“I always think of it as my city,” laughs Evelyn Sangster Benson.

“I don’t just live here; I’m a part of the city.” Indeed, at 81, Evelyn and her family are steeped in the history of New Westminster. Aside from a brief stint in Burnaby, Evelyn has lived in New Westminster for all her life.

Evelyn’s family is like a constant in the city of New Westminster. Her father, James Lewis Sangster, was mayor in 1949 and 1950. The house she was born in has been in her family for five generations, from her mother growing up there to now Evelyn’s grandson living in that house. Queen’s Park Arena is the field where her husband played lacrosse and now she watches her great grandchildren play there.

When she was growing up in the 1930s, her father had the tough job of trying to sell insurance in the depression era. “I was lucky my father was employed…but a lot of the kids i played with and grew up with their families were on relief and they didn’t always have proper clothes and I was lucky.”

The city’s a lot more developed now compared to back when she was younger, when the roads were mostly gravel roads (which made it very difficult for a teenaged Evelyn to learn how to drive) and the local pool was just a concrete tub of murky water, with chlorine that stings.

She’s seen many changes in the city, including seeing tanks roll into Queen’s Park near the end of WWII as the park was an army camp then. She recalls her elementary school teacher letting the class watch from the window and feeling the rush of seeing jet planes swoop by.

On 6th Street and 6th Avenue, way before Royal City Centre the shopping mall was there, lived Bussey’s, the corner store where Evelyn bought candy and ice cream from. On top of the store had a sign saying “The future site of Woodward’s Department Store.” The sign sat there until it faded and no one believe it would really happen. Then in 1946, the corner lot was sold, along with the rest of the block and Woodward’s opened in 1954. The department store became a popular meeting place; everyone would say “Meet you at Woodward’s!”

Even with new development in New Westminster, such as the Anvil Centre, for Evelyn, the city still has retained its small town stability. “It’s nice to live in a town this size because we can’t get any bigger.”

“We’re starting to get all the amenities of a big city but we’re still a small town and that is the beauty of New Westminster.”

Giving back to community

Though her father was mayor, she didn’t want to go into politics. “I had five children, I didn’t have time for that.” Evelyn taught high school for 27 years as a “permanent sub,” which meant she was never tied down to a classroom, but allowed her to get to know a wider range of students.

After teaching, along with her husband Don, they made their mark on many aspects of the community, including running the track and field teams and playing an influential role in getting former Mayor Wayne Wright into office. But what Evelyn considers to be one of her biggest accomplishment is founding the Royal City Musical Theatre Society.

It all started when she was sitting at the kitchen table with her husband. She was still teaching at the high school then and recalls seeing how the school theatre was always empty, lacking in musical productions. She missed seeing musicals being performed there. Evelyn herself had performed on that stage in years back, playing Yente the matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof, Parthy Ann Hawks in Show Boat amongst other musicals,

So she simply said to her husband, “I’m going to start a musical company.” And he said, “Ok I’ll help you.”

Together, they started from scratch, borrowed money from friends to start the society.
Now it is in its 25th year. “Probably the best musical company in all of Canada,” she said.

“My husband and I are doers, we’re not joiners. We don’t join organizations and do what they ask us to do. We make organizations and get them rolling.”

Evelyn attributes her can-do attitude towards giving back to the community to her father, “I was brought up that way, My dad is a politician. he said ‘ This needs to be done so okay, let’s get in there and do it.’”

Secret Opera Star

What most people might not know about Evelyn is that she could’ve been an opera star.

“My dad took me to her for singing lessons because I had been singing at concerts and things since i was 2 and a half years old.” Evelyn was a coloratura, which is the highest female voice possible, a rarity, hitting 3 notes above the high high C.

She remembers being in her music teacher’s class when Judith Forst, famed Metropolitan Opera singer who is also from New Westminster, was having her first lessons. Judith was 12 and Evelyn was a teen. “I heard [Judith] sing and my music teacher said, ‘What do you think of her?’ and I said ‘Boy, that’s the biggest voice out of a little girl I’ve ever heard!’”

Evelyn asked Judith to sing at a Royal City Musical Theatre fundraiser and their mutual music teacher was there too.

“[My music teacher and I] were standing in the lobby in intermission and I said, ‘You must be so proud every time you see Judith Forst and know that you got her started. You must be so proud.’ And she said ‘Yes I am… but Evelyn, you were better.’ And I never knew that.”

She doesn’t regret not pursuing opera though, which would have been one of those all encompassing careers where it would consume every aspect of her life. “There wouldn’t be room for anything else.” And by then she had already met her husband. No worries though, because Evelyn still gets an audience once a year when she hosts her annual salmon barbecue at her summer house. There is karaoke there and she gets to sing all evening long.

Evelyn & Don

She met her husband Don Benson in grade 10 and been together ever since. This year would be the 63 years they’ve been married, 66 years together.

She remembers her 50th wedding anniversary party, held in Centennial Lodge in Queens Park. Their children put together a video using old photographs and home movies of the 50 years Don and her have shared together.

“It started with the first baby that’s born and I’m watching it through and there was birthday after birthday, Christmas after Christmas…the thing that you will notice more than anything else is that we had so much fun.”

“After it was over I said to Don, ‘I think that the secret of our marriage was that yes, we were just a couple of kids but we grew up with our kids.’ So we were young enough to be silly and have fun with them and grew up with them but we were always the parents.”

Her advice for a successful marriage? “You have to marry your best friend.”

Evelyn the Author

Nowadays, Evelyn and Don are both writing. Evelyn has penned her first book, A Century in a Small Town: One Family’s Stories, a collection of short stories that charts the changes of New Westminster and also of her family. It spans from 1895 when her dad was growing up to 1993, when the new Herbert Spencer School opened, 50 years after she was in “Miss McAskill’s grade three class in the old Herbert Spencer school.” Other short tales include about life in those days, and things like wartime rationing and life without deodorant. She has 40 more stories ready for her next book.

Reflecting on her family’s history, she can see how every generation has similar moments. It has gone from her father asking ‘Will man ever fly?’ to now her grandchildren and great-grandchildren asking ‘Will man land on Mars?’

Evelyn’s generation asked if man will make it to the moon. “And then I watched the moon land.”

“When you stay in a place in long time, and you trade stories [with each other]. It all becomes a part of your folklore of your family.”

Everything has changed but everything is still the same.