2 Extra
WWW.PGCITIZEN.CA | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2017
Beer brought one family to town in 1965
Lou (Ettinger) Sinclair was born in 1942 at the Grace Maternity Hospital in Vancouver; she was raised by her grandparents and educated in Richmond.
  After graduating from high school, she worked for the Royal Bank in the Marpole area located at Hudson Street and SW Marine Drive.
  Lou said, “I wanted to go north and my boss suggested Smith-ers so I requested a transfer and got it.
  “When I arrived in Smith-ers in 1962 I thought I fell into heaven. Besides the rolling hills, rivers, forests and mountains there was wildlife such as bears and moose close to town. The day that I landed at the Smith-ers airport I could see Lake Kathlyn at the foot of Glacier Gulch and I could see the snow-peaked Hudson Bay Mountain in the distance which towers above at about 5,400 feet.
  “I just stood there with my three cardboard boxes full of my belongings and admired it all.”
  Lou worked at the bank until Win Cox hired her as a timekeeper at the department of highways.
  Lou said, “I eventually married Sandy Bruce and we started a family. I can remember that I only gained 12 pounds during that pregnancy and in fact I was still at work the day I went to the hospital to deliver my baby.
I was barely five feet tall and my friends used to giggle and called me Lulu from Lulu Island.”
  The young family moved north to Topley Landing; a community at the outlet of the Fulton River on the western shore of Babine Lake. Her husband and their crew of four men logged and cut the right of way for the power line between Topley and Houston; Lou was the camp cook.
  Their next move was to Enda-ko where her husband worked
KATHY NADALIN
at Endako mines doing surface mining, which is a method of extracting minerals near the surface of the earth. They lived in a small trailer and Lou became a stay at home mom.
  They moved to Prince George in 1965.
  Lou laughed and said, “That was the year that the beer strike was on. Beer was only available from Ben Ginter’s Caribou Brewing Company and sold at the Canada Hotel so my husband insisted that we move to Prince George.”
  Lou went to work for the Pacific Great Eastern Railway as a switchboard operator and moved up as a cashier because of her banking experience.
She was a good typist so the company moved her to the yard office as a billing typist.
  Lou and Sandy separated one year later.
  A friend of hers hired her at the Canfor - Intercontinental Pulp Mill yard office as a yard checker. She was perfect for the job because she knew all the routing of freight cars from her years at PGE Rail.
  Time went by and she took a bookkeeping job at North Central Plywood.
  Lou reflected back and said, “Watching North Central Plywood grow from my bookkeeper’s point of view, at the office at 1717 Third Ave., was very interesting.
  “The Canadian dollar was better than the US dollar back in the late 60s and the company was busy buying the equipment to build North Central Plywood. It was so interesting watching the company come together and being a part of issuing the
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Lou Sinclair and her dog Paddy.
cheques to make it all happen.
The logs came in and first went to the de-barker, then the conditioning chest and then on to the green chain. The plywood plant came a bit later.
  “In 1971 I married Gerald Flynn and I became a stay at home mom and did the books for his logging company. We separated in 1978.
  “I worked For Lisa O’Neil and Ann Neff at the Citizen in the accounting department until I went to work full time for the next eight years at Industrial Chrome and worked for Darwin Smid.
  “I met and married Dale Sinclair and did the books for his company Chilako Consulting: a water and sewer contracting company. We eventually separated.
  “I have three children; Sheila (Darren) MacDonald, Laura (Franco) Lanfranchi and Jimmy (Ann)
Flynn; and five grandchildren.
  “I worked in various accounting positions over many years and retired in 2014 at the age of 72 due to medical issues.
  “I did not intend to retire when I did but I had to. I worked and have been active and social all my life and at first I felt like I lost my purpose in life. I was no longer able to go dancing which limited my social life so I started to volunteer as much as I could and when I was able to at the Brunswick Street senior centre.
  “I take one day at a time and enjoy the company of my dog Paddy and my many good friends.”
  • ••
  November birthdays that I know about: Shirley Bond, Noreen Rustad, Mary Kordyban, Amelia Peterson, Ginny Jenkins, Lorraine Anderson, Ann O’Shea, Glen Callieou, Karen Loehndorf,
Maurice Mingay, Victoria Nudds, Ken Royston, Geraldine Bailey, Bev Kelly, Darrell Rutledge, Jan Rivers, Carron Dunn, Sharon Husberg, Robin Wright, Wendy Schmidt, Chris-tena Benwell, Fred Schaefer,
Bob D’auray, Helen Eberherr, Maureen Keibel, Ed Parent, Gale Russell, Randy Sokolowski,
Jean Staniland, Maureen Suter, Rita Svatos, Lindsay Hick, Maureen Braun, Jack Paul, Sharon Paul, Leon Ouellette, Annette Kennedy, Sylvia Fetterly, Edith White, Neil Hunter, Sharon Halvorson, Marlene Arndt and Lucien Prevost November anniversaries that I know about: 65 years for Roy and Ivy Whitfield, 64 years for John and Iva Lovett, 52 years for Walter and Betty Wessner,
51 years for Vern and Verna Wright and 35 years for Ralph and Kathy Balcom.