Shelley Hancock

My family moved from San Jose to Campbell where I started 3rd grade at San Tomas Elementary.  My parents bought a new track house surrounded by prune and apricot orchards.  The two blocks, Peggy and Wekiva, sold to young families for the most part and we settled in as a little community, everyone knowing everyone, my cousins Randy and Gale lived around the corner.  The kids all played in the street after school, rode bikes together, played hop- scotch, basketball at Johnny Nagel’s, and came home to dinner when we heard our parents calling us.  It was a safe, happy community.  It was special.

My world expanded when we went on to Campbell Junior High, new friends, more challenges and then the leap across the street to Campbell High.  My brother Jon paved the way for me.  High school was about friendships, the Pirettes dance/drill team, the band, Speech and Debate, boyfriends, attending our outstanding athletic events, school politics such as it was, school plays, memorable teachers and acquiring knowledge.  Not necessarily in that order!

After graduation I attended San Jose State, which helped carve out my identity in a much fuller way.  I was more serious, more political, matching that time in our history.  Meeting students from all over the world, with the “war” years, the civil rights movement, working to pay for college, I earned my BA in Communications.  While working on my master’s degree, I met a man who became my life partner, Tom Lynn.  He was an art major at SJS and had built a foundry for metal casting in Morgan Hill.  He was an artist, an adventurer, funny, smart, and optimistic.  Tom had served two years in the Navy before he started at SJS.

Months after falling in love, we began a road trip in his old Tanus van, camping and hiking, seeking a new kind of life.  We ended up buying 60 acres of bush land for 6 thousand dollars in British Columbia Canada and lived with no electricity for six years.  With a chainsaw and a spud peeler, we fell trees, cleaned them, rolled them with ropes into place and built a 20’ x 24’ log cabin.  We heated and cooked with wood and had kerosene lamps.  Our daughter Nona and son Logan were born at the local hospital and we finally had a power line come up our mountain and we were joyfully electrified. 

Tom and I, without even knowing it, were a part of the back-to-the-land movement.  Our little river valley, home first to the Sinixt Indigenous people, then the English, then settled by the Russian Doukhobors who had left Russia as pacifists and then us – young people from all over the United States and Canada.  We helped each other build and took advice from the truly kind Doukhobors who found us amusing in our enthusiasm and ignorance.  In those early years we had a Jersey cow, a few goats, chickens, dogs, cat, ducks, rabbits, two pigs and a huge vegetable garden. We had the occasional bear that needed to be “run off”, and I had an up-close encounter with a cougar, which was frightening yet here I am to tell about it.

Tom worked at the local sawmill, as a tree planter and in his spare time built another foundry and we started our home business, Valley Art Foundry.  Tom’s sculpture can be found all over BC and beyond.

When my son turned three, I started working at various jobs; substitute teacher at the local elementary school, as a govt. worker on a grant to set up a library in our valley, as a daycare teacher and finally with our community college, Selkirk College, as the Community Education Coordinator.  I was active in our community from Home and School (PTA), on the board of Kootenay Gallery of Art History & Science and the Watershed Alliance where we advocated locally and Provincially for preservation of our fresh water.

One Sunday afternoon I drove our old pickup to get my son and his bike at a friend’s house and on our way home we were hit by a drunk driver.  Logan had minor injuries and was in hospital a few days, but my injuries were serious.  I was flown by air ambulance to Vancouver for several surgeries, my recovery and follow up operations took more than a year.

The accident prompted us to move closer to our little city of Nelson (10,000 pop.) making life easier for me and for our kids.  Tom continued to do metal casting and help start the Kootenay School of Art in Nelson, which is now a part of Selkirk College.  Tom loved teaching and his art students.  When I was back up and at it, I went to work for Kutenai Art Therapy, a graduate training program and I did most everything in administration.

Tom and I spent a lot of time traveling between our parents, his in LA and my mom in Bellingham Washington.  We wanted our kids to know their grandparents and they them.  Tom died of cancer in 2008 and my mom a few years later.

I maintained our home on 4 acres with huge gardens and lawns, and finally three years ago moved into a duplex in Nelson.  My son lives about 20 minutes from me, and my daughter and granddaughter live across the street.  My son works for the City of Nelson and my daughter for the Nelson School Board.

My backyard view of the glacier 2021

One of my big loves is my granddaughter, Shelove Lynn, who is now 8.  My daughter adopted her from Haiti as a 5-year-old.  I accompanied Nona to Haiti to pick up Shelove and fly back into Montreal where she became a Canadian citizen upon her arrival.  She is the apple of my eye!

 
I am a dual citizen, vote in both countries, still garden, enjoy my friends, boat and swim in our massive Slocan Lake, dance in my kitchen, maintain a condo in California which I inherited when Tom’s parents died. I have been lucky to have had Lynda Faulkner, Sherrie, and Fred Nooteboom at the California “winter get-a-way”. Lynda and I drove to have lunch with Hooter Meredith and another time to visit Joe and Dianne Falcone at their northern Calif. home. I have a full, happy life and am thankful for all the countries and places Tom and I traveled.  I am thankful for a long, adventurous, fun filled marriage, for two independent, happy, healthy kids and a grandchild that can wear me out in the happiest of ways.

Shelove with Revelstoke bears - Tom designed,
sculpted and made for the city.

Hello, my Campbell High friends – life is an adventure.  The best to you all.

Shelley