As seniors slowly move into Powell River’s new extended care facility, Willingdon Creek Village, the memory of Olive Devaud’s philanthropy lives on.
So far, about 10 residents have been moved and staff are preparing to assist people who live in Sunshine Centre, the facility’s higher security dementia ward, next. When the transition is complete 102 seniors will be living in a place that is designed to better meet their needs.
But the village would not have been possible without the community first rallying around the idea of providing a home for seniors who required more care and the Devauds’ generosity.
Olive, then known as Nurse Wood, came to Powell River from the United Kingdom in 1926 to work at Powell River General Hospital with the late Dr. Charles Marlatt. She had spent the years of WWI working in London. Though a strict disciplinarian, she became one of Powell River’s most philanthropic citizens.
Olive married Alphonse Devaud in 1934 and during their 20-year marriage the modest couple gave nearly all their possessions to the community, including a 10-acre parcel of land in Westview where they hoped the new hospital would be built. Then, after Alphonse’s death in 1954, Olive gave six acres of land, four building lots on Westview Avenue at Kamloops and Kemano streets, to Powell River Sunset Homes Society to build housing for seniors in need. She also provided $6,000 toward the building’s construction.
“With the passing of her husband, Mrs. Devaud became generous to a fault,” reported the Powell River News at the time of her death. “She couldn’t see two dollars in her bank account but she had to spend a dollar seventy-five of it on somebody else.”
Over the years seniors’ non-profit accommodations have grown there, first as the 12-unit Centennial Homes which was built in 1958. Then 10 years later, the Olive Devaud Residence, a 40-bedroom seniors home was opened.
Olive was well-known for making anonymous donations of $500 to Sunset Homes Society’s bank account which would throw the society books “off kilter.”
In addition to the land and money, the Devauds also helped build Moose Hall, the Boy Scout building and they donated a log cabin on Joyce Avenue to Powell River Unitarians.
Powell River News reporter John Smail wrote upon Olive’s death in November 1969 that, “these truths about Mrs. Devaud would not have been permitted during her lifetime. She was as modest as she was frugal.”
Olive was a founding member of the Royal College of Nursing and National College of Nurses in the UK, a charter member of Women of the Moose and president of the St. David Society. She was recipient of Powell River’s Good Citizen Award in 1952.
