Margaret Elizabeth Proudlock aka “Peggy” was born at Lions Gate Hospital on October 31, 1948. She grew up on a large property on Grafton Rd, with her parents Dorothy and Bob Proudlock and her younger sister Roberta and youngest brother George. Nadyne Hindle recalls playing with Peggy, and her siblings outside the Dots Inn hamburger and ice cream joint as a child, while their mothers chatted.
“We would go to the washroom in Doc Morgan’s cottage,” says Hindle. “And through the years we would always say hello, and stop to chat in the Cove.”
Bob Proudlock created “Dots Giftshop” on the corner of the family Grafton property as a haven for Dorothy as she was battling cancer. Peggy moved off the island for a short time and lived in Toronto after giving birth to her first son, Lonn. Peggy also lived in Vancouver with her best friend Susan Childs before moving back to Bowen Island, where she met Mark Slade, the father of her three other children: Brandon, Michael and Serena. Peggy and Mark along with the children lived on the corner of the childhood property beside Dots Giftshop.
Serena and her brothers recalled their mother living on every corner of Bowen Island at some time or another.
“She always worked so hard for us,” says her daughter, Serena. “She worked hard for everyone, actually. She was always giving people things, that’s what gave her joy.”
Peggy worked at many different places, including the CNIB or “the lodge”, Doc Morgan’s Pub, The Bowen Pub, and she volunteered at the Bowen Archives.
“She would come in here and had this amazing ability to put names to faces, and she remembered every event,” recallsCathy Bayly, from the Museum & Archives. “She was a real asset in that sense and I was really looking forward to doing an interview with her. And she was also just an incredibly kind and generous person. My heart is broken.”
Joan Hayes has memories of Peggy hitch-hiking with her three small children, and working very, very hard.
“The one thing I can tell you is in spite of how hard she worked, she always asked me how I was doing,” says Hayes. “And always asked how my kids were doing, and my grandchildren.”
Peggy loved plants. Serena remembers how her mom would stop the car on the side of the road when a plant would catch her eye.
“Gardening always brought my mother joy, even if it was only tending to a weed,” says Serena. “No matter where my mom moved, her plants moved with her.”
Peggy had planted a monkey tree at Mark Slade’s parents place.
“Mom always wanted this tree with her but never had a place to put it,” Serena recalls. “After a recent trip out visiting my grandma Joyce, and my uncle Keith Slade, she said, as we were leaving, that she was going to steal that tree back one day. The irony of the monkey tree is how spiky and unfriendly the tree is, the total opposite of my mom.”
No matter if you’d lived on Bowen for 50 years or 1 year, Peggy always made you feel welcome. She will be missed by many and thought of often. In late August, Margaret Elizabeth Proudlock and her family learned she had stage 4 lung cancer. She passed away at Lions Gate Hospital at 8:30pm on Friday evening, surrounded by her children.
The family intends to place a plaque, along with her monkey tree, in memory of Peggy at the Memorial Garden, and will hold a Celebration of Life at the end of October.
Our friend, Peggy
Saturday the 16th was our bi-annual reunion of “old” Bowenites - those whoe grew up here in the fifties and sixties and lived all our lives here, many who left but came back to visit every two years.
Peggy was supposed to be there. She loved to re-connect with friends and family.
The last visit I had with her on Wednesday, she showed me all the family photos she was amassing to chronicle her life with her ever-growing family. She was so proud of them all.
Love you, Peggy.
- Helen Wallwork
I lost a very dear, sweet friend this past weekend. Her name was Margaret Proudlock. I called her Peggsy. She has been in my life for over 40 years. She would help you out at any time of day or night. She would invite you into her home for a meal. She would give you the clothes off her back. She gave me a rose bush last year and the night that Peggsy passed that rose bloomed. She had the biggest and brightest smile. She had these great awesome hugs. I was with her the day before she passed and you would not know she was sick. I gave her a courage stone. She had no idea how long her life would be. She had cancer. She had Stage 2 Lung Cancer and then within weeks in went into Stage 4. She hadn’t even had a treatment. She was taken to hospital on the Friday night and her body was septic. There was nothing they could do. Her family was with her as she left our world and into a better place. Peggsy they are so very lucky to have you as both my husband, Chris and I were knowing you. The tears are flowing. Loving you and missing you so very much.
