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Local women should be honoured

Here is something Vernon, Coldstream and neighbouring communities should pass at their councils to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday.

Here is something Vernon, Coldstream and neighbouring communities should pass at their councils to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday.

Each community obtains funding to construct a monument in their park or in front of their municipal building naming all of the women that played a major influence in the development of that community.

In Coldstream, I can name Hilda Cryderman. I had her as my high school teacher and counsellor. She was also the principal of Coldstream Elementary and a sports coach. She could do anything a man could.

Also, there’s Dr. Margaret Ormsby, a B.C. historian and head of the UBC history department. She was my history professor there. She made sure I got my history degree. Again, she taught, showed and made a scholar out of you.

Growing up in Coldstream and born here back in the 1950s and 1960s, men that I remember did nothing. They walked around with a cigarette dangling out of their mouths, hands in their pockets. It was the women that did all of the work — the child bearers, the motivators, the cooks and the clean cloth matrons.

Let us all get together in each community and celebrate all of the women that made things happen.

Get our monuments built before they are all forgotten.

Ed Witzke

Coldstream