BLAMIRE, Carolyn Isobel Em
Carolyn Isobel Em Blamire (nee Pearson) passed away unexpectedly on May 17, 2016 at her home in Aldergrove, BC at the age of 81. She is survived by her two daughters Diane Valerie Hutton and Andrea Elizabeth Duval, their husbands, three grandchildren (Mary, Jonathan, Christine) and 8 great-grandchildren.
On September 18, 1934, in Ottawa, Ontario, Carolyn, known throughout her life as Cally, was the third child born to Sadie Evelyn and John Clark Pearson. Her eldest sibling, Barbara resides near Portland, Oregon and her brother John Edward (Teddy) is deceased. At a young age, Cally moved with her family to a farm in Cobble Hill on Vancouver Island. There, she discovered her first of many lifelong passions, horses. As a teenager, she was also a member of Future Farmers, the precursor to 4H, and showed her dairy calf at the PNE.
Cally became a registered nurse after graduating from the nursing program at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria. She became friends with Edith and Andrew Blamire, who worked at the hospital as a nurses' aid and a custodian. Through the couple she met their son Norman, whom she married on September 22, 1956 in Ottawa, Ont. Norman, who graduated from the University of Alberta as an electrical engineer, was an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces (fun fact: he worked on the navigational system of the Avro Arrow). As a typical forces couple they resided in a number of places. After Ottawa, they moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba and then to Edmonton (Fort Namao), Alberta.
When Norman retired from the air force, they moved to the acreage in Aldergrove where they built their home and resided for their remaining years. Norman started a second career with the Correctional Service of Canada and, in his spare time, repaired televisions and built and programmed computers. No matter where she was living Cally had many interests and activities. She incorporated her love of horses and artistic abilities into many of them. She was one of the founding leaders of the Otter 4H Horse Club in 1973. Each year, when members of the club attended the PNE, she would help with the design of the stall decorations and would create a specialized nameplate for each of the stall doors. Throughout her life Cally had drawn in many different mediums, pencil, chalk, watercolours, oils and acrylics. Then she discovered the airbrush and screen printing. In the early eighties, she started her own business "Unique Design by Kali". It was very successful and later included computer images on the shirts, mugs and hats.
Norman passed away May 7, 2007 in the MSA Hospital from esophageal cancer. An independent spirit, Cally remained on the acreage and continued her love of gardening and outdoor activities. Her friends would always be amazed by the sheer physicality of all the things that Cally would do around the place. Such as, cutting down trees and bucking them up with a chainsaw, then splitting the wood with a sledge and wedge, pounding in fence posts, mowing and weed whacking much of the acreage (most of it on a hillside). Although Cally's physical abilities started to diminish in the last few years, her will and spirit never did.
Cally / Mom / Nana / GG, we love and miss you.