Your friends and buddies, Chris and Penny White.
Peggy’s Poem
If you spoke to her
you knew
she paid attention
to the small things
in and out of the garden,
she knew about the light that breathes
inside every stone,
and cherished the caterpillar
that would one day fly.
Peggy knew about the songs
birds dance themselves into,
and the music that sometimes weaves
the confusion of life
into something beautiful
and she especially knew about the infinite
possibilities of the heart
and how it longs to love.
And so she loved.
She loved and she loved.
To speak with her
was to enter into kinship,
into belonging,
for she treated each conversation
as if in the presence
of someone beloved,
and though she loved her children best,
to speak with her
was an encounter
out of time and place,
a moment of grace
with a lady who had time
for everyone.
You would stand there
in the Cove
and talk
as the sun was setting
cars coming and going
people honking and waving
and it was as if no time had passed at all,
as if you had stepped into a river
of Bowen Island’s
yesteryear
and suddenly you were on Peggy Time.
You had the sense she understood things
before you found the words for them,
she with her wild hair
and wide moon eyes,
she could see
into the soul of things
and didn’t waste time on despair
nor indulge in the telling of her own
arduous journeys.
Instead she stopped to listen
to every voice in the storm
she put down her bags
didn’t answer a phone
offered blessings
and something warm
and you knew
she was indeed someone
for whom the river
sings.
- lisa shatzky
Three ways to describe Peggy:
Big hearted: Peggy really loved Bowen Island and the people who call it home. She was truly one of the pioneers here. She was able to see the positive in a situation. I never heard Peggy criticize another person, not something you often get to truthfully say about someone! She just had a big heart, was constantly putting other people’s needs in front of hers. Peggy had a number of friends that she had known forever, from the days when Bowen’s population was measured in the hundreds, not thousands. Peggy’s big heart was touched by sadness and tragedy in her lifetime, but she always seemed to find the interior spirit to keep on going with grace and dignity. She opened her heart to so many and showed that caring in very real and beautiful ways.
Gratitude: My second descriptor of Peggy is the appreciation she shared for every kindness she received. I think people often wanted to be there for Peggy and when that happened, she would always remember who and what had been behind acts of sharing. And in turn, we are indebted to her for her courage, her grit and her “stick-to-itness” that she showed every day of her life. Her Legacy will, I believe, always include this sense of gratefulness to her for her wonderful spunk, and we may well ask ourselves, ‘where did she get that from, day after day?’ Peggy was a hard working woman who pushed herself to suit up and show up over and over again. She has made so many friends over the years of the people who worked with or near her.
Kindheartedness: Thoughtfulness was such a part of every conversation with Peggy Proudlock, be it short or long. Peggy remembered the stories of the lives she shared and with sensitivity would enquire how my daughter was doing, for example, after Ana was diagnosed with cancer over 5 years ago. I remember her gentle support after accidents etc., and I know she just offered that consideration to so many of us. She had a good, and gentle, sense of humour. This allowed her to see a humourous twist in a difficult situation. Her smile was brilliant.
I was saddened when Peggy told me last week of how advanced the cancer was. I had popped her into Emergency at LGH about a month ago and knew she was facing something serious.
Peggy, yours is still a bright Spirit on this Island. I will remember you with your beautiful smile and your curls. I was shocked and saddened by how quickly you left us, but I believe your Spiritual journey continues and that Bowen Island has a new, wonderful, Guardian Angel looking over us all. It is an honour to call you my friend, Godspeed.
-Rev Shelagh MacKinnon
