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South Okanagan Photos

Rural report with Laird Smith

laird22I have been asked to write about my siblings and their childhoods. My nearest sibling ( in age ) is Patricia Churchland. The following is written to the best of my research and recollection.

She was born Patricia Lillian during the burden of the Second World War. She was the third daughter of Wally and Kay Smith and brought hope into a world filled with the grimness of war. This little girl was perfect in every way. Her mother and her two older sisters doted on her and she brought her father great joy!

Her birth came in the summer, a busy time, but not too busy to attend to this precious new bundle. She grew quickly as any child would. She shared the south bedroom with her two older sisters. Wally could see the writing on the wall, for he knew the eldest daughter would soon want her own bedroom.

On the east side of the house was a screened in porch which Wally had converted to a living room when Patricia was born. He now converted that living room into a bedroom for the eldest daughter. Patricia and her next older sister would remain in the south bedroom.

In 1945, the World War ended and the nations began to live in peace. Hope once again entered the minds of the inhabitants of the planet. New markets opened up for the tree fruit orchardists of the Okanagan Valley and the families began to prosper.

Three years after the end of the Second World War, Wally and Kay Smith gave birth to a boy naming him Laird Wallace. He gave the expanding family great joy! With this new birth Wally needed to expand the house again.

This time he would modernize the house by installing an indoor toilet, sink, and tub, along with the additional bedroom. He built both rooms on the north side of the house. When the new addition was finished, Wally moved the eldest daughter into the new bedroom, the two younger daughters moved into the east bedroom and the new baby got the south bedroom.

By the time I was three, eldest sister moved out to seek her fame and fortune, and Patricia moved into the recently vacated north bedroom. The one drawback of that bedroom was that it seemed to be a magnet for the large, hairy, house spiders which Patricia hadn’t any fondness for.

With a shriek she would call for me. I would race into her bedroom and find her standing on her bed pointing at the hairy beast making its way across her bedroom floor. I walked over and stepped on it much to her relief. I had to clean it up too for that was part of the task of being the spider disposer.

People knew Patricia as Pat, Patty, Trisha, or Trish, I chose to call her the latter two names.
As we grew up, Trish had an influence on the books I read, and some of the clothes I wore, but being five years apart meant that we lived separate lives which continues to this day.