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When Joan was Nineteen and I was twenty-one, we began our married life in a rented house in New Westminster, BC. It was owned by a couple initially from Saskatchewan, Mr. and Mrs. Larroe. They were delightful people and very kind to us. We looked after their house while they went away on a trip. When they returned, we moved to another rented house just down the street, also owned by a couple from Saskatchewan. We were living there when our first child was born, a beautiful little girl whom we named Linda Joan. The name Linda came from a song that I liked by a singer named Buddy Clarke. The song “Linda” included the lyric “When I go to sleep, I never count sheep, I count all the beautiful charms about Linda.” I always swore Linda had red hair but Joan and her parents disagreed, saying her hair was more blond than red. Linda was born on August 12, 1957. Joan had just turned twenty, and she was a wonderful young mother. She had help at first from her parents visiting from North Battleford and lots of help from my aunt Elinor Butler.

Eighteen months later, we were still living in the same house when our second child was born, another beautiful baby girl we named Lorraine Marie for a good friend of Joan’s, Lorraine Marie Adele Therese Thibadeau. We shortened Lorraine to Lorrie. She was born on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1959. Both girls did very well in school. I wanted to make sure they went to university, quietly driving them several times through the vast campus of the University of British Columbia. I guess they got the idea, because both graduated from UBC, Linda with a degree in social work and Lorrie in education. Linda moved on to radio (at my station, CKNW) as a talk-show producer and later into book publishing media relations, escorting well-known authors like Pierre Berton to various media outlets. Berton was so tall he could not ride comfortably in Linda’s small car; she had to borrow a larger vehicle for him.

I am so proud of Linda for so many reasons. In her early forties she was diagnosed with cancer, which was detected in her arm. At first, it was thought that treatment had eradicated the cancer, but it subsequently spread to her lymph nodes. She was in imminent danger, and she agreed to treatment with a drug called Interferon. The treatments were at Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver, quite some distance from her home in the White Rock area. The treatments were very hard on her, but she had always been one tough little gal, just over five feet tall and very, very determined. She survived the year-long treatments. She once told me, “Dad, it’s like walking on the floor of the ocean wearing cement boots.” Her cancer went into remission and she resumed her normal life, even going beyond that. Always a good runner in track meets in school, she took up long-distance running, taking part in at least eight marathons, including two in Boston. She went there a second time to honour those who had been killed and injured in the 2013 bombings. She also ran marathons in New York, Chicago, Portland, Victoria and Vancouver. She is one tough woman.

Her sister, Lorrie, went on to become a fabulous teacher in a career spanning more than thirty-seven years and still going. For virtually her entire career, she has taught Grade 1 children—she loves the challenges. Lorrie is married to Dave Watt, a super guy. Linda also married a very fine fellow named Bill Field. Our third child, Kenneth George, was born on May 31, 1961. The little rented house on Eighth Avenue in New Westminster was getting crowded. We bought our first house in Surrey. But we did not have enough money for the down payment of $1,500 and had no collateral, so I went to my station manager, Bill Hughes, for help. He signed a note guaranteeing our loan. I have never forgotten his kindness and support.

Ken was a beloved child. He did well in school and went on to BCIT to follow me in broadcasting. He excelled in radio. His first and only station was CHNL Fort St. John, BC. He started as a staff announcer and moved into sales. He did so well that owner Gene Daniel made him manager of CHNL and a satellite station in Fort Nelson, farther north. There were plans to move him to a larger station that Gene owned in Alberta. Ken was successful not only in his radio job at age twenty-four, but he was also active in the community as a member of Kinsmen Club, and he had a soft spot for the Child Centre in Fort St. John, which cared for disadvantaged children. Ken was in love with Shelley Hawrelak, with whom he lived in his own house in Fort St. John. It was a great life.

On Sunday morning, May 3, 1987, Ken and Shelley rented a canoe with the intention of celebrating their engagement by paddling on Charlie Lake, just out of town. Apparently unknown to Ken, Charlie Lake is susceptible to brisk winds in early May. The wind came up suddenly, overturning their canoe, and they were both thrown into the icy water. Although they were wearing life jackets, Ken must have known they could not last long in such cold water. For some time he was able to keep pushing Shelley up onto the overturned canoe, saving her life. He did so at great risk to himself, and because he spent so much time in the cold water, he died of hypothermia before rescuers could save him. I received a heartbreaking phone call from a doctor who had done all he could to save Ken at the Fort St. John Hospital, but Ken had died. It was and remains the saddest day of my life, as it was for Joan and our daughters. I think of Ken every day, often visiting his grave, and I treasure the memories of a fine young man and a marvellous son. God bless him. Our family is proud of a scholarship in Ken’s name at the BC Institute of Technology from where he graduated to begin his broadcast career. There is also a playground named for him in Fort St. John, the Kinsmen Ken Garrett Memorial Park. Clearly Ken made a positive impression in the community.

After a period of heavy grieving, the loss of Ken was something we just had to accept and move on from. We’ve had some wonderful times as a family, watching our children grow and become fine young adults, then celebrating their weddings and the beautiful grandchildren they gave us.

