Jennifer L Butler

Some losses are greater than others. Why this should be so is a question for the ages. But some just are.

A large void in my universe opened on October 6, 2023, when Eva Vinderskov died, one month shy of her 90th birthday.

So, not a tragedy then, for someone to leave this mortal coil at such a good age, and surrounded by loved ones and good care as well.

But I feel this most recent loss keenly.

Eva knew me all my life, ever since I first visited Telegraph Cove as a babe in my mother’s arms. She was the Mom everyone looked up to, the mill manager’s wife and business partner, the gracious lady who spoke with an exotic (to me) accent, pronouncing “ch” as “sh” so we all delighted when we could get her to say the name of a popular movie at the time: “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”.

But it wasn’t until I met her again as an adult when Eva added herself to the list of my life’s heroes. I heard her story first in 2012, on the 100th anniversary of Telegraph Cove, where a tribe of past residents amassed to pay homage to the place and the man who was keeping it together so well, owner Gordie Graham. I was delighted to see some of my old summer friends there, and after the speeches, we gathered together up in the sunroom of my grandparents’ old house and had tea. I heard a little of Eva’s backstory and it was electrifying.

When I decided to write Boom & Bust: The Resilient Women of Historic Telegraph Cove, Eva was one of the first women I contacted, and I was grateful that she would tell her story and that she remembered everything.

Eva was born in 1933, in Berlin, Germany. Which means she was 6 years old when World War II broke out, and about 10 when the tide turned against Germany.

While her mother stayed behind in Berlin to keep the family grocery and fuel business going, every one else in the family scattered away and apart. Eva was sent to what was then occupied Czechoslovakia with her schoolmates, where they were extremely unpopular with the subjugated residents. The war ended with utter chaos, Eva and her band of school chums fleeing immediately to evade the advancing Russian army. No one had sympathy for Germans, even young schoolgirls, and it was a harrowing trip.

Eva eventually made it home to find a Berlin divided into 4 quadrants by the allied forces, with her family designated the Russian quadrant. That changed to the American quadrant, and that one small regulatory decision allowed Eva’s access into a life of possibilities.

Through her own ambition, personality and meeting the love of her life, she found herself in Telegraph Cove, which to others must have felt like a punishment but to Eva it meant freedom, independence and opportunity.

She remained gracious and welcoming to everyone she met all her life. Intelligent, polite, funny, interested, supportive, enthusiastic, hardworking, innovative, loyal, honest – it’s hard to find an end to her qualities. She instinctively knew what to do, for anyone, at any time and in any circumstance, and always did exactly the right thing.

When living in small communities, it’s not always possible to choose the people you associate with, nor to find common ground. Eva found a friend in everyone, and kept those friendships dear, whether she was operating a business in a small town or sailing the oceans. As long as she had her husband Erik by her side, or her children’s support close at hand, Eva was one of the happiest women I ever knew, grateful for everything and everyone who crossed her path.

She was one of those rare people who really earned the life she wanted, and played every card dealt to her, despite being dealt such a challenging hand at the beginning, with care and intelligence and fortitude. She inspired me to do better and be better, to think before I spoke and to assess before I judged. My life is better for having known her, which is why there were tears at bedtime in my home the night I heard she had passed away, and her loss will be felt as long as memory serves me.