Tribute

Therese was born in Cranbrook, BC on August 15, 1925.  Her mother was Marcelle Julia Chenuz (nee Duber) and her father Gaston Edward Chenuz.  Her parents were both originally from Switzerland.  Therese had a younger sister, Marcelle (born in 1931) and a younger brother, Charles (born in 1935).  Therese went on a trip to Switzerland for nine months with her mother when she was five.  Her mother took her on a train back to eastern Canada and then they went by ship to France and then by train again to Switzerland.  Her younger sister Marcelle was born while they were in Switzerland.

Therese lived in Cranbrook until she was eight years old. Then the family moved to Kimberley for one year and then to Marysville.  While in Cranbrook she had three goats, a dog name Pedie and two cats.

She attended Southward School (the area school) in Cranbrook.  For Grade two, she transferred to Cranbrook School.  She could only speak French when she started school but learned English in about a year.  She was always called Mimi, the French nickname for the first born female child.  While in Cranbrook she was taken to school by her father on a motorcycle with a sidecar.  Her father worked as a mechanic but died in 1935 at the age of forty due to pneumonia.  This was shortly after he had moved the family to Kimberley.  He had purchased some land on a lake out in the Skookumchuck area and planned to open a guiding business.

Therese met her best friend Ellen Hoskavich (later Wodyga) in Kimberley when she was ten.  Therese completed grade seven and eight in one year in Marysville.  For grade nine and ten, she went to Kimberley.

In her youth, Therese played softball, tobogganed, hiked down to the St. Mary’s River, rode bicycle and went to dances.

When quite young in Cranbrook, Therese tripped on a boardwalk with a missing plank.  She broke her nose and blackened her front teeth from the fall.  When sixteen or seventeen, while playing ball at Wasa, Verna Traverse (later the wife of Charlie Kahl) ran in front of a fly ball and touched the ball so it hit Therese right in the nose and knocked it back into place.  One of the jobs that Therese did was to clean the Marysville School with her mother.  She was eleven or twelve years old at the time.

On her 16^th birthday, she caught typhoid from unpasteurized milk that had been infected by a typhoid carrier that worked bottling it.  She was sick for about three months, spending two of the months in bed.  She had to learn to walk again.

Therese took correspondence school for Grade eleven and then went to business college in Cranbrook for six months (an eight-month course).  She taught shorthand while in college to pay for the bus ride back and forth from Marysville to Cranbrook.  The college wanted Therese to teach Grade 13 in Cranbrook High School (business material – Pitman shorthand).  Therese was offered a job at Sash and Door (Tembec) when she was eighteen or nineteen.  She declined the offer because her mother wanted her to stay home.

Therese went to work in the main office for Cominco for a few months and then was transferred to the Machine Shop office at the Concentrator in Kimberley.  Her duties were typing, letters, accounting and pay cheque distribution.  She worked at the Concentrator until she got married.

Therese met Albert Kahl at a dance in Marysville.  There were Amateur Nights in Marysville at Charlie Bird’s Hall with dances almost every weekend.  These were community dances and everyone went.  Therese had to break her first date to a dance with Albert because her religious friend would not go.

Therese and Albert were married on August 31^st in 1947.  They went on a honeymoon to Banff and then Saskatchewan.  Albert had just bought a new (used) car (a Hudson) before getting married.  They lived in Marysville.  Albert started digging the basement for a new cinder block house in 1949. They resided in the basement two years before moving upstairs.  They spent their entire married life (53 years) in this one house.  Albert passed away in 2000.  Therese sold the house and moved back to Cranbrook in 2003 to a condo in Sunshine Meadows. Therese loved couture sewing, knitting and arts and crafts of all variety.

Therese loved animals, especially cats.  Her favorite colors were lilac, lavender and purple.  In honor of Therese’s memory and in lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Cranbrook SPCA, P.O. Box 2, Cranbrook, B.C. V1C 4H6.

Therese is survived by her sister Marcelle Wickes of Victoria; sister-in-law Shirley Chenuz of Cranbrook; daughter Terry and son-in-law Gordon of Cranbrook; her son Larry and daughter-in-law Karen of Mission, B.C.; six grandchildren: Christina (Jeff), Angie (Tony), Cory, Carrie (Jesse), Jenny (Jed), and Mandy (Etienne); plus ten great grandchildren.

Therese will be laid to rest with her husband, Albert in the Kimberley Cemetery.  There will be no formal service as per her request but condolences may be left for the family at www.markmemorial.com