sept a

tere,

WEATHER:

Possible showers Sunday

with cloudy periods
Monday.

SAVINGS: 22

New grocery store on North
Shore attracts attention.

FITNESS: 37

Special Olympics offers fun
and exercise for

handicapped.

GROGMING: 43

Beauty salon custom made
fo accommodate your pet.

Business..........25

3 - Sunday, February 17, 1985 - North Shore News

Classified.........45
Entertainment ..... 28
Food............-40
Mailbox...........7
Open Sunday......21
Sports............24
TV Times.........30
What's Going On. . .29

wv fashion executive dies

JEANNE WRIGHT,
formerly Jeanne Wardell.

A FASHION INDUSTRY
career and over 50 years
residence in West Vancouver
ended Wednesday (Feb. 13)
with the death of Jeanne
Wright — formerly Jeanne
Wardell as she was known to
her many friends and
business acquaintances
throughout B.C.

She lost a six-month battle
with cancer shortly after her
60th birthday.

Born in Vancouver, Jeanne
Elizabeth Garrett moved with

her parents at an early age to
West Van, where she com-
pleted high school. She
became a fashion model and
— in partnership with her
late first husband, Harold
Wardell — a principal for 19
years of Wardell Agencies
Ltd., a prominent Vancouver
fashion firm.

Later she spent four years
with Eaton's in its Park
Royal and downtown Van-
couver fashion departments.
Then followed an interlude

NORTH VAN WOMAN

Survived Fiji

SHARON GREASFIELD
doesn’t like Eric.

MARK H :

Eric is the hurricane that
slammed into the tropical
island of Fiji just over a
month ago. killing 20 peo-
ple, flantening buildings and
adding to the misery of
serious illness already affec-
ting the young North Van-
couver traveller.

Greasfield arrived in Fiji,
10 days before the hurricane
struck, at the end of a year-
long trip through the South
Pacific.

Days before she was sup-
posed to fy out of Fiji on
the Jast leg of her trip, the
hurricane warning was
issued. Planes were ground-
ed, the clouds moved in and
heavy rains began. Within a
day of Greasfield’s outing
along one of the island's
major rivers, that river had
spilled its banks and the
flooding began.

Then the hurricane hit.

“It was quite scary,’’ says
Greasfield. ‘*Windows were
breaking, things were flying
around. At the motel we
were staying at part of the
roof got blown off and one
of the walls caved in.

“At one point some guys
went rushing out to try and
hold up a wall that was col-
lapsing.’’

The man, aided by others,
finally set two pool tables up
on end against the wall to
hold it up, she says.

Greasfield and others were
safe in the concrete-walled
room of their hostel. They
watched through the window
as the hurricane blew for
five hours and the damage
toll mounted.

Whai made matters worse
for the North Vancouver
woman was the illness that
had struck her as the hur-
ricane was beginning.

“They thought it was ap-
pendicitis at one point,’’ she
said. Because of the hur-
ricane, however, she could
nor be moved to hospital.

The hurricane, which hit
on a Friday afternoon, had
moved on by I a.m. Satur-
day. Fears about a second
blow were allayed when it
didn’t materialize.

Greasfield saw the extent
of the damage on that
Saturday as she was rushed
to hospital across roads that
were still flooded and past
houses that were flattened,

“We drove by houses that
had been flattened with the
people standing beside them
crying,” she said.

The scene was worse at the
hospital. One man had suf-
fered such severe cuts to his
arm and legs that tendons
were Visible. Another, with a
badly cut foot, was leaving a
poal of blood with each step
he took along the corridors.

Greasfield was flown back
to New Zealand for hospital
treatment of what turaed out
to be a bowel infection.

As a footnote, she says,
the hurricane appeared to be

an omen of a series of events
that ruined the remaining
few days of her holidays —

yt

of several years in the
hospitality business, where
she held executive positions
at the Bayshore Inn and (for
a year) at the Hyatt Regency
Hotel! in Toronto.

Returning to Vancouver,
she joined the newly opened
Holt Renfrew store in Pacific
Centre in $974 to become
department manager, a post
she held until illness struck.

After nine years of
widowhood, she married her
second husband, North

including problems with her
luggage in Los Angeles and a
full search during a short

Shore News editor-in-chief

Noel Wright, in 1982.

She was widely travelled
throughout Canada, in the
ULS., Europe and the Far
East. With a deep apprecia-
tion of beauty in all its forms,
her special personal interests
included music, the theatre,
interior design and floral
creations.

Among her other en-
thusiasms were swimming at
which she excelled, and ex-
ploring nature outdoors, A

Jayover in Honolulu,
At home now, she is relax-
ing and looking for work.

SHARON GREASFIELD with Fijian newspapers that detailed the exteat of the hurricane damage.

lifelong Anglican, she was a
member of St. Monica’s
Church, Horseshoe Bay,

She is survived by her hus-
band. Noel Wright: sons
Tom and Peter Wardell:
daughter-in-law Ethane
Wardell; grandsons Sean and
Cameron Wardell; and her
brother Charles Garrett.

A memorial service con-
ducted by Rev. John Robert-
son will be held Monday,
Feb. 18, at 3:30 p.m. at St.
Monica's, Horseshoe Bay.

urricane

She'll go back to Fiji, she
says, but not during the hur-
ricane season,

sy Yi ’

NEWS phoio lan Smith