Jack and Jean Clipperton

The Bow Valley first became home to the Clippertons on August 28, 1953, when they moved to Banff as a honeymooning couple from Provost, Alberta.

Jean was raised on a farm five miles north-west of Provost with her twin sister and five other siblings, while Jack grew up in the hamlet of Hayter, seven miles east of Provost, along with ten siblings. At the time of their marriage, Jean was employed as a receptionist in the Provost Medical Centre, while Jack was employed as a junior high school teacher in the Provost Public School. The move to Banff was precipitated by Jack accepting a position with the Banff School Board at the junior high school level.

Upon arriving in Banff, along with everything they owned packed into their 1947 five passenger Monarch coupe, the Clippertons were informed that school opening had been delayed two weeks due to the current outbreak of polio. This resulted in a two-week unexpected, and ill affordable, honeymoon, but which provided time for an extensive orientation of the delightful local landscape. When Jack went into the school, a couple of days before class commencement, to check out his future “digs and duties”, he was retracted several steps by a firm voice from down the hall exclaiming,”Classes don’t start until Monday!” The school matriarch (principal), Muriel Gratz, had mistaken Jack for an anxious student and wasn’t about to be pressed into action before opening day. The word “action” was a modest noun when describing the energy and interest that Muriel Gratz injected into her responsibilities toward the students, teachers and the community of Banff during the many years that she served as principal of Banff High School.

While living in Banff was appealing in many respects, the Clippertons found that having to pay seventy dollars each month for minimal accommodation out of a paycheck of one hundred and twenty five dollars left barely enough to pay their monthly grocery bill at Whytes’ store. The Banff School Board was relying somewhat on the appeal of its gorgeous mountain setting to attract teachers, rather than to provide competitive salaries. The ’47 Monarch sat idle until the spring of ’54 when Jean became employed at the Corner Drug Store, and Jack took a summer job at the East Gate greeting visitors with, “Any cats, dogs, or guns? Two dollars, please!” Summertime accommodation took the form of a shack tent in the backyard of the MacLeod residence on Lynx Street and included access to a bathroom in the house. They had learned in June that Jack’s application had been accepted to teach for the Calgary Board of Education, starting September 1, 1954. They were enthused with news out of Calgary that rents were reasonable and new homes were available with down payments as low as $600 carrying a twenty-five year fixed mortgage at 6 1/4 percent. And so, the next thirty-three years of residence in the Bow Valley took place in the City of Calgary, twenty eight of these years in the district of Westgate.

Between 1955 and 1963 Jack and Jean were blessed with five children, two sons and three daughters. More recently, nine grandchildren were added to the Clipperton family. Also, from the University of Calgary, Jack acquired a Bachelor of Education Degree and Diploma in Education Administration, while Jean, after serving as homemaker for twenty years, was awarded a Bachelor of Education Degree and Diploma in Early Childhood Education. In 1985, after thirty-seven years of teaching and school administration, Jack retired and began to plan for the construction of their home in Canmore where they had been “week-enders” at Restwell Trailer Court and Buck Point Condominiums for a number of years. Two years later, in 1987, Jean retired after eleven years of teaching Kindergarten – the “joy of her life.” In the fall of that year a permanent move was made, back to the mountains that had whetted their taste buds for mountain living thirty-three years previous, and to the town of Canmore that, with the 1988 Winter Olympics, was just beginning its rapid rise to “big town” and “city status.”

The Clipperton story, covering their twenty year Canmore experience, has paralleled a period of amazing growth and development that has seen the town’s population increase from two or three thousand to over ten thousand permanent residents while its corporate area has increased at an even greater rate.We are grateful that we “arrived” in time to witness and enjoy the “small town” ambiance that prevailed during the ’80s when walking down 8th Street meant a verbal greeting from everyone we met. This friendly acceptance of newcomers by Canmoreites was aptly illustrated to Jack during his first visit to the golf course when Ace Southwood invited him to make it a “twosome” part way through the round. A memorable highlight for us during these years was our participation in the Torch Relay for the ’88 Winter Olympics. Somewhat painful has been the witnessing of the growth pressures brought to bear on long standing Canmore family businesses as they have striven to meet the challenge of franchise and corporate competition.

Canmore provided the Clippertons with the perfect setting in which to pursue their retirement aspirations which, for Jean, meant strengthening her creative skills through sewing, handicrafts and volunteering within the community, a return to her much loved “homemaking”, as well as providing strong support to their extended family. For Jack, retirement in Canmore provided an exceptional opportunity for a second vocation with Brewster Transport which provided eleven years of contrasting interests, variety and flexibility – a bonus to his “chosen” vocation, along with exercising his passion for gardening and other outdoor pursuits. Activities at the Canmore Senior ‘s Association along with worshipping and fellowship at Ralph Connor Memorial United Church have also served to enrich the Bow Valley experience for the Clippertons during their retirement years.