Gladys’ Obituary
Gladys Fiske Swim (nee MacCallum)
Our mother slipped away peacefully at Surf Lodge in Lockeport just before noon on Thursday, January 18th. Her son Peter and daughter Laurie were at her side, son Danny and granddaughter Anne under Covid circumstances, were able to say their final goodbyes the day before.
Glady, as she was known to her friends, was the only child of Gladys Laurie (Fiske) MacCallum and Angus Menzes MacCallum. After her father died when she was five years old, they moved in with her mother’s sister, Jean MacLean and her family in Boston, Mass. and later, when she was a teenager, to Larchmont, New York. Throughout her childhood, her mother drove them home to Lockeport to vacation with their Fiske and Locke relations. She met her future husband, Balfour Swim, when she was 12 years old. She was close to his four sisters, Lillian (Benham), Betty (Cox), Rosalie (Hartigan) and Fae (Farrell) throughout her life.
As a young woman, her first job was in the mail room at Radio City, Rockefeller Centre in New York City at the age of sixteen. She told us a story about the time when Frank Sinatra, very early in his career, was performing at the Radio City concert hall and there were lineups around the block to see him. He was the Super Star of the day and the female fans would write letters asking for souvenirs so the girls in the mail room rifled the Lost and Found box looking for ties, etc. to send back to them. At the same time, she was attending night school to be a stenographer and later, got a job as an executive secretary at Rockefeller Centre.
During the Second World War years in New York there were servicemen stationed there from all over the world and the social life was both exciting and meaningful; living life to the fullest and in the present. During that time, she volunteered at the canteen for Canadian Servicemen as well as an International Officers Club that was in a mansion in downtown Manhattan. It was a very exciting time for a young woman in her twenties to be in NYC.
After the war, our father, Balfour Swim, a paratrooper in the Canadian Army, returned to Canada. Mom was then living in Halifax with her friend Betty, his sister, and they would regularly visit Lockeport on weekends. They had dated before the war and picked up their romance where they left off. Our father claimed when he had received a photo of her overseas, he told the other men, “This is the woman I am going to marry”. And so they were married at the Billows Inn in Lockeport, October 31, 1947 on Hallowe’en. Mom planned it that way so he would never forget their anniversary. They settled into married life first in Shelburne where he cofounded Ven-Rez, with his cousin Arch King in 1947, manufacturing laminated furniture, an innovative technology created for planes during WW II. In February, 1949 she gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Laurie after her mother. When Balf decided to join the family firm of Swim Bros. Fisheries, they moved to Lockeport and built a house alongside Crescent Beach. She loved her house because it was her first real home and she lived there until moving into Surf Lodge in 2016.
Sons, Peter and Dan arrived in the 1950’s and by the time, they started school, Glady had opened a fabric and sewing notions store in Lockeport called The Smart Shop, that later expanded to a dress shop. She also opened a second store The Town Boutique in Bridgewater. She loved stylish clothes and carried top line dresses and accessories in both stores. In the early seventies, after deciding retail was no longer her interest, she became a real estate agent, selling properties throughout Shelburne County. In retirement, she enjoyed playing tennis and joining her friends, Gwen Redding, Ellen Fraser and Elaine Moore for coffee in the mornings. After our father died in 2003, she loved spending time sitting in the living room window overlooking the beach and reading novels and biographies.
Glady is survived by her children, Laurie Swim, (Larry Goldstein) Peter Swim, and Dan Swim, grandchildren, Anne Swim, (Lawrence Taylor) Luke Swim, Aaron Swim (Monica Williams) and Jake Goldