Memories & Musings
December, 2022

The Stocker Family

By Leona Keraiff

This month’s installment shares the memories of some members of the Stocker family who have a fifty year history with the East Shore. Youngest son Wade was the first to respond to my request.

“When I hear the words, “the Hall” I am instantly taken back to my childhood memories of community bake sales, Santa Claus visits, cub car races, scout meetings, community dances, weddings, goodbye parties, Christmas concerts and of course the most difficult memory of all, my mom’s celebration of life. Regardless of the event or occasion, the Crawford Bay Hall was where we went to connect with friends and neighbours to play, dance, laugh and sometimes cry.  My time at school and the Hall are synonymous in my mind as it was outside the Hall where the school bus both dropped us off and picked us up each day to take us home.

It’s been many years since I’ve been in the Crawford Bay Hall, but the smell of wood, the echo of voices and the tapping of footsteps on the old hardwood are etched in my memory like I was there yesterday.

The Hall is more than just a building, it’s a symbol and point of familiarity that reminds me of simpler days gone by and all those people who shaped my childhood.”

Eldest son Darren responded next:

“Our family was recently asked if they had any stories or memories about the Crawford Bay Hall that we would be willing to share. It took me a while to go through the data files of my memory, but I found the exercise enjoyable as I reflected upon growing up in “the Bay” and how the hall was always a centerpiece for the community.

I grew up in Crawford bay from the age of two and attended school in the early 70s through to the mid 80s. When I started at CBESS (Crawford Bay Elementary Secondary School) the hall was the school gymnasium as the “new school” was just being constructed.  I believed it remained that way until I was in about grade 5 although my memory may not be perfectly accurate on the year the new high school wing was operational.  

I have two first vivid memories of the hall, although I cannot be sure of the correct order in which these happened. The first one would be sitting in a crowd of students of all ages on the stage watching an intramural floor hockey game played with the ringette style sticks and donut puck. In my memory the stage area is jammed full, with lots of loud cheering as the two teams battled on the floor in front of us. The spare players were lined up along the walls and we could see the back of the goalie that tended the net directly in front of the stage. I don’t know why that memory is so fresh in my mind other than I can distinctly recall wanting to be part of that game so badly but knowing that I was only in grade one and these were all high school students which also led to a disappointment of reality that I wasn’t going to be able to play. 

The other first memory is attending one of the community Christmas nights that the parents of the community used to put on at the hall during the festive season. A group of parents, mostly moms, used to hold a potluck dinner at the hall that included a visit from Santa Claus and every child in the community received a gift. Later on as a parent I realized how much effort and community spirit went into that event.  To this  day I still don’t know how they created the list of kids that got gifts or how they funded the event but no one ever left the hall without a present. I can’t even tell you how many of those I attended but I can remember feeling how important my dad was because he was the one who delivered Santa Claus on his snowmobile. It was a pretty big deal to have your dad responsible for bringing in the main event of the evening to the Hall. Later in life you realize it was a mid week chance to drink some beer with his buddies and then have one of them dress up in a suit to play the part.  Again to this day I am  still not sure which one of the friends was St. Nick but I do know Santa had the distinct smell of beer and cigarettes back in the 70’s.  

The theme is; both of those memories for me, were the grand feeling of the Hall as a young person growing up in a small town and the sense of community that the hall created.  It was where everyone gathered for whatever reason.  

Both myself and my younger brother held our first wedding receptions in the hall.  Our family was given a farewell community party at the hall when we moved to Cranbrook for a year.  The entire community turned out to send us off to the big city only to be duped as we returned just over a year later.  We held our mother’s “Celebration of Life” in the hall as well as numerous other parties for weddings, new years or whatever else required a get together. 

The school continued to use the Hall even after the new wing was erected for Xmas and spring concerts.  Gordie Schiavon and myself performed a Crawford Bay version of the Doug and Bob McKenzie skit (from the old SCTV show) at one of those events that made the Creston Advance paper back in the early 80’s.  A pretty big deal back in the day.  

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the Hall.  My kids would not have any memory of being in it and my wife, Julie, had never been in it.  That’s a little sad for me as it was such an important piece of my childhood.Hopefully we will be able to attend an event in the hall sometime in the near future.  

Good luck to the current community group for all the hard work they are engaged in to restore the building and keep the strong sense of community moving forward.  I also thank you for the opportunity to share a few boring old memories but selfishly I enjoyed the process as it let me reflect on some enjoyable times in an important old building.”

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 When my sweetie Larry first met Wade and asked him his name, Wade’s reply was ‘guess’, so Larry called him ‘guess’ occasionally at school.  When Darren was 14, he took me for a ride on the Stocker family snowmobile and we ran out of gas!  We all still laugh about how much he was teased after that story leaked.