Mary Catherine Irmina West

I got the sad news on the passing of Mrs. West over the last weekend.  She was the mother of one of my best friends growing up and a veritable force in the community.  In many ways a typical mother of our era... a natural chauffeur, short order cook, bake sale operator, a woman with an ear to the ground and her finger on the pulse of the neighbourhood.

Her second home was the schoolyard at Highland Creek Public School where she was a tireless volunteer, back in the times when schools were funded and not desperately begging for bodies to fill holes left in budgets. You kind of feel she did it because she could, and it was the right thing to do.  Of course the grade 8 graduation party was at the West house hosted happily by her... in fact the house was always open for various games, T.V watching and cookie snacking.

I remember that time the city tried to put a dump at the top of our street.  Lets just say that the city councilors in charge of that project felt the full brunt of the West opposition to something that would be bad for the neighbourhood.  There was no quiet in that little disagreement as troops were rallied and forms were signed, and the dump never happened...  and they never tried again.

In high school we put a play on that happened to be a wrestling match between Santa and Scrooge.  I was Scrooge and Rob, her son was in my corner as "the Grinch"... Rob showed up with proper sewn Grinch shoes,  Grinch hat and to the letter Grinch shirt and pants... "yea my mom really got into it" he said at dress rehearsal.  And that's what she did, she got into things, made them better, to make them better for the kids.

Thank you Mrs. West, rest in peace.