In 1974, Lillian retired from full time teaching. Of course, all that did
was to provide her with more time to spend on the classes she
enjoyed the most. After the school moved to Weyburn, her whole
approach to teaching her classes had changed. Because there were
more teachers, she taught fewer classes for longer periods of time.
Instead of fifteen minute classes in which she quickly stated the facts,
with little opportunity to do anything else, she tried hard to make her
classes not only informational, but interesting as well
She continued with two semesters of Canadian history each year,
plus, in addition to that, she continued to teach art history to the
college students for another eight years. It was in January of 1983, for
the first time in fifty three years, that Lillian was not standing in front
of a class of students. It was a major shift in her life, but it was
neither unexpected nor unwelcome. She had been preparing for this
change for a long time.
She always believed that if a teacher was excited about her class, the
students would be too. And certainly there are scores of you out there
who can testify to that! With fewer classes to prepare for after her
retirement, she was able to fine tune those favourites of hers even
more. Those of us who were privileged to study art history during
those last years know very well how fortunate we were!
Her final retirement from teaching came at Christmas, 1982. She
wasn't tired of teaching, but the University of Regina requirements
were changing. She would have had to take several more courses
herself to upgrade her qualifications, and she just didn't have the
energy to do that. By this time she was engrossed in a number of
other activities and that had a bearing on her decision as well.
BIBLE CORRESPONDENCE COURSES
Her life since retirement has been both full and interesting. It was
while she was still teaching part time that she got involved in Bible
correspondence course teaching. It started in 1979, when Clinton
Brazle brought her the names of three students, one in Jamaica and
two in Ghana. From those three, she gradually worked up to over
nine hundred different students, some taking as many as eleven or
twelve courses. Some have been exceptional students, while others
have completed only two or three courses.
Her record keeping was somewhat haphazard at first, but she soon
realized she needed to keep systematic records. She has enjoyed
doing this for many years now, but in recent years the numbers are
down because postage has become so very expensive in Ghana and
Nigeria. The one week every month that she used to spend working
on her Bible correspondence courses has shrunk to about two days a
month, and while it saddens her that so many of her students have not
been able to continue, she is relieved that her load has been reduced.
It was a major part of her life for fifteen years after her retirement,
but she still had other things she wanted to do.
During her fifteen years of working with Bible correspondence
school students, she received various requests from students
requesting things for themselves, but Savor Johanes, a young man
twenty-six years old, was different. He was a civil servant in Khandu,
Ghana who had successfully completed eight courses. When he wrote
telling her of his wish to become a Christian, she put him in touch
with Christians in his area and made the arrangements for him to be
baptized.
Some time later, he wrote to her again, telling her about a young
woman who attended the same congregation he did. She was
crippled, and he wrote, "I feel pity for her any time she crawl to
church. Wheelchairs are very expensive in the country here and
moreover the government orders those items from overseas with hard
foreign exchange which is difficult for private individuals to buy." He
and others in the congregation wondered if there was anything she
could do to help this woman get a wheelchair. He ended his letter by
saying, "May the Lord bless you. Hoping to hear favourable reply
from you on this cripple matter."
She was quite touched by his heartfelt appeal and decided to do what
she could. She subsequently submitted an article to Sister Triangle,
a Christian women's magazine, telling about the young woman and
asking for donations to buy the wheelchair. The response was
excellent, but when she got the money she had another problem; the
technicalities of where to buy the chair and how to send it so that the
young lady would be sure to receive it!
She finally decided to appeal to the White's Ferry Road Church of
Christ in West Monroe, Louisiana, because she knew they were
involved in helping the needy throughout the world. She was relieved
when they offered to buy the wheelchair and ship it with a large
container of goods they were sending to Ghana. They told her in fact,
that if she had tried to do it as an individual, it was probable the
woman would never have received the wheelchair.
It took many months for the chair to reach Olivia Agboka, but when
it finally arrived it literally transformed her life. It enabled her to go
to the city and attend a training school. Lillian received two letters of
appreciation for her efforts, one from the chief of Khandu and a very
grateful one from Savor Johanes. He told her that Olivia had also
written and sent a picture of herself, but it never reached Lillian,
something, evidently, not too unusual with the postal service in
Ghana.
WRITING
Writing has always been a significant activity in Lillian's life. From
her early diaries to her voluminous letters, to her histories of the
summer Bible schools and of Radville/Western Christian College, she
always found time to write. One of the exciting things for her about
retirement was that it gave her more time to write. And write she did!
In 1981, she was a significant member of the group who dreamed of
a Christian woman's magazine and made that dream a reality. Until
1988, she looked after subscriptions and circulation, another time-
consuming job. Sister Triangle continues to flourish and grow and
Lillian continues to write thought provoking articles.
In 1986, she wrote the history of the church of Christ in Weyburn.
