Vicki Edwards - Class of 1972
Vicki loved all team sports, playing on the senior girls field hockey and volleyball teams
as well as being a member of the track team. Here she is pictured with members of the 1972 volleyball team.
Memory Lane
My good friends in high school were Eleanor Wilson, Brenda King, Shelley Leushner, Maureen Cartmell, Debbie Penney and Julia Papucciyan. We spent a lot of time at the Paradise Restaurant, Kapetan's Restaurant, Cafe at St. Barnabas Church, the arena in the winter, and the pool in the summer. Parties at different people's houses, esp. Steve Rappard's when his mom was away!! I'll never forget his room; black lights, Jimi Hendrix, foil on the ceiling and psychedelic posters and lots of music… We were never home on Friday or Saturday nights... And I had to be up early Saturday morning for work at the nursing home. Up at 7... Making breakfast by myself for 23 elderly people at 15 years old... And I knew exactly how they all liked their breakfasts.
Some of my favorite teachers who come to mind include; Betty Grant, our gym teacher (why such small towels after our showers we would all ask, being bashful teenager girls!); Mr. Ingalls (steno; my God, I had a gift for steno; wrote my provincial exams after just doing the grade-9 course.); Mr. Sahakian, our typing teacher... he was such a nice man. It was funny to see how annoyed he got with some people. "I told you, line by line!!” Mr. King, in biology. He was a very cool guy; Mr. John Howe, also, very cool and an excellent history teacher; Mr. Weeks in Physics - he made it come alive with the orang-utans travelling at high speed... I think it was a bad idea to put us at tables instead of desks... Too much fooling around, and my marks reflected that.
Catching the No. 1 bus at the corner of Notre Dame and Desaulniers heading off to the subway, and ultimately school. .
I recall the unique and very personal stores in St. Lambert, forming such a cozy little downtown. When I went to the first reunion in 1995, we all talked about looking for a similar place elsewhere... Most of us had left Quebec... Only a few still lived nearby... Lawson's, Bert's, Vardon's, Jazzar's, Hughes Shoe store, Ranger hardware, A&P (when I was 14 I would do my mom's banking; she had 3 jobs at one time. I used to get the groceries around the corner and they would let me bring them home in a grocery cart!), Dominion, Taylor's... TD bank, Bank of Montreal & City and District savings bank where I started my first account at 13. I have very fond memories of each.
Charmaine Tellevik and I always competed throughout grade school, but when I moved to St. Lambert, we were separated and each made new friends, me in my new school, her with the kids I grew up with in Greenfield Park and St. Hubert. When she married at only 17 years old I was her bridesmaid.
Vicki claims her whole life has been wondrous, unhinged, often turbulent, filled with love, and continually running in high gear. Read on and see what you think.
Her father David was in the Canadian army during World War II and was stationed in Holland where he was billeted with her mother's (Boer) family. They fell in love and a year after the war, David returned to Holland and married Catharina Boer. David and Catharina decided to settle in Montreal, where he already had a fulltime position with the Canadian Pacific Railway.
As the Edwards family began to grow they moved to St. Hubert which is where Vicki, the youngest of 4 children and sister to Fred, Shirley and Hillegje (Hilly), was born in May 1955.
In the mid 1960's it was discovered that David suffered a cerebral aneurysm, had surgery after which he could no longer work, and it became necessary for Catharina to gain employment and assume all responsibilities of raising the family. In 1969, as Vicki's brother and older sister Shirley had begun living away, Catharina, Hilly and Vicki moved to Notre Dame Street in St. Lambert to begin what she describes as “a wonderful teenage life for me...”
Vicki attended the Kensington Elementary School in St. Hubert, and clearly remembers having “some pretty awesome teachers there - Gerda Stobrich, grade 5, James Cook, grade 7 and my gym teacher Guru. We loved those 2 teachers, and they loved us and always gave us 110%. Miss Stobrich took us to Expo '67, and finances being very tight at my house then, it was gratefully appreciated. Mr. Cook used to take us to all our sporting activities in his little Volkswagen Beatle... I counted 13 in it once! Before the seat belt law... She transferred schools for Grade 8 and became enrolled at Royal George in Greenfield Park for just one year.
Vicki then attended CCHS from grades 9 thru 11. A timid newcomer to CCHS, Vicki quickly made friends, got involved in as much as she could, and joined sports teams, field hockey, volleyball, and track & field. Although with little financial support she says she was always happy and never felt deprived, doing everything she could to always kept busy, including getting a small job, and studying hard. “I always had a swimming pass and spent many happy hours at the Seaway Pool on Riverside Drive. “
At 15 she began working in a nursing home on Victoria Ave., the Dosmer Residence, and earned a mere 50 cents an hour, working weekends and throughout the summer months. Vicki says that from this experience she feels she learned much about the benefit of working hard, as well as the value of money. “I also learned some good work ethics which I believe have stayed with me, and also learned that I loved people and enjoyed caring for them – probably the real beginning of my interest in a nursing career. “
Following high school graduation in 1972, Vicki entered the Health Science program offered at Champlain College. After a disastrous Chemistry class with a teacher that she could not understand, she decided to transfer into a new 3-year program at the Dawson College, Lafontaine campus. While still enrolled as a nursing student Vicki was introduced to, then in 1975 married Wayne Ramstead. She later graduated from the Dawson College School of Nursing in 1976. Their first child, Kristen was born two years later in 1978 and their second, son Graham was born in 1983.
