MURIEL: Yeah, or she’d put up an extra bed in the dining room but, no, I don’t think she ever… Well I know they were never mixed. It just didn’t happen that way I guess. I think the first time that a lady died at our place, well, we felt a little bit spooky. Kind of didn’t want to go in that room for a while, but it happened other times and we just learned to accept the different crises in life. 

MARYANNE: Would they leave the body there for some time?

MURIEL: There was no funeral home, so this one lady, the first time, well, she was there till the funeral. So they prepared her body and the rest of that. Mother took care of her. I think she had a friend who came and helped her. There was no embalming or anything, it was just dressing, so it was a couple of days before the funeral. And there was another gentleman there later on but his wife was there most of the time and she was very good. And an older gentleman who was there quite a long time before he died. 

MARYANNE: So how long did your mother do this?

MURIEL: Well, she left for Saskatoon in ’43, so she did it for 13 years. And it was hard on mum emotionally because she was a very tender-hearted, caring, giving person and so it was hard on her. 

MARYANNE: What prompted her to stop?

MURIEL: Well, I graduated nursing and my brothers and sisters were all in the armed forces and so I said, “Look, I have to pay board to somebody now in Saskatoon. You’d better move to Saskatoon.” Now she still did work as a practical nurse in Saskatoon. She was on the registry and she was in some homes and she sat with people in the hospitals and she did that for a number of years. She wasn’t any longer involved in maternity. Sometimes it was in homes with mothers after they’d had a baby and the mum came home from the hospital. Sometimes it was that. Sometimes it was palliative, with people in the hospital.

MARYANNE: Those women were lucky, to have her taking care of her. 

MURIEL: Oh, they were very lucky, it was no wonder some of them ended up calling her Mother Jarvis.

MARYANNE: She lived till what age?

MURIEL: 89. We lived together until the last two and a half years she was in Lutheran Sunset Home. But until then we lived together. She did remarry. She was a widow for 27 years, then remarried. But he died after about nine years.