In 1990, she wrote the history of the hamlet of North Weyburn, from
its days as an air force training centre during World War II to the
present.
Also in 1990, she completed her update of the history of Western
Christian College - from 1970, where she had concluded Radburn's
Memoirs, to the school's leaving Weyburn for Dauphin in 1989.
1990 was a prolific year for her. It was during that year that she also
edited a book that coordinated the family history of her grandparents,
Ole and Maren Torkelson and their descendants. She had thirty six
first cousins living at that time, who all got copies of that book. It
contains the stories of between four and five hundred descendants.
In 1993, she helped coordinate the writing of Trailblazers of the
Chalkboard, the stories of the superannuated teachers of the Weyburn
area. She wrote the stories of many of the teachers already deceased,
as well as for many not well enough to write their own biographies -
a total of about forty stories. This project occupied much of her time
for about eighteen months.
Since then, she has been engaged in writing the pioneer stories of her
parents and stepfather. She spent much of the winter of 1994
preparing copies of this volume to give to her two sisters and many
nieces and nephews as a Christmas gift.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Retirement has also given her more time to spend on other activities.
She was the Executive Secretary for the WCC Alumni Association
for many years, and she still is very interested and involved in
Alumni activities, as well as in Women's Service Club activities.
Ever since her retirement, she has been an energetic force in the
Superannuated Teachers Association in Weyburn. She has worked
hard on a variety of different committees, including the writing of the
constitution. In 1993, at a ceremony in Saskatoon, she was honoured
for her contributions to the association with the presentation of the
prestigious Provincial Lifetime Membership.
Lillian joined the University Women's Club when she first moved to
Weyburn in 1957, because she wanted some association with people
in town as well as on the campus at North Weyburn. She still enjoys
much pleasant fellowship there and while she doesn't always agree
with positions taken by the national office of the club, she is happy
that the Weyburn club is more in line with her values.
TRAVEL
Lillian's love of travel and of experiencing new things and new places
hasn't diminished as she's grown older; it has only intensified.
Retirement has simply given her more time to satisfy her curiosity
about God's world and the people in it. Some of her most ambitious
excursions have taken place since she retired. One of the significant
reasons she has been able to do that is her amazingly good health and
physical condition. This she attributes to her daily exercising and
walking.
Since she broke her hip in 1981, she has walked at least a half hour
a day, even in bad weather. She has osteoporosis, and since exercise
helps some to strengthen those bones, she also does a minimum of
one half hour of strengthening exercises. She got the exercise
program from a physiotherapist and she's grateful that it keeps her
limber and increases her stamina.
~
In 1986, she, along with Clarice Mooney, Ennis Foulkes and Daisy
Arnold went to the World's Fair in Vancouver. This was the second
world's fair she'd been to. She had so admired Montreal's Expo in
1967 she was eager to go to another. While they were there in
Vancouver, they visited the Australian pavilion and it impressed them
all. As they sat watching a spectacular video showing the wonders of
Australia, that tried to entice everyone to visit the Brisbane World's
Fair in 1988, Lillian turned to Clarice and said, "Well, I guess that's
one world's fair we won't be going to." But of course they did, two
years later, when they were both seventy-eight years old!
On September 1, 1988, Lillian and her faithful travelling companion,
Clarice, set off first for Hawaii, then Papua New Guinea and finally
Australia. They were gone for a month and a day, and, needless to
say, every one of those days was crammed with activity. They were
in Hawaii briefly, but long enough for them to attend a church service
which they very much enjoyed, take a circle tour of Oahu and buy
some muumuus to wear in the southern pacific heat.
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea was Lillian's first experience in a totally different
culture. Everything was new including the food. They went to a
mumu, (a typical New Guinea feast, not to be confused with a
Hawaiian muumuu - a dress!) It was a lamb dish. The lamb was
cooked in coconut milk; then sweet potatoes, long green beans,
pumpkin greens, yams, corn, flowers of the wild sugar cane and
cooking bananas were added - and finally, the whole mixture was
roasted.
Lillian and Clarice were the guests of Jim and Bessie McGeachy,
whom they had known during their time in Weyburn. They lived in
a mission compound in Port Moresby that was surrounded by a tall
fence. If they all left the compound the gate was kept locked and
guarded. It surprised her that they had to be so careful to protect
themselves. The first night they were there they listened to three
hundred and fifty children in school uniforms sing ever so beautifully
at an open air music festival. But on the tickets it stated, "Armed
guards will be present."! She observed them, high up above where the
audience was seated in the open air amphitheatre. She never did see
any trouble requiring action from the guards. Apparently it was quite
safe on the streets during the day, but potentially dangerous after
dark.
