Fairhurst, Eunice "Kelly"

Identity area

Type of entity

Person

Authorized form of name

Fairhurst, Eunice "Kelly"

Parallel form(s) of name

  • Fairhurst, Eunice
  • Fairhurst, Kelly
  • Forster, Eunice
  • Forster, Kelly

Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules

Other form(s) of name

Identifiers for corporate bodies

Description area

Dates of existence

1929 - December 23, 2006

History

Eunice "Kelly" Fairhurst (nee Forster) was an early Whistler resident. Although here official given name was Eunice, she was always referred to as "Kelly". Kelly was born in 1929 in Burnaby, BC and also spent her childhood there. She had three siblings: Mary, Richi, and Vera. She later taught at an elementary school in Burnaby along with four other teachers: June Collins, Florence Petersen, Betty Atkinson, and Jacquie Pope. Kelly and Jacquie began vacationing to Alta Lake in the summer of 1953, and enjoyed their time there so much that they persuaded the group of teachers pool in and purchase a holiday cabin on Alta Lake in 1955, which they named "Witsend" after a particularly trying and rainy journey to Alta Lake. The five close friends spent much of their summers at the cabin, hiking and having fun. At Alta Lake they learned to split wood, cook on a wood-burning stove, and lime an outhouse. Kelly married a local logger and owner of Cypress Lodge on Alta Lake, Dick Fairhurst, in 1958, and they expanded Cypress Lodge together, which catered to fishing tourists, highway construction workers, and skiers in the winter months. Dick and Kelly had two children, David (1960) and Carol (1962), who grew up at Alta Lake, attending the Alta Lake School. Cypress Lodge became a gathering place for the small Alta Lake community through the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. The wharf was the base for the Alta Lake Sailing Club’s Dominion Day Derby on July 1 and the annual Regretta (named for the regret at the season ending) on Labour Day, where events such as pie eating contests and a fish fry took place alongside boat races. In the winter, Dick and Kelly also opened the lodge for New Year’s Eve parties. The Fairhursts continued to operate Cypress Lodge, renting cabins out to Whistler Mountain employees and highway crews, until 1972, when they sold the property to the Canadian Youth Hostels Association. In 1973, they moved into their new home built by Andy Petersen on Drifter Way in the Alpine Meadows neighbourhood of Whistler, where they stayed until both David and Carol had graduated from high school in Pemberton. In 1980, Dick and Kelly retired and moved into a house Dick had built for them in Parksville on Vancouver Island, where Kelly joined the quilters' guild. Dick passed away in 1983, and Kelly married her second husband, Lew Eilers, in 1990. They subsequently moved to Penticton, BC. In her later years, Kelly was diagnosed with multiple system atrophy and moved to Nanaimo Seniors Village in Nanaimo, BC in 2001. She passed away on December 23, 2006.

Places

Burnaby, BC
Alta Lake
Whistler
Alpine Meadows
Parksville, BC
Penticton, BC
Nanaimo, BC

Legal status

Functions, occupations and activities

Teacher

Mandates/sources of authority

Internal structures/genealogy

General context

Relationships area

Related entity

Fairhurst, David (1960-)

Identifier of related entity

CA-BC-FD003

Category of relationship

family

Type of relationship

Fairhurst, David

is the child of

Fairhurst, Eunice "Kelly"

Dates of relationship

Description of relationship

Related entity

Fairhurst, Carol (1962-)

Identifier of related entity

CA-BC-FC001

Category of relationship

family

Type of relationship

Fairhurst, Carol

is the child of

Fairhurst, Eunice "Kelly"

Dates of relationship

Description of relationship

Related entity

Fairhurst, Dick (1914-)

Identifier of related entity

CA-BC-FD001

Category of relationship

family

Type of relationship

Fairhurst, Dick

is the spouse of

Fairhurst, Eunice "Kelly"

Dates of relationship

1958 - ?

Description of relationship

Kelly was Dick Fairhurst's second wife, with whom he had two children: Carol and David.

Access points area

Subject access points

Place access points

Occupations

Control area

Authority record identifier

CA-BC-FEK001

Institution identifier

Rules and/or conventions used

RAD, July 2008 version. Canadian Council of Archives.

Status

Level of detail

Dates of creation, revision and deletion

Catalogued April 2022.

Language(s)

Script(s)

Maintenance notes

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