Looking at the history of Calgary through the lens of my little window has been fascinating. My cohort born in the late 40s, the ‘boomers’ and the later hippies, were not all the same of course. We saw our city go through some amazing times and these continue as we step back from the main stage and some of us leave it entirely.
It is interesting to see how we fit in though.
I have three binders of names of people I went to school with and have been tracing public records in the 2020s to see where are they now? We are all in our seventies. It is an amazing gift to have lived this long really. It is humbling to see how small my mark is but really how big the mark of the generation has been, and how important every generation has been really. We see our part in history.
Some of the ones I went to school with have been harder to trace. Those at Viscount Bennett who were children from Currie Barracks, army kids often relocated to other cities later, and likely even other countries. I can’t find some of them. The girls who married are hard to trace if they took on a married name and I don’t know it.
But I was able to find a lot of us, through obituaries of parents and siblings, graveyard online searches of relatives with that name, and other public resources. I consider what I found to be still kind of private, cherished even. Some social media accounts, high school reunion postings show where people are now. It is heartening to see the faces of people in their 70s, who I knew over 50 years ago. They have had full lives, travelled, had careers, often married and have children and grandchildren. They are like flowers in a garden that blossomed and I got to see them at the bud stage. What a marvel.
Our Names
The popular names of babies have changed over the years. My cohort in the years 1948-1950 statistically were given names like Robert, John, Joseph, Donald, David, William, Keth, Brian, Richard, James, Michael, Douglas, Larry. And yes it’s true. Many on my personal list of kids I went to school with had those names.
The girls had names like Linda, Mary, Barbara, Patricia, Susan, Margaret, Sharon, Judith, Donna, Carol, Brenda, Elizabeth, Catherine, Shirley, Wendy, Janet – and yes many of my list had those names.
But not all of them. I knew and had fun tracing people of much less common names, enriching the fabric of our multi ethnic city that has become even more multi ethnic since.
In my cohort I was able to trace about 50 people definitively, about 20 with high probability. They are a fascinating range. Of course some of these I know very well. It is an honor that a few of these have become lifelong friends. Thanks to school I met co travellers through my life. We have checked in with each other every few months or years through the whole time. By phone, text or in person these have seen me through life stages and I hope I have helped them. There is nothing like an old friend. You can tell your honest frustrations, your joys, sorrows and they just understand. I have had a few friends like that from other stages of life, two women who had babies the same time as I did, and we share news of our 50 year olds kids now. I have a friend who was a former neighbor. We saw each other through kids’ tantrums and career upheavals, through deaths of our parents, through illness, through loss of spouses, through heartbreaks and proud moments. There is such safety to a friendship like that. There is no reason to put on the brave face . They know.
But Viscount was a huge school. Thousands of students. In 2026 as I checked, many were familiar names only, their little photos in the yearbook staring up at me so very familiar triggering memories of them in class there. What happened to them?
I want to notice the courses of lives of our cohort. It is like watching a movie with hundreds of main characters.
Some observations
- Our parents’ origins, careers
The fathers of many were in the military, often the RCAF. They came back to further education or set up right into career. There were a pilot, two doctors, a chef, owner of a clothes store, owner of a meat market, optometrist, school principal. Salesmen.
The mothers had usually spent some time at home with the kids but some had had careers before and after. Roles in the navy, as ambulance driver in the war, secretaries, nurses, professional singers and a lot of teachers.
Their fathers died some young like age 55 but many after long lives – age 92, 95, 106!
Their mothers tended to live longer than the fathers but some too lived into their 90s and past 100. Hardy lot.
- Our own later education and careers
The boys I went to school with became an architect, an army chaplain, an art teacher, a church minister, and several became engineers. Many worked in the oil and gas industry. Some went on to get doctorates and university faculty. One became a dog breeder, one a rural horse trainer, one a venture capitalist, a few police officers.
The girls I went to school with have often become community activists and won volunteer awards. One became a business analyst, one a Hollywood actress, many became nurses, one became a judge. One became a pharmacist, one an optometrist, one operated clothing stores, one was a floral clerk . Several worked for the federal government one in immigration service. Some became professors in their fields. A few became realtors, often very successful. Some moved to small towns. One became a rural town planner and few have become farmer in family run operations that have been around for generations.
