The Story of Joanne

On the opposite side of the world, in Canada, my mother Joanne, was born in Vancouver, to William and Jesse Georgina Davey.

William, of British descent, was born in Vancouver. He grew up in one of the first Point Grey homes overlooking Spanish Banks and his father, owned one of the first Real Estate firms in Vancouver. Wow! How I would have loved to see Vancouver back then… when it was still a little town in a big rainforest and when a gorgeous Point Grey home overlooking the beach didn’t cost many many millions!

Jesse Georgina was born in Birmingham and that is where at age 16, while working at a weapons factory during WW2, she met William. They came back to Vancouver at the end of the war and my mother Joanne was born one year later.

Jesse was an entertainer, a captivating story teller, and the quintessence of British wit. Bill loved poetry, the arts and nature. His deeply protestant roots surely influenced him, but it was his life long study of buddhism that truly defined him. He brought up his daughter, constantly reminding her of the important things in life. His concern for the world around him and for every living being is something that he tried to teach everyone in his life.  Having spent every Saturday with my grandparents growing up, I have very fond memories of his teachings. These two beautiful souls were very different but equally instrumental in developing in their daughter Joanne an insatiable thirst for adventure, her unequivocal optimism and the relentless discipline she would need to pursue a lifelong quest of devotion to one artist.

So when she met Paul, at the age of 19, she was already the arts lover, the traveller at heart, the adventurous business-minded partner that he needed to lead him to a life long passion and career as an artist.

In the next post, I will skip a few years forward and tell you that story you all want to hear…How they met!