ZELLA NORTON

Zella recalls a very happy childhood in a time that was less pressured and more natural than today. She enjoyed skating, sledding, learning how to ride, Sunday School and piano lessons. Summers were spent with cousins where all the family members participated in musical evenings playing instruments and singing.

After High School, Zella wanted to become an architect, but that was discouraged as not being a suitable profession for a young lady at that time so she turned her attention to Art School in Toronto. She studied for two years and met new friends and experiences. We still have three paintings that Zella did as a young woman. In Toronto she enjoyed an active life. She learned to sail and race sailboat in Lake Ontario. One time she remembers a sudden squall hit, overturning her sailboat and she went under water covered by the sails. She managed to get out and they had to be rescued by the Coastguard. It made the newspaper the next day!

Not finding exactly what she wanted in Toronto and at the instigation of a cousin she moved to Montreal and worked successively in a bank and then in an architect’s office. She loved her time there. The firm was currently engaged in building the Canadian Embassy in Japan. She received a beautiful Japanese enamelled box as a memento of the project. Later, a law firm hired her where she met her husband Arthur Norton. He was an American, a New Yorker, who chose to live in Canada and owned a small carbon paper and business machine company.

Arthur was older and established in Montreal and introduced Zella to a circle of friends that were interested in the arts, theatre and the opera. They had season tickets to hockey games at the Forum and watched the predecessors of the Montreal Canadians play. Arthur was an avid sportsman and introduced Zella to grouse hunting and fishing. Although she accompanied Arthur on his trips she refused to kill anything! They had only one child, a daughter, Annabelle.

Besides parenting and gardening Zella put her talents to design and remodelling houses for friends. She took up curling with her husband and went on to become president of The Eastern Ladies Curling Association and traveled throughout Canada helping establish ladies curling. Both, Zella and Arthur loved animals and always had a dog or two and later on cats replaced the dogs in her affection.

When her husband died in 1961, Zella decided to live in the country full time. That meant learning to drive for the first time at 58 years of age and commuting back and forth to Montreal to run her husbands business for two years, which she successfully did, until it was sold. It was a very challenging time in her life.

It was after this period that her sister Betty decided to move in permanently to help look after her. It turned out to be a very practical and workable arrangement. Lancaster again became a magnet for hospitality. Friends and neighbours dropped in constantly, whether for chats or ‘kitchen table counselling’ and dinner parties. They became an integral part of a small community. It was also a holiday and respite center for family members and grandchildren who received much nurturing, along with the boating, swimming and fishing. It has given all our family very special times and wonderful memories.

In time, at age 87, Lancaster was sold and Zella and her sister moved to a little house in Newmarket, Ontario. There they adopted their street as their new social family and grandchildren had the change to grow to love them.

Zella’s sister passed away in 1996 and Zella decided to come west to live with her daughter and husband in West Vancouver and become part of the life of her grandsons, now adults. She witnessed the birth of her great granddaughter, Samantha, now two years old, and enjoys seeing her very much.

Zella entered Inglewood care Centre in the summer of 2000. She is very happy with her room and loves to look up at the mountain in the wintertime and observe the weather. She also enjoys the flowers that have been planted in her little garden outside her room, and also walks on the sea wall with her son-in-law, Jim.

On January 10^th, 2003 Zella celebrated her 100^th birthday in the company of friends, old and new. It was an unforgettable and heartfelt occasion for all and Zella was moved to give two little speeches.

On reflection of her life, Zella has felt that she was very fortunate to have been blessed with good health, a loving family, to have lived in places surrounded by the beauty of nature out doors and artistic expressions in the home. Zella has many talents that served her well. Whatever she turned her attention to she seemed to accomplish easily. All her life she has had an enquiring mind and read deeply on many subjects, especially, physics and philosophy. She has found help and answers in the study of Mystic Christianity, which became an important part of her life.

Whenever difficulties arose in her life, Zella said that she always prayed for guidance and has never failed to have been heard or helped.

One of her secrets for a long life, she feels, was to keep busy, engaged in whatever was at hand to do, helping others, whether with mending clothes or planning homes. Being able to help others and to be useful has been, for Zella, a real source of joy and contentment. She has been, for our family and her friends, a source of strength, help and steadfastness, deeply loved and appreciated, a true friend and a very special souls.