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Friday, February 1, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916

Family mourns Lheidli matriarch Funeral set for Saturday at Sacred Heart Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca When Mary Gouchie passed away at the age of 97, her spirit was carried by 84 direct descendants. “You’ve heard it said that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, she raised her own village,” said her youngest daughter, Jo-Anne Berezanski, 63. Berezanski moved to Vancouver Island in 1986 and never returned except for visits. When she drove around Prince George after Gouchie passed away on Jan. 24 and saw that many of the civic flags were flying at halfmast, she was overwhelmed. “I never knew my mom was so famous,” Berezanski said. “We are so very, very proud of her for all the work she did for her family and community and she was always so humble about it.” That work spanned her entire expansive life. When she was mother to Janet, Duncan, Murphy, Shirley, Fred, Laura, Jo-Anne, Ernie, Gilbert and Douglas (the latter three predeceasing her), her efforts were applied to the work of raising a family. She worked for years on end at the Coast Inn of the North and was its first employee to reach retirement. She would walk to and from work daily from the family home near Hakanson’s General Store on the Island Cache (in the vicinity of what is today Cottonwood Island Park) before that area was cleared of all residents in 1972. Gouchie grew gardens of fresh food and turned much of it into preserves. She was a master at crochet work, quilting and sewing of any kind. Her creations had function but she would also produce works of art. It was of such high quality that many cohorts of international students at UNBC and CNC received her items as gifts to take back to their home countries. Her connection with the city’s two premier post-secondary institutions grew richly when an academic interest was taken in Gouchie’s ability to speak the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation’s branch of the Dakelh language. She was the last fluent linguist of this dialect.

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Catriona Le May Doan and Mary Gouchie, 93, carry the torch into Canada Games Plaza in 2015. Gouchie passed away on Jan. 24 at the age of 97. She took that responsibility with care and professionalism. She became a central figure in UNBC’s and CNC’s efforts to understand the Lheidli culture and document the language. She helped in similar ways with the City of Prince George and was an official translator for the 2015 Canada Winter Games – the first time those Games officially recognized a host First Nation. She was active almost to her final day in teaching the local Dakelh dialect to younger generations eager to restore this Indigenous tongue very nearly quashed by the residential school system and other colonization efforts. “My mom lived through such racist times it would make any moral people cry,” said Berezanski. “She was actually a very private person, but she did amazing things without any attention for it.” Some attention is shining now on Gouchie’s legacy, over and above her 21 grandchildren, 33

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great-grand children and more great-great-grand children. Some of that attention was the simple memory of times spent with a beloved elder. “I remember her pressing large amounts of berries through a sieve,” said grandson Joseph Berezanski. “She would make sure there were no bits, just clear raspberry or blueberry juice. Grandma would take this juice, add water, sugar and ice for a kind of real fruit Kool-Aid in the hot summers.” He also remembered proudly trying to save the wrapping paper and bows from his Christmas gifts to give to his grandma so she would have nice trappings for wrapping her own presents. “Money was very scarce when mom was growing up and in the early years of raising her family,” said son Duncan and his wife Norma. “She talked of a time when she suffered terribly with a toothache. There was no money to

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see a dentist so she stayed up all night making moccasins, walked to town from Shelley, sold the moccasins to Harold Moffat at Northern Hardware and was able to pay a dentist to pull her tooth.” Gouchie would joke that she was so thrifty at making a dollar stretch for miles that the Minister of Finance ought to take lessons. “Our fondest memories of our mom/grandma are going garage saling and thrift store shopping with her. She was the most thrifty person we knew and was always on the lookout for the best deals,” said granddaughter Miranda Seymour on behalf of her mother Laura Luth. “She took opportunities to instill in us the importance of saving money, doing things right the first time so you don’t have to do it again and, most importantly, not paying full price for something if you could find it in a garage sale or thrift store.” Gouchie also instilled the value of a life of openness.

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“We also enjoyed our breakfasts with her at Ricky’s or White Spot, all of her delicious home cooked meals, especially her baking and legendary Christmas dinners. We also enjoyed spending time at her home at 680 Union St., where the door was always open and the house was always spotless. Like her cooking, her garden was legendary. We could often be caught raiding her peas and raspberries. Her other favourite pastime that she took such pride in was sewing and crocheting. We especially remember how she made myself and my sister Kerri matching outfits as kids, and clothes for our dolls.” That garden was also a primary memory for granddaughter Nicole Wiltermuth, who spoke on behalf of her mom Shirley. She said Gouchie would have a bucket of soapy water for them to wash their bare feet if they’d been out raiding the raspberries and Gouchie would inspect their bare feet for cleanliness before reentry to the house was allowed. She also remembered their mundane routines that now seem fondest of all, like Dairy Queen treats, watching Jeopardy, playing Keno on Saturday at the mall and Gouchie’s favourite beverage: Red Rose tea with two cream and six sugar. “She worked harder than anyone I know and there was never an idle moment,” said Berezanski, who laughed that her mother had a lifelong heart arrhythmia and an eye damaged in an awl incident, but with modern medicine helping to ease both afflictions, the elder Gouchie was keen to point out that she was getting younger as she was getting older. “Her life was a perfectly balanced routine,” Berezanski said. “I loved our visits and she loved hearing about my adventures. She was a joy to be with and always had wise and comforting words to share. I know that she will be dearly missed by our nation, our Prince George community, and especially our family.” Her legacy will live on in each word of Lheidli Dakelh spoken by future generations and it will live on in physical form as well. Artifacts from her life are already being gathered for an upcoming exhibition at The Exploration Place Museum and Science Centre. Items so far collected include Gouchie’s wash tub, washboard, sewing machine, ironing board, a pink dress she wore for special occasions, a pressure cooker, some crochet work, her last piece of unfinished sewing, receipts for the purchase of some of these tools, a 100-year-old doll, some of her written notes for translation work and some tapes of her voice. Her funeral will be held at the Sacred Heart Cathedral on Saturday at 2 p.m. with a graveside service to follow at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park’s cemetery. A reception will be held after that at the Marriott Hotel where a tribute video will be shown.

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