers Funeral Home and Crematorium, Salmon Arm, BC