Our granddaughter Lianne Watt graduated from the University of Victoria and is now a teacher, just as her mother is. Two other grandchildren, Lianne’s brother, Trevor, and their cousin, Mary Paige Field, graduated from the same university. Trevor is a salesman. Mary Paige graduated from a nursing program at BCIT and is now a registered nurse in the maternity ward of a major Vancouver hospital. In fact, she is nursing in the very unit where she was born twenty-six years earlier. Her brother and our oldest grandson, Kenny Field—named after our late son, Ken—graduated from the Columbia Academy Broadcasting School in Vancouver. He spent six months working with an audio-visual firm in Melbourne, Australia. On his return to Canada he was hired as a broadcast engineer by an audio-visual company based in Vancouver. The company acquired a contract to broadcast college football and basketball games from cities throughout the Pacific Northwest, California, Arizona and Utah. Kenny is now based in Los Angeles.

Life was good until about 2010, when Joan began acting strangely. Her pleasant demeanour changed almost overnight. A diagnosis by a specialist confirmed that she had Alzheimer’s disease, a form of dementia that affects so many people, particularly as they age. After three very difficult years of us trying to care for her at home, it became obvious to me and my daughters that their mother had to be placed in full-time care—it had become utterly impossible to care for her at home. We were fortunate to have her placed in an outstanding care facility—Carelife Fleetwood—operated by Fraser Health in the Fleetwood district of Surrey. But the decision to place her there was the most difficult I have ever made. As with many caregivers, I felt a profound sense of guilt for depriving my beloved spouse of everything she cherished—our pleasant home and way of life. But it is better for Joan and for me that she is receiving proper care.

Nothing can compare to the feeling of coming home to an empty house after more than fifty years of a happy married life. The antidote to being lonely is to keep busy. I do that through my involvement in my church and by staying in touch with loyal, caring friends. I am also involved with the Alzheimer Society of BC and with a new service a few of us have established to provide free transportation to treatment facilities for cancer patients.

I visit Joan almost every day although she really doesn’t know me now. I clean her eyeglasses, brush her hair, put her lipstick on and take her for a ride in the wheelchair. There is not much else I can do except try to show her that I love her dearly.

I have always had concerns about how my busy life as a reporter affected my close-knit family. Lorrie was kind enough to give me her recollections. She wrote:

I have many fond memories of growing up as a reporter’s daughter. Other kids in the neighbourhood had fathers who were auto mechanics, car salesmen, office managers or factory workers. I was the only one of my friends who got to go inside the “Crystal Palace” (the CKNW studio). I had the opportunity to meet many well-known people in Vancouver. I was always so proud when other kids’ parents would tell me how much they enjoyed listening to my dad’s stories or how much CKNW was a part of their daily routine. I was the only one of my friends who enjoyed opportunities like tickets to the car show, boat show and other Vancouver events. An annual highlight for us growing up was the early spring press day at Playland. We would get a badge pinned to our jackets for unlimited rides on the roller coaster, Tilt-a-Whirl and the Zipper. Dad took me for my first roller-coaster ride when I was just tall enough, and it continues to be my favourite ride anywhere.

It didn’t hurt having the same last name as Dad once I got a little older. While I was a university student, I remember a summer job interview with BC Hydro; near the end of the interview, the office manager asked me if I was any relation to George Garrett. I told him that he was my father, and the manager went on to tell me he had been a loyal listener for years and what a tremendous reporter Dad was. I got the job!

I couldn’t be more proud of the work Dad has done. He was a skilled reporter and worked hard to get the story and to get the facts right. He was also known as “Gentleman George,” as he always showed tremendous respect to people he interviewed. He would sometimes call a family member in advance of releasing a story to make them aware. While gentle, he still had the toughness required for the job. I remember one time he was pushed by the courts to reveal a source for a story. He protected me from all the details, but I just remember being a teenager at the time and asking him what could happen. If he didn’t reveal the source, he explained, he could go to jail. I expected him to reveal it, but he said he never would—his honour and integrity was at stake. Thankfully he never went to jail, but it was then that I became aware of his total commitment to his job and the reporter’s code.

When dad was a beat reporter, we drove a CKNW news cruiser, which was always a white car with decals on both sides. Dad used to remind us that we were in a marked car and we needed to behave so we wouldn’t reflect badly on the radio station—a very clever way of keeping the kids in line while we were in the car. As a teenager, all my friends knew whose dad that was picking us up at the dance or pizza place. Once he became an investigative reporter, he drove an unmarked car but was still always recognized wherever he went.

Through his work, Dad has made connections with people in many professions. He is well loved by police, media, judges and listeners alike. You can’t go anywhere with Dad without bumping into someone who knows him from somewhere or who recognizes him or his voice. I love going places with him now and noticing someone looking at him a couple of times before approaching him. Even now that he has been retired for over twenty years, he still has strangers approaching him and asking, “Aren’t you George Garrett?” I beam with pride when he says that he is and the stranger bestows some well-deserved praise or recalls how they have enjoyed Dad’s reporting over the years. What a legacy!