Obituary: Mother of 200 was offering love and refuge to the end
Credit to Author: Denise Ryan| Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2019 01:14:13 +0000
On 8:30 a.m. Monday, when 99-year-old June Walmsley drew her last breath in a small, red clapboard house in East Vancouver, she was not alone.
Walmsley was surrounded by family and the memories of a life devoted to caring for others.
Over the years, with her husband Gordon, Walmsley fostered over 200 children, raised two of her own, and managed a menagerie of ducks, chickens, dogs and cats. She once found a stray horse in the living room — let in by one of the children of course.
“If there were chickens loose on the next block, the neighbours said, ‘Oh call Mrs. Walmsley.’ If there were children in need, the social workers said the same, ‘Call Mrs. Walmsley’,” said daughter Diane Crooks.
The back door of the house with the white picket fence was always unlocked.
“Her home was a place of love and refuge,” said Corinda Williams, who was once a kid who found a safe haven with the mother who loved them all.
Walmsley was born in Cranbrook in 1920. At age 11, when her mother died in childbirth, Walmsley and her siblings became wards of the state and were separated. One of her foster mothers helped the girl keep in touch with her siblings until she was old enough to make a home for them herself.
It was a kindness that Walmsley never forgot, and she would dedicate her life to making a home for those that had none.
Walmsley worked as a dressmaker until Canada entered the Second World War, then worked at the Sea Island Boeing plant. In 1945, she met Gordon Walmsley, and fell in love with the young soldier. The couple married shortly after the war.
99-year old June Walmsley with her newest great-grandaughter and namesake, June Moriarity.
Money was tight, but the couple made do. “They were a partnership,” said Crooks.
After Diane was born, a friend who worked for Children’s Aid asked if the couple could take in an infant. The couple agreed — and more would follow. “You remember them all … it’s just like your own family; you don’t forget them,” June later told the Province.
Her daughter Cathy Moriarity set up house across the back alleyway and grandma’s red clapboard house became a second home to her seven children.
Kids felt safe with her, said grandson Patrick Moriarity, who recalls stopping by the house when his grandmother was in her 80s, to find her having tea and a juice box with a young boy from across the street. “She was in her 80s, he was 7, and saying, ‘Grandma, you’re my best friend.’”
Moriarity said his grandmother had a way of personalizing everything for everyone. “I was probably the only guy going to university with lunch in a brown paper bag, with a pack of gum and a loonie, same as she made for all the kids.”
He still has some of the paper bags with the notes she wrote on them: Another day, what can I say? Did you say, a test? Do your best!
“We all felt we were her favourites, whether we were biological or not,” said Moriarity.
“It didn’t matter where you came from, what you had been through, what you had done. If you were here and needed help, she would always be there for you,” said granddaughter Janet Moriarity.
The Walmsleys were honoured with an award for their fostering by the provincial government, but she never really retired, even after her husband’s death. “There was always someone who took shelter there, someone who needed a safe place to stay,” said Moriarity.
Moriarity recently named his newborn daughter June. “I would like my daughter to know that there are wonderful people out there, people that don’t have agendas, that believe in goodness and love. Everybody needs to know that there is somebody like my grandparents in the world. It give us hope.”