- Our siblings
It’s funny what you don’t know when you are in a classroom. I did not realize how many of my peers had big families or what their religious affiliation was. However in tracing them I have discovered they had very busy and diverse home lives, even then.
Some of us had very famous siblings. One became an MP, one a famous broadcaster, one an army pilot and colonel.
Most of us have been touched by deaths by now. Deaths of parents, sometimes after many years of helping them struggle with illness. The passing of a sibling is destabilizing. They were going to be our buddies for the journey. The ages of their death show tragedy. Age 18, age 21, age 48, age 58 of ALS .One had four siblings, two of whom have died at 13 and 67. One had five siblings, and two have died ages 69 and 73. One lost their twin at age 69. One lost 3 of 4 siblings when they were 53, 58, 63.
As our cohort turns 78, the loss of siblings mounts of course many have lost siblings who were older than us, who died at 80, 81. There is an oddity to that also. When I was little, a person who was 40 was old. When I was a young mother, there was a man in our church who was 80. I thought he was so dignified and wonderful, grey haired and smiling, but also that he was as old as a tree. It is shocking to realize my cohort is nearly that age now.
I have noticed that when all of your birth family has died but you, there is an odd loneliness. It feels like you are the last leaf on the tree. Some of my cohort are going through that and if their spouse has also died, moreso even.
- Our marriages, divorces, children
I see that many have had very productive lives as singles, good careers and still in their seventies travelling and living in their own homes. Many married, some had children, some divorced. There are often not just grandchildren but even great grandchildren for some of us. Imagine that. This kid I knew when he was 16 is now someone’s great grandpa.
Most of those who married did so in their 20s or 30s. It seems to have had a strong impact on where they lived after that and how. Many married someone who went into the oil and gas industry. One married a judge. Two married farmers and went back to the land. One married a doctor, one married a plastic surgeon, one a journalist, several lawyers. Because we were women of the 70s, many of us became those doctors, journalists, lawyers ourselves.
I only see two couples who married classmates from high school. They were married over 45 years. It was a big school and there were also marriages of siblings with some of our friends. It is a small world, but not often. Lives intertwine.
Losing a spouse is for many of us a new reality. I am sad to see that some of us lost a spouse at an early age. One’s spouse was only 46. More lost a spouse who was 68, 69, 72, 77, 78. Mine was 76.
We had children and grandchildren, not in the high birth rate of our parents but we have passed on the torch. The joys of births, school milestones, career and travel adventures of our kids, are not captured in the official records but for many were highlights of our existence.
Sadly a few of us have lost a child, or grandchild, some at birth. A few died tragically in their teens. Some of us have known deep heartache.
- Our relocations
In 1949 Calgary was drawing newcomers like a magnet. It was booming post war and people came from Saskatchewan, Ontario, Europe especially England, and from the US. I met all my cohort in Calgary- but few families were originally from here. They often still had family back home and my cohort was not remotely averse to travel.
I was surprised to see how many have moved.
Because some of the students at Viscount Bennett were army kids, their families apparently sometimes took new postings in other cities later and they went with them.
Where have they gone? Some immediately left and got higher education in another city. Some got post secondary here but took up professions in other places, often in Ontario or the Maritimes. Some moved out to the country. Some left the country.
Of the boys I went to school with two moved to Edmonton, two to High River, one to Vermont. It is common for Calgarians to retire to BC and many of my cohort did move out there, either in middle age or as seniors. Some of us are still plotting a move to BC.
Of the girls I went to school with two moved to small towns in Alberta, one to Okotoks, one to Nanton. One moved to Edmonton, two to Manitoba, one to Ontario. I was amazed to see that one lives in Texas, one in Oregon and one in Seattle. One moved to Australia and one to New Zealand.
- Our lifespan
It is a great sadness to me to randomly search a name and discover this beautiful youth I knew died young. Here I am mourning someone decades after their passing, in the middle of the night as I look at my computer, because I only now learned of the death. So this project has had its sadness too.
The boys I went to school with are now if alive about 76. Many have passed away. There were deaths age 41,45, 54, 56, 61, 63, 69. There have been a lot more deaths in their seventies- 71,72,73,75, 76, 79
The girls I went to school with are mostly still alive. There have been some deaths young – 30, 39, 56 and a few in their senior years – 65, 67, 76.