It also surprised her that, when she went with Bessie to visit the
hospital one day, an armed guard was sitting in the corridor of the
hospital. She described that hospital in her diary:
New Guinea fascinated Lillian. Because it is only six degrees from
the equator it is extremely hot there. She bought a sleeveless dress to
wear and went without stockings, something her cold northern blood
would never allow her to do back home in Canada. The people were
friendly and they looked healthy, possibly because of the abundance
of vegetables available due to the three crops harvested every year.
Of course she wanted to walk. But she discovered it was not
considered proper for a lady to walk about unescorted. So she and six
year old Kenneth McGeachy went on excursions downtown together.
He was a fine escort! On one of those trips she bought a very
interesting and colourful hand made dress and was quite amazed that
it cost only six dollars. She couldn't help wondering, though, how
much the person who made it received for her work.
~
Education is different there, as well. The government schools for the
nationals were terribly overcrowded and somewhat substandard in
quality, so a system of private international schools has developed.
Lillian visited two of them - modern, up-to-date schools that
reminded her of the best equipped schools here in Canada. Not
surprisingly, tuition at these schools is very high. The students are
both white skins and black skins as they refer to themselves. The
black children who attend these schools are from middle and upper
class homes.
~
She did a lot of sightseeing while she was there, and was particularly
intrigued by the university and the parliament buildings. She wasn't
terribly impressed with the beauty of the university buildings, but it
did have a well-stocked library and a display of New Guinea
paintings that reminded her of some of our fine native Canadian
artists.
The parliament building, however, was new and very beautiful; the
cornerstone was laid in 1981. The shape of the building is that of a
flying bird, symbolic of the bird of paradise, the emblem of New
Guinea. There are multicoloured paintings on the outside of the
entrance and just inside, in the foyer, there is an immense carved
wooden statue, similar to the North American totem pole. The walls
of the foyer are completely covered with paintings by the best artists
of Papua New Guinea. Very impressive indeed.
~
Church services there were unlike anything they were accustomed to,
but certainly meaningful and enjoyable. In Port Moresby, the church
building was one large, enclosed worship room, separate from the
classrooms . The classrooms, however, were open air spaces with a
roof over the top and benches to sit on. Lillian found them very
pleasant because the air was able to circulate, making the heat more
bearable. She was pleased to be asked to give lessons to the women,
with the help of an interpreter, on two different occasions.
One Sunday while she was there, they went out to a small village
about thirty miles from Port Moresby for worship service. It took a
good hour to get there and proved to be a unique experience. She
described it in her diary:
~
Lillian and Clarice spent twelve very rich days in New Guinea.
Everything they encountered was unlike anything they had
experienced, and they thoroughly enjoyed that difference. On Friday,
September 17, four days before they were to leave for Australia they
were fortunate enough to see the Independence Day Parade at Port
Moresby. The varieties of native dances were spectacular.
Following the parade, Jim McGeachy took them to the National
Wildlife Sanctuary, where they saw many kinds of wildlife never
seen in Canada - parrots, eagles, crowned pigeons, wallabies, big
lizards, crocodiles, and many others. Clarice was bitten by some kind
of insect while they were at the park, and the next day, Saturday, she
became ill. Sunday she was no better so Bessie took her to see a
doctor. He gave her antibiotics, but by Monday her leg was very red
and swollen, sending her back to the doctor for more medication.
They did leave on Tuesday as scheduled, and while Clarice felt some
better, her leg bothered her for much of the rest of the trip. She
gamely went on all the tours and would walk short distances, but she
couldn't manage long walks or standing for any length of time. Lillian
says, "She was such a good sport in spite of her sore leg that I'll
always remember it."
Australia
After all of these adventures in New Guinea, the two almost
octogenarians set out to explore Australia. Lillian described a brief
summary of the trip, "In Queensland, Australia we went for a
spectacular train ride; toured Atherton Tablelands and the dense
rain forests; rode in a semi-submarine among the coral reefs; saw a
beautiful orchid nursery; saw kangaroos, crocodiles, wombats,
kookaburras, emus and parrots and spent one full day at the World's
Fair in Brisbane." She says, "My diary is my best souvenir."
She and Clarice had many marvellous experiences in Australia, but
the most spectacular of them all was the trip to the Great Barrier
Reef. The outer reef, twelve hundred miles long is considered to be
one of the wonders of the modern world. The formations of the reefs
themselves were like spectacular works of art. Lillian and Clarice
went out in one boat, transferring to a semi-submarine that had glass
sides when they reached the reef.
This vessel was never entirely under water, but the passengers were
down on the lower level, which was fully submerged. The fish
completely amazed her! All she had ever seen were the primarily
grey fish at home in Saskatchewan, while these were brilliant colours,
red, pink and gold, in every shape imaginable.
