In 1973, Paul and Joyce moved to Fairview. Paul was the assistant principal at Fairview school. They bought their first house on Fraser Drive and lived there until 1978, when one of Paul’s students came over and told him about a bigger house for sale on Flavelle Road. The bigger house was perfect for their growing family. Shortly after the move to Fairview, they began raving to their friends about how great it was, eventually convincing them to also purchase a house in Fairview! Paul passed away in 2019 but, Joyce is still here today. The kids have moved out, but they come back to visit. Her daughter, Audra, still comes out to volunteer at the Spring Fling every year and she doesn’t even live in Fairview anymore!
Joyce told me that one of the reasons they love Fairview is the convenience – the Co-Op is a nice short walk away and, if you were so inclined, you could walk over to either Southcentre or Chinook. Don’t feel like walking? You can zip down any of the main roads and be where you need to be quickly. Even better than being a convenient location, Fairview community is such a family-oriented neighbourhood. Paul used to say ‘People are buying back into Fairview for the location.’ Joyce is so happy to see more young families moving back to Fairview. She loves seeing the kids out riding their bikes and playing hopscotch. She likes that the parents are out on the street hanging out and chatting. She even feels a little bad when she drives down the street and has to break up the party to get through.
Joyce has heard from many past neighbourhood kids that if the house they grew up in ever goes up for sale they would want to move back into Fairview!
Paul and Joyce were always active in the community. When they were younger, they used to run a winter festival every year with games and prizes. Paul was a board member for a while, and so was Audra. For years you could catch them both helping out at the Spring Fling. Joyce still does – generally running the freebies area. She is great at finding all the best things and saving them from the landfill. Speaking of the Spring Fling, Joyce told me that, many years ago, it was Anne Craig who started the Spring Fling. Fairview was the first community to have one, but many other communities have since followed.
Joyce also said she missed having a community centre, as somewhere the people could come together and do a Stitch and Complain ;). She also misses being able to go over at lunch and play BINGO.
One more neat thing about Fairview before I let you go: Fairview used to be a flat swampy space. And, according to Joyce, the reason that some houses are on hills is that when the one side of the street was having its basements dug out, the dirt was hilled up on the other side of the street creating a hill side. Based on me looking out my window this makes sense!
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