A picture frame on the wall of my hallway displays a 1927 newspaper article with a photograph of a firm-looking white haired woman. The headline says, 鈥淥ne of Victoria鈥檚 pioneers passes.鈥�
She was my mother鈥檚 grandmother. She came to Victoria as a girl of 10. She and her parents left the Orkney Islands to embark at Gravesend, on the Norman Morison鈥檚 second voyage in 1851. Her father had been hired by the Hudson鈥檚 Bay Co. as a carpenter. Five months later, they landed in Esquimalt鈥檚 harbour, and they were a family of four, as a sister for Dina had been born onboard.
The article says the family lived in the fort for some time and then her father built a log cabin in the area now the site of St. Ann鈥檚 Academy.
She married James Johnston at the age of 17 and the couple had eight children. She lost her son, William, and her step-grandson, James Lines, in the First World War.
My mother told me stories about her grandmother. She died at 85, when my mother was 14. Mum remembered a granny who insisted she have oatmeal for every breakfast (not my mother鈥檚 favourite).
The newspaper report was much more laudatory. 鈥�(She) was a woman of unusual charm, and her vividly told reminiscences of the earliest days of Victoria never failed to delight her listeners.鈥�
When I pass her picture in the hall, I often wonder what she would make of present-day Victoria. I am sure she would be very glad her parents took the brave step of leaving their island home to come so far to an unknown island. And she would be so grateful for the comfort, security, and harmony of the city and country they became proud citizens of. 鈥� Gail Simpson