Charles and Edna (Bowe) Eveson
According to family folklore, the marriage between Edna and Charlie was preordained. Charlie had already declared that “this is the girl I will marry” when Edna was only 14 years of age and a gallant, serious young Charlie stopped to fix her bicycle tire. And so it came to be. Charlie and Edna were married during WWII on April 4, 1942 at St. Andrews Anglican Parish Church in the village of Skegby, Nottinghamshire, England.
Life was difficult in post war Britain and seeing no future for himself, Edna and their three year old daughter Christine, Charlie decided to emigrate to seek a better life in Canada. Under the DREW Plan, Charlie was sent to Timmins, Northern Ontario to work in the gold mines.
For Edna, emigrating was heart wrenching. As Edna often said to her children – “life was very hard at times. Your father and I had to struggle to make ends meet, but we had a very good life in Canada and were proud Canadians”.
Gold mining was not the life Charlie had envisioned for himself. He attended Police College, excelled in his studies and was hired as a Constable with the Kapuskasing Police Force, moving with Edna and now two daughters – Christine and Linda.
In 1955, Charlie applied successfully for a promotion to Chief of Police in Whitney Township and the family moved to Porcupine, a hamlet of 900 hardy Northern souls. The house had indoor plumbing and three bedrooms! This was excellent, as third daughter Kathleen arrived shortly afterwards. The house was cozy, but in 1962, Charlie decided to build a house for his family. Components of the Muttart Home structure arrived and Charlie constructed his home, like a giant jig saw puzzle.
By 1973 Charlie had “retired” from the Whitney Police Force and taken a position as Director of Mine Safety at Kidd Creek until he retired in 1983. Then he and Edna moved “south” to North Bay. The house on Bloem Street was perfect for Edna and Charlie, especially as it had a “recreation room” in the basement – a place for the growing family and friends to be together.
The move to North Bay was a lasting one, with Edna and Charlie living in their home on Bloem Street for almost twenty years, celebrating a number of wonderful milestones in North Bay, including their Fiftieth and Sixtieth Wedding Anniversaries in 1992 and 2002.
The house in North Bay would in fact be the last home that Edna and Charlie would share. They lived and laughed together with each other and the growing family there until Charlie, Edna’s life-long love and partner, passed away in September of 2002. Very shortly afterwards, Edna left the house on Bloem and moved in with daughter Christine and Bob on Duke Street living there until shortly before her passing in September 2013.
Charlie and Edna Eveson will be lovingly remembered forever by their family and friends. Gone from us, but never forgotten.