Jennifer L Butler

Evylen Farrant was not expecting to spend more than a year in Telegraph Cove. She was a new bride and self-professed city lover who found the rough ways of the mill workers and the high-heel breaking knotholes of the boardwalk both negatively impacted her sensitivities. Too bad for Evie then, for she ended up living in the Cove for 41 years! She found herself adjusting both her views of north Islanders and heel heights accordingly.

Born in rural Saskatchewan, raised in Penticton, independent in Vancouver and ambitious in Campbell River, she met her soul’s match in Marvin Farrant and married him soon after. Unbeknownst to her, this kind, funny, always smiling Christian man had grown up in Telegraph Cove and was eager to return to start another phase of his life there, with her at his side. Proof of her love and devotion, off she went.

And she stayed, by Marvin’s side all the rest of his long life, helping build her new house to live in, raising two sons, and volunteering her faith and her time to all the region’s children. Losing her youngest son on the verge of manhood tested her mettle. But both her marriage and her faith were stronger. On the car ride to her son’s funeral, she and Marvin spoke of how lucky they were to have the support of friends, which conveyed such grace and generosity it brought their driver to tears. Evylen and Marvin started a generous scholarship in their son’s name to be awarded to a First Nations high school graduate for post-secondary study. She spent hours every year agonizing over which candidate would win it that year, until there was no room left on the trophy decades later. That was Evylen, finding a practical way to pay it forward and turn a tragedy for one person into an opportunity for dozens more.

She wasn’t always “politically correct”, but she never questioned what the right thing to do was, and she always did it. Walking the walk, although not in high heels any more.

She was self-effacing in general, but overtly proud to be the only one entrusted to make Fred Wastell’s birthday cakes, and no wonder. Not only could she bake, but anyone lucky enough to find themselves in Evylen’s pantry was treated to a wall of jewel-toned bottles of preserved fruit and jam and vegetables and pickles that collectively declared a summer spent over steaming canning kettles. If one was so bold as to open one of her kitchen cupboards, one might be blinded by the glint of gold and silver cans of home-preserved fish. No one ever starved on Evylen’s watch.

After 41 years of hard work and rural life, of living amongst rain and fog, of dealing with whatever life dished out with stoicism, health concerns, finally acknowledged, meant she could move and get that longed for garden in the sun. Marvin and Evylen started a new phase of their lives in Parksville, which was just the right size. They joined a church and gardened up a storm for another 20 years.

Grandchildren abounded, and even great-grandchildren. Still baking, still preserving, still volunteering, always grateful. Evylen’s door was always open, her coffee pot was always on, and there was always a delicious piece of cake on offer. No doubt she spent time teaching her grandchildren how to tap into their creativity just as she had with all those Cove and Kokish children.

Everyone who knew her recognized she was the stronger of the two, and Marvin was no slouch. When Marvin’s health started to go a little too far south, it was Evylen who overrode all arguments to clear a lifetime of stuff in the proverbial basement of their bungalow, sell up and move back north, to an apartment in Campbell River that she found and that she orchestrated in her mid-80s. That place gave Marvin a wonderful end of life view of the ocean, the Quadra Island ferry going back and forth and the eagles flying by. Just over a year later it enshrouded her own demise, which was a little bit more of a surprise, but perhaps on her terms, with Marvin gone and everything tidied away. So she left, both the north Island and her life on earth for good, on January 8, 2023 at the age of 89. She had done all she set out to do in life, saw Marvin off before her, and was ready to move to another phase.

She was a woman of her time, her upbringing, her generation and her convictions. She earned the life she worked so hard to have, and deserves the love and respect she sowed so freely.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”