Edna Frances Pugh of West Kelowna, BC, passed away on Wednesday, September 30, 2020 at the age of 91.
Edna arrived in this world on December 28, 1928 in Moosomin, Saskatchewan, the third of six children born to Margaret VIckors (Crosson) Plewes and Albert Russell Plewes. In the early 1930s, when she was still a young child, financial difficulties meant the family had to give up their farm at Moosomin, pack everything they owned, and start over again at a farm near Spy Hill, Saskatchewan. Fortunately, they prospered at their new home. Edna and her siblings walked or rode horses from their farm to school in Spy Hill, where she excelled both academically and athletically. While her spelling was a bit sketchy at times, she more than made up for it with her impeccable penmanship.
One of her vivid childhood memories was standing with other students alongside the railway tracks near the school in Spy Hill and waving to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth as the English Royal Couple travelled by train through Spy Hill in 1939 as part of their tour of Canada.
She was a talented baseball player, and her striking good looks were complemented by her easy-going, pleasant personality. She even achieved a royal peerage of sorts during her high school years when she was voted Spy Hill Carnival Queen. Her fearlessness on the ball diamond was legendary, but it also resulted in permanent loss of hearing in her left ear as a result of a collision with a runner twice her size when she was playing second base during a schoolyard ball game when she was in Grade 12.
After she graduated from high school in Spy Hill, she studied Psychiatric Nursing at the Weyburn Psychiatric Hospital, where she met and fell in love with a fellow student, Rodger Pugh, a farm boy from Rose Valley, Saskatchewan.
Edna and Rodger were married on December 28, 1951 and graduated together the following spring. The next year, the couple moved to Saskatoon, where Rodger began medical classes at the University of Saskatchewan and Edna worked at the Red Cross blood donor clinic. Their first-born child lived only about a week and died of a respiratory illness. However, together they eventually conceived and raised six children, four girls and two boys. Edna loved them all, and taught them many valuable life lessons through her words and actions. She was especially proud of her fifteen grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
In 1957, Edna and Rodger moved their growing family to the small prairie town of LeRoy, Saskatchewan, where Rodger, newly-graduated from Medical College, began his first practice as family physician. During their time in LeRoy from 1957 to 1961, Edna learned to operate the small hospital’s second-hand x-ray machine and also performed all the lab work at the hospital; all while taking care of the children, cooking, cleaning and gardening. Her habit of humming the ‘Irish Washerwoman’ jig when she was doing housework was probably something she picked up from her maternal grandmother, who hailed from County Cavan in Ireland. During her years in LeRoy, Edna was active in the United Church and several community organizations. The family moved to Moose Jaw for a year before returning to Saskatoon in 1962.
She was thrifty with the family’s finances during the 1960s when her husband was taking post-graduate classes in anaesthesia. She spent countless hours every fall home-canning fruits and vegetables for the winter, knitting mittens, patching clothes and darning an endless parade of holes in kids’ socks. But stretching the dollars meant there was always money available for fun stuff, including sailing lessons and even a cross-country family road trip to Expo 67 in Montreal during Canada’s Centennial year.
She had a kind and generous heart, but she was also a strict disciplinarian when the need arose. The kids learned early on it didn’t pay to get on her bad side. She had no trouble literally ‘turning a deaf ear’ to even the most creative excuses for bad behaviour.
In the fall of 1968, at the age of 39, Edna earned her first driver’s license; and a few months later, when the family moved to Kamloops, BC, she found herself behind the wheel of an overloaded and underpowered Volkswagen navigating an ice-covered narrow highway through the Rocky Mountains. Their new home along the banks of the North Thompson River came complete with its own icy toboggan run along a steep gully that was one of the fastest and rockiest in the province. Edna’s battered tailbone bore the scars to prove it.
In 1975, Edna and Rodger and the three youngest children moved to Westbank, now known as West Kelowna, where Edna became involved with the Westbank United Church and many community organizations. Edna loved the view overlooking Okanagan Lake from her balcony, and always kept a wary eye out for Ogopogo.
In the early 1980s, after the last of the kids had graduated from high school, Edna and Rodger began another phase of their adventure together by moving to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Rodger joined the staff at the King Faisal Research Hospital. While in Riyadh, they made strong and lasting friendships with people from many countries, and used the opportunity to sample the wonders of wide-ranging cultures. They travelled to virtually every continent except Australia and Antarctica. They saw all of North America from Alaska and the Northwest Territories to Newfoundland and California. They sailed the waters of the Nile River, the Mediterranean, Caribbean and Atlantic; hiked the hills of Greece, rode camels and camped in the endless sands of the Saudi Desert, and saw more of the world in a few years than most people see in a lifetime.
When they returned to Westbank in the 1990s to retire, they devoted their energy to making their community a better place by getting involved in the Westbank United Church, Westbank Seniors Club and Westbank Lions CLub. Edna was a graceful dancer, a resourceful camper and outdoorswoman, a collector of antique sad irons, an accomplished downhill and cross-country skier, a fair-weather golfer, surprisingly competitive ping-pong player, reluctant but competent sailor, and closet pool shark. Her artistic talents were evident in the flowers around her home, and also in the beautiful wind-sculpted ‘desert rose’ sandstone collection in her china cabinet. She was an avid reader and card player, even in her later years as she struggled with dementia.
In 2012, three years after her husband’s passing, she moved to an apartment in the Westwood Retirement Resort in West Kelowna. She was very fond of her new home and received the best of care from the staff. She was known as ‘the flower lady’ because she liked to tend the flowers outside the building. During her final years, she was always working on a puzzle, and even though it might take weeks or months, she would always finish it and immediately move on to another one.
Edna was predeceased by her husband Rodger Pugh; her parents, Vicky and Russell Plewes; her infant son Lester Kim Pugh; her grandchildren David Baehl and Rachael Baehl Wissink; brothers Grant Plewes and Frank Plewes; sister Deane Murray; brother-in-law Ralph Murray; and sisters-in-law Helen Plewes and Arlene Plewes.
Edna leaves to mourn her six children Kay (Fred) Baehl of West Kelowna,BC; Terry (Monica Ethier) of Warman, Saskatchewan; Beverly (Grant) Hunter of Winfield, BC; Leslie (Stu) Ogren of Fresno, California, USA; Wade (Jackie) Pugh of Delta, BC; and Marie (Yves) Petraitis of Switzerland; 15 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren as well as numerous nieces and nephews. She is also survived by her brother Jack Plewes of Keremeos, BC; sister Merle (Lloyd) Godwin of Tantallon, Saskatchewan; and sister-in-law Alice Plewes of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Due to COVID-19 health restrictions, there will be no public viewing or funeral at this time. A celebration of Edna’s life, and interment of her ashes following cremation, will be held at a later date when health restrictions are lifted and larger family gatherings are permitted.