Tuesday August 6, 2013 (Vol. 38 No. 63)
V O I C E
O F
W H I T E
R O C K
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S O U T H
She’s back: After months spent recovering from back surgery – to repair a crooked spine – South Surrey volleyball player Mikayla Wagner is finally back on the court, and looking to make up for lost time. › see page 13
S U R R E Y
w w w. p e a c e a r c h n e w s . c o m
Childhood memories lost
Eight months since joggers hit in crosswalk
Picturing the past
Police optimistic charges pending
Alex Browne Staff Reporter
Someone in White Rock or South Surrey must have the key to some precious memories of Stephen Ruebsaat’s childhood. Irreplaceable albums of photo prints, 30 to 40 years old – and now missing – chronicle happy times Ruebsaat, now 43, spent with his late mother, Bernice, and father Helmut, a keen amateur scuba diver, in such exotic locations as Saudi Arabia, Jamaica and Hawaii, as well as a stint in a boarding school in England. “My father was a medical doctor and he travelled to all these places, practising medicine, mainly so he could dive at them,” he said. The albums had been in the condo of his mother near Semiah❝They’re the moo Shopping Centre only trace of my before she died, suddenly and unexpect‘cosmopolitan’ edly, of a stomach childhood.❞ aneurism, in March. Stephen Ruebsaat She was 81. It was as Ruebsaat was going through her belongings to put together a photo tribute for her memorial that he realized that four or five of the familiar albums were missing from the rest. “I’ve been going nuts because I can’t find any of them,” he said. “They’re the only trace of my ‘cosmopolitan’ childhood.” A clue to their whereabouts surfaced when he was talking with a woman who used to clean his mother’s condo. She recalled Ruebsaat’s mother telling her she had taken them to be scanned and archived digitally – apparently intending it as a surprise for him. The problem is that Ruebsaat, a bathroom and kitchen renovation designer, hasn’t been able to find any receipt or claim form for such work among his mother’s effects, and local businesses have no recollection of the albums being left with them. “I’ve phoned Foto-Source, I’ve gone to Staples and London Drugs, but they don’t know anything about them,” he said. “Mom didn’t like to drive anywhere outside of White Rock, so I can’t think where else she would have gone to get that done. “I’ve wondered whether she was having the photos digitalized by someone privately, but I’ve gone through all her phone messages and notes and not found anything.” The only hope Ruebsaat has now is that reading this story will jog the memory of someone
Alex Browne Staff Reporter
Alex Browne photo
Stephen Ruebsaat is hoping someone knows where albums of treasured family photographs are. The keepsakes were discovered missing after the unexpected death of his mother. who has been keeping the albums, possibly wondering why they have not been reclaimed. “They’re very important to me,” he said, adding that while he has a half-sister, Rika, from an earlier marriage of his father – who passed away just over two years ago – he was raised essentially as an only child. The albums, which he describes as “old-
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school photo album-scrap books with fake leather on the front and gold trim,” contain mostly colour prints from the late 1970s. Any information leading to their recovery will be gratefully received, he said. “It would lessen my grief at losing my mom to a considerable extent.” Ruebsaat can be reached at 604-329-0563.
Charges may finally be laid next month in connection with a December hit-and-run in South Surrey that injured two women. Cpl. Bert Paquet said Friday that investigators are optimistic that there will be action on the file “in early September.” Charges of hit-and-run causing bodily harm have been expected for months in the Dec. 3 incident, in which Shelley Lammers, 51, and running partner Nola Carlson, 54, were struck while jogging across 152 Street at 32 Avenue, just before 8 p.m. Lammers, a Delta resident, suffered a concussion, fractured ribs, broken vertebrae, a collapsed lung and a lacerated liver, while Carlson’s injuries included a broken nose and cheek. The incident was recorded by a traffic camera, which also showed a figure on foot approaching the injured women and leaning over them – some 25 seconds after the impact – before leaving the scene rapidly. The arrest of a 53-year-old man and the seizure of a BMW X1 in connection with the incident were announced by police on Dec. 6. A court date of May 13 had been mentioned, but further proceedings did not materialize. “The investigators are at the stage of formalizing the charges against the driver in collaboration with Crown counsel,” Paquet said. Paquet said that while the public is often surprised by how long it takes such cases to come to court, comparable delays are not uncommon “in the world we live in.” “It’s partly to ensure as thorough an investigation as possible, and partly just the process,” he said.
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