Memories flood back for Richmond High classes of the '40s

It took a few minutes for some of them to recognize one another.

Which was understandable, considering one or two of the Richmond High alumni hadn’t seen each other for more than 70 years.

But once they looked beyond the lived-in years of their former classmates – some now 90 years old – the eyes were a dead give-away.

About 60 or so alumni from the classes of 1945 through to 1950 gathered, as a group, for the first time at Quilchena Golf and Country Club on Wednesday for a reunion.

Some had more memories of the school ­— then at Cambie Road and Sexsmith Street — than others; but most recalled generally happy times with good teachers.

“I remember everything; it was a great school,” said 86-year-old Lillie (Perog) Brandys, who was in the class of ’48.

“I got the commercial award when I graduated, for office, typing, filing, that kind of thing. I really liked that.”

Asked if she still had the award 69 years on, Brandys said, “You bet I do!”

Doreen (Montgomery) Braverman, from the class of ’49, recalled her principal, a Mr. MacNeill, also being her mother’s principal at the same school.

“(The teachers) were strict, but not mean,” Braverman said.

“Miss Musgrave would bang people on the head with a book…never me, though.

“Mr. Kershaw would teach things that had nothing to do with the books; things like, for a kid to have red hair, then both the parents needed to have red hair.”

Outside of school, Mary (Iwaniuk) Abbott, also from the class of ’49, remembered her parents telling her, if she was going outside, to come back before dark for dinner.

“If we wanted to hitch-hike, we hitch-hiked. Parents didn’t need to follow their kids everywhere like they do now.”

For Bill Morely, from the class of ’46; it was his first time at any reunion.

“The teachers were fabulous. I remember taking the tram to school,” said Morely, who now lives in White Rock after residing in many other parts of the world for most of his life.

“I hope I recognize some faces here today.”

Morely joked that, although he’s never been to a reunion before because he lived overseas, he thought he should show up due to dwindling numbers.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” he laughed.

For 90-year-old Barbara (Higo) Shishido, from the class of ’45, the reunion was a slightly strange experience, given that, due to the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbour, she was only at the school for about four months.

“I was there in September, 1942, then the war (Pearl Harbour) and I was interned. So I wasn’t there very long at all,” said Shishido, who was born in Canada with Japanese heritage.

Looking around the room, she laughed and said, “I don’t know many people here at all.”

The event was primarily organized by alumni from the school’s class of ’48, including Neil Collins and Marjorie (McKay) Bullinger, who, as well as her mother being a Milkmaid on Richmond’s famous and fearsome women’s lacrosse team of the ’20s and ’30s, met the Royal Family five times.

“It’s been a lot of work to put this together today, but I think it’s probably been worth it,” said Bullinger, adding that McKay elementary in Richmond is named after her grandfather.