After the semi-sub trip, they returned to the original boat, where they
were treated to an Australian barbecue. Then they took off on another
excursion, this time in a glass bottomed boat and again they
marvelled at the parade of amazingly coloured fish. All in all, they
were at the Great Barrier Reef for about three hours, every minute of
that time stimulating.
They also journeyed to the Atherton Tablelands, first by bus, then by
train, followed by another bus and finally a cruise on the lake. It was
a truly stunning viewing of a great variety of wonders, including an
incredible waterfall, spectacular tunnels, vast farmlands and a rain
forest. They travelled right up against the rock face, nearly close
enough to touch it. They walked four kilometers through the rain
forest to a huge crater fifty-six meters below them. The water at the
bottom of that crater was another seventy meters deep.
Cairns was their home base while they were doing this sightseeing,
and took in three all-day tours and one half-day trip while they were
there. The day after the trek to the Atherton Tablelands, Lillian and
Clarice set out again, this time to Cape Tribulation Park, named, for
obvious reasons, by Captain James Cook who had run his ship
aground there.
They had gotten well out into the wilderness when the bus broke
down. They had to simply sit and wait until another bus could be sent
out. The driver had phoned for a replacement bus earlier in the day
when he had realized that second gear was gone, but had then
proceeded to drive to the mountain peak and then back down to
Daintree! Lillian said, "I thought it was a little risky to be climbing
mountains in a lame bus." Thankfully, there was a small gift shop
there where they could buy soft drinks. Clarice sat with her leg up on
a chair as they visited and waited for the new bus.
Nevertheless, it was a exciting day. Lillian describes it, "After lunch
we drove up the Alexander Range, a very bumpy, narrow, twisty,
dusty ride. In several places it was difficult, almost impossible for
cars to pass one another. One had to back up until a spot was found
wide enough for passing. Deep gorges on one side made a rather
thrilling ride with our lame four-wheel drive bus. At the peak, though,
there was a beautiful view, well worth the trip."
One trip they didn't make was to The Outback, the Australian desert.
There was a day trip they could have taken, but reluctantly, they
decided it would be too strenuous. As much as they would have loved
to include that fascinating part of the country in their Australian
experience, the fact that it would be an arduous fifteen hour trip and
that Clarice was still not completely recovered from the insect bite
infection, made the choice clear.
After Cairns, Lillian and Clarice moved on to Brisbane, where their
primary goal was to visit the World's Fair, but they also toured the
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, the largest koala sanctuary in the
world. There are a hundred of the koalas there and Lillian was quite
intrigued by the "darling little grey cuddly animals". The kangaroos
were very tame, in fact, lazy, with most of them just lying down
hardly moving an ear as bus loads of tourists walked among them.
She felt quite safe petting one of them.
The Queensland pavilion at the World's Fair was one of the
favourites. In fact, if you wanted to get in, there was at least a forty
minutes wait, but for Lillian, it was well worth the wait. For Clarice,
unfortunately, it was impossible. Her leg was still too painful for her
to stand that long. Perhaps some of the reason Lillian enjoyed it so
much was that she and Clarice had just come from Queensland where
they had had such a good time.
Members of the audience were seated in movable chairs and then
transported around through various places picturing Queensland's
resources, activities and landscape. They were moved through a short
tunnel between each scene. Lillian says, "Riding through the rain
forest was very realistic, the crocodiles opening their jaws,
kookaburras laughing, cockatoos talking to one another, but all of it
mechanical!"
Unhappily, because of her leg, Clarice couldn't stand in the long lines
at the Canadian pavilion either. This exhibition was also very
popular, considered by many to be one the best. There were two
shows Lillian particularly admired. The first was primarily scenery
and various activities that made her proud to be a Canadian; the
second she found to be both nostalgic and amusing. It showed
Canadian lifestyles, and in addition to some wonderful singing, they
saw such things as a small child trying to skate, blizzards, football
and skiing (and falling!). It reminded her so much of home it brought
tears to her eyes.
It was an exhilarating, but admittedly tiring adventure for these two
indomitable ladies. She found the people of Australia to be very
much like us, but the animals totally different. That trip lingers in her
memory. She tells me one minute that her travelling days are
probably over, but in the next breath talks about how much she would
like to visit the Yukon. What do you think?
SPIRITUAL LIFE
Lillian continues to seek a closer walk with God. Retirement has
given her more time to spend reading, meditating and praying. Since
her retirement she has enjoyed reading through the Bible each year.
Each time through it becomes easier; she appreciates it more and she
is amazed at the newness of what she reads. For most of her life she
read and prayed at night, but now she reads in the morning. She gets
more out of it because she's not so sleepy and she also likes the way
it starts her day.
Lillian's life is brimful of activity - mental, physical, social and spiritual; her pace tires many of us much younger! She is busy, yet unruffled; mentally searching, yet content; strong and firm in her faith, yet always seeking God's face.
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