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Robert "Bob" Weston Swalwell

September 20,1933 - October 5, 2017

Bob is survived by his wife of 57 years Jean; his four children, Rob, Beth, Jim and Summer; his seven grandchildren, Pascal, Hunter, Matias, Emma, Joe, Hartley and Maisie, as well as his brother Ken and his 'twin' sister Helen.  

He is remembered by all the multitude of people he helped and influenced through his countless selfless hours of teaching, coaching, talking and treating with respect and dignity.

Bob's early days took place in the Fraser Valley in a tar paper shack, before the family moved to Burnaby and later New Westminster, where his parents ran a business selling headstones for the Fraser Cemetery.  He earned money as a teen digging graves by hand and often told stories of the goings on at the BC Penitentiary Yard down the road.  

Bob went on to attain his teaching degree at Western Washington University on an athletic scholarship after working in the oil fields of Alberta for a year. 

He taught at many different schools in BC before making a trip to the Cariboo with a friend to look at property.  They stayed in 100 Mile House the night in September 1972 that the Canadians won the summit series hockey game vs USSR.  He thought they would have moved on had we lost that game, but they stayed to celebrate and in the morning he picked up the paper and saw the ad for Canim Lake Resort.  

He and Jean moved with four small children, and together the family worked to build a golf course, cabins and a log home.  

Bob made an impact on countless students he taught in the woodshop at 100 Mile Junior High. He liked to think his legacy will live on in all the carvings he left on the high shelves around that room. He went in early every day so those lost souls who needed it had a place to go. The students who were having an especially hard time were always sent to Bob. He had the patience to listen to them and help them discover why they were having troubles. He always wanted to know why, and was always willing to give a second chance, for he knew there was always a reason for the car wreck, the drunken stupor, the fist fight or the angry words.

He loved to go on drives and took his children on many adventures.  He would often take one child and go to Vancouver, where he taught them to talk to people (the stranger the better) and treat everyone with the decency and respect they deserved.  The favourite days were the ones walking the streets of the downtown East Side and Oppenheimer Park, and if that wasn't lesson enough, they would go to the courthouse and sit in on peoples' worst day.  

Bob always opened with where you are from and what do you do. He wanted to hear people's stories and how they got to the place they were.  

When he retired from teaching, he and Jean moved to the Creston Valley.  They found Creston on one of their drives and he said he knew it was the right place for them as soon as they entered the valley from the mountains in the west. He thrived here working in his gardens, walking the tracks, and sitting on many benches around town talking to anyone and everyone, always wanting to know their story.  He set an exceptional example as a good person. 

Bob will always be remembered by those he encountered, giving of his patience and kindness, gentle with broken hearts and minds, generous with his time and energy, caring for feelings and needs and observant of the earth and mother nature and what she has to tell us all if only we would listen.



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