Our Teachers
I was able to trace several dozen of the teachers at King Edward and Viscount Bennett from those years.. Many had stayed in Calgary but some had not.
It is odd. When you are little, you barely think of a teacher as a full human. Some little kids even think the teacher lives at the school. The idea some were married, had children was a little inconceivable to me at the time. I remember when one of the single teachers got married over the summer we were all giggly and mystified about if she would change her name. I remember in elementary school stalking a teacher I adored and seeing the walkup apartment she and her young husband lived in. They were gods to us, or the opposite. There were not quite real.
But it turns out they were real. They had careers in progress. They had dreams.
Several of our classroom teachers went on to become school principals. Many taught over 20 years before they retired. One became a professor of French, one a high ranking alumni of the University , one a math professor. A few who taught music also conducted church choirs for decades, a side gig I had not been aware of.
I had not known where they came from. They had just materialized there at the front of the classroom but it turns out some were from England. I did know one was from Australia. One was from Toronto and apparently had amazing teaching credentials back there. One actually was from Paris.
And it turns out they did marry and had kids and grandkids. One lost his wife when she was 84. The wife of one lived to 92 and another to age 101.
Some of our teachers were single women, as was the 1930s stereotype, still sometimes true. One I adored as a cool young English teacher became a career high school teacher who only recently passed away. She was older than me but in my mind she is forever about 30. One my high school teachers was a single lady, very strict disciplinarian who with her sister had both become career teachers/ They were anchors to two of the city’s biggest high schools in their day.
How long did they live? Well. It turns out that teaching is quite a healthy profession. The ages of death of our teachers were sometimes in the sixties but mostly higher. 73, 79, 80, 81, 85, 90, 91. 93.
I am wondering if they had a good life. My daughter saw from a distance a former teacher years ago and said” That’s a person I mentally deranged”. But we were young. Immature. But they did somehow survive us, teach us, guide us ahead. Would they be pleased with us? I think they would be proud of what they had done.
I was at reunion of Viscount years ago. People had flown in from around the country. There was our former principal. He was a white haired man in a wheelchair and with some problems hearing . But it was touching to see him.
I attended the life celebration service of a favorite music teacher, held in a church where she had been music director for decades. She had apparently agreed to have this event before she passed away, everyone knowing that her cancer would take her shortly. It was the most amazing event. I sat in the balcony, huge crowd packed to the rafters. We were invited to sing a hymn and she sat there way down at the front, small but brave. When we sang, our voices lifted so powerfully the roof nearly came off the place. Of course they did. She had taught us to sing. We were thanking her the best way we could.
Another one in our cohort age wise had taught at a big city highschool in the north end most of his career. He had retired in his early sixties with a heart condition. His reputation was as an English teacher, brilliant, dynamic, funny, and quirky, kind of harsh even but he really loved his subject. He would kid around with the kids but he had very high expectations. He always wore a suit when teaching, even when some of his younger colleagues were wearing Bermuda shorts. He took the job seriously. He died of a heart attack within a year of retirement. I don’t know how his former students found out . The funeral was on a Saturday. I went with my daughter who had been one of his students. The place was full, standing room only at the back. There were hundreds of teenagers. Wearing black. Because this was someone they knew had mattered in their lives. One speaker told a funny story about the teacher’s antics and the teens laughed. They knew that sense of humor.
School makes a mark on us. Who teaches us influences us.
__________
It has been said that if you talk to a friend every day there is always lots to say.
But if you talk to someone only every few years, there is less to say. It is hard to get started, to figure out where the common ground is,
There is third stage though, when you have not seen them for 60 years. I read their name on the obit, or see their current picture on social media and am stunned silent.
How did this happen? It is like a wand wafted over this 16 year old and suddenly time travel brought us here.
However there is some sort of peace. What we shared was bigger than just the same classroom years ago. For each of us, life became as complicated as it did for any given one of us.
At this point, there is so much to discuss really that there is not enough time to even try.. No idle chat would possibly encompass all that has gone on. It is just a feeling of privilege.
It is like seeing all the blossoms of a garden, and how they spread their roots, all the little birds and seeing how they took wing.
We got to share some of our childhood. We got to see the city grow. We got a big chunk of the taste of life.
beverleysmith-cnjyv 