Being very employable in their respective professions, after 12 years of O.R. services at MGH, during which she recalls assisting the surgeons during operations on one of Canada's former Prime Ministers, the Montreal Forum's most famous singer, Roger Doucet, and also working with Doctors David Mulder and Eric Lenczner, team physicians for the Montreal Canadians and Alouettes respectively, in 1988 Vicki and Wayne moved from the South Shore, and away from what they felt to be difficult and increasing demands of living in a large metropolitan area. They settled in Kanata, a much quieter Ottawa suburb. Finding work in Ottawa was not a problem for Vicki and she virtually had her choice of O.R. nursing opportunities with either the Ottawa Civic Hospital with 16 Operating Rooms, but chose the smaller Riverside Hospital with six O.R.'s.
During the first five years at Riverside, while the work schedule covered a minimum of 4 days per week, Vicki began working toward her Nurse's Degree at the University of Ottawa, picking up one course at a time during nights and weekends, then switched to a full 5-day work week in 1994, but keeping to the same university schedule.
In 1995 Vicki registered for and obtained the Canadian Nursing Association's newly adopted 'Perioperative Certificate', which she continues to up-grade every five years. With such demands, dedication and success also came the conclusion of their 20-year marriage.
Following the 1999 mergers of four Ottawa regional hospitals Vicki felt unsure about the direction hospital administration would be taking and prepared to move to the USA if that option appeared likely. She undertook studying for and writing the New York State Board examinations for Nursing. Fully prepared, moving to the US never resulted and instead Vicki transferred from the Riverside Hospital into the much larger Ottawa Civic with its 16 operating rooms, and oriented to all of the services each provides, but eventually became a specialist in assisting in Open Heart surgery.
The year 2003 brought some additional changes to her life. She sold her home in Kanata and moved back to Montreal and back to the Montreal General. “It was nice in some ways to be back home... back to the hospital I started in. Back in and near St. Lambert.” However the original reasons for moving away from Montreal persisted, and after having in 2005 visited her schooldays best friend Charmaine Tellevik in British Columbia, she realized where she would ultimately make her home – in Courtenay, in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island.
Vicki started working at 3 different hospitals to ensure having enough work. All the hospitals hired her as part-time or casual... St. Joseph's Hospital in Comox and two other hospitals located nearby in Campbell River and Cumberland, B.C.
Vicki recalls, “One of the ladies I met at Reunion 2005 was Daphne Stevenson. We were in the same class at CCHS. I asked her where she was living and she replied, in Campbell River, B.C., about 45 minutes away from Courtenay.” “What a coincidence that I would be working there less than a year later. Daphne is an x-ray technician at the same hospital where I began working in the O.R.”
Vicki summarizes. “Hardly a day has gone by that I haven't seen something I've never seen before, and that I haven't learned something new. I feel I have been truly blessed not just to have two fantastic loveable children, to have found this corner of paradise in which to live, and to be working in a profession that I find is always fascinating. I often equate the surgeons and anaesthesiologists with astronauts, seeing them get into so many scary situations, and then get out safely, and there I am helping them to do it, saving many patients careers and precious lives.”
Vicki with matriarch Catharina (Cathy) who lives on Lorne Ave. in St. Lambert.
"With my sister Hilly and I both settled in the west, I keep trying to convince Mom to move to this part of Canada, but so far no luck".
Just in from an exhilarating snorkelling adventure in the Caribbean, off Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. I'm the 'shrimp' in the middle between Kristen and Graham.
Vicki graduated from the Dawson College
School of Nursing, then joined the
Montreal General Hospital (MGH) in 1976.
While at MGH Vicki assisted numerous surgeries including those performed on Montreal Canadians and Alouettes players, as well as Canada's P.M., and also everyone's favorite tenor, Roger Doucet, seen here during one of his famous Forum renditions of 'O Canada'
1998 - Vicki caught in complete O.R. garb after surgery at the Ottawa Riverside Hospital.
2000 - Vicki is seen here with Diane Aboud who shared responsibilities coordinating the Urology Dept.at the Riverside Campus of the Ottawa Hospital
Vicki has always been interested in golf but hadn't become a regular player until recently.
Here she is seen on a tee at Vancouver Island's 18-hole Sunnydale Golf & Country Club,
Courtenay, Comox Valley, B.C.
Memory Lane continued
I used to go home for lunch in high school. It was a bit of a hike from school to Notre Dame. But it was a ritual and I would drag Brenda King and Eleanor Wilson with me. And anyone else who wanted to come. It was quite the social hour, both while we were eating and in the walk back and forth.
I remember once, school was closed for a snowstorm and we all managed to cross the St. Lambert golf course to go to a "party" in Preville that afternoon.
We spent a lot of nights at the arena watching the Junior 'B' and Midget hockey teams play... We all had boyfriends or crushes on someone playing...
Beautiful St. Lambert with the big trees, beautiful old brick homes and that unforgettable cozy downtown...
