Marriage and children. June married the Rev. Flemming Holm in 1957. They first lived in Saltsprings, Pictou County, NS, then moved to New Mills, NB, in 1958 and to Valley, near Truro, NS, in 1963. Children were born in 1958, 1960, 1963 and 1965.
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Witnesses were Lillian MacKichan and George MacLean
Sharon United Church, Tatamagouche
Possibly the earliest photo of Heather after conception.
Chance Harbour Camp, NS
First babies get the most photos.
My father holding me, with my mother and her sister Shirley on the farm where they grew up in PEI.
Little me (Heather) sitting between my parents. I’ve always loved this candid picture for the feeling of being enveloped and taken care of by these marvellous big people, a primal feeling about parents and especially mothers that we all have, if we’re lucky. The world without your mother in it is an unknown place.
Actually, at the time of the photo, I’d just climbed up, which is why they’re laughing. I think that I remember thinking that this is what big people do, sit side-by-side on couches, so I’m going to do that too.
Visiting my paternal grandparents.
Here we are in 1960, a couple of months after Pam was born. Heather is holding her little doll Jane.
What I remember about my mother’s 1960s hairstyle was that it took a lot of work. There was the backcombing, by which you combed your hair straight up and then combed it back towards your scalp again, creating a tangled mass beneath the layer that was smoothed over it to give it the bouffant look. There were the curlers to give it body, as her hair was naturally very straight. She’d sleep in her curlers or use a sit-under hairdryer – that was a big purchase. It was also a big deal when she got a curling iron. And the hairspray! I don’t know if she matched the scent of her hairspray to her Chanel No. 5 cologne with the same attention that she paid to matching the colours of her clothes. I’ve always gone with simple easy hairstyles in protest. But she was a beautiful woman, and this is what beautiful women did. She obviously considered the result worthy of a rare formal portrait.
Somewhere in the mid 1960s
Leading a group of CGIT (Canadian Girls in Training, the United Church’s version of Girl Guides) with baby Heather on her knee, New Mills, NB, c. 1959
Outside the church on a Sunday morning, about 1967. Pam is in the background.
Being a minister’s wife was not easy.
It was life in a fishbowl, with everyone watching, and you couldn’t really be friends with people in the congregation as they would put the minister’s wife on a bit of a pedestal. Also, there were politics.
You’re playing a role, and there will be gossip, whether you do it well or not.
And your children had better behave in church.
What was worse, especially for her, was she couldn’t make her own decisions about paint and wallpaper in the house because the Manse Committee took care of that.
“Three women,” as one of the girls called it.
Visiting her father’s grave in PEI
Family picnic
Visit from Shirley (right), and her two kids.
Mike, Carol and Pam
Wearing a green silk dress that she made herself
1964, before Carol was born
With our paternal grandmother. See the exchange between Mike and June.
Heather and Pam, 1961
Sunbathing beauty. She wasn’t a swimmer.
Pam, June and Heather on Heather’s 7th birthday, 1965.
Christmas 1965
In 1963 when their father died, Cecil, Shirley, Helen Rose and June surrounding their mother.
June with her siblings in 1967 on a trip to Ontario and to Expo 67 in Montreal
After their mother died in 1973. Shirley, June, Cecil and Helen Rose with her son Scott and stepdaughter Robin.
1973. Shirley, June, Cecil, Helen Rose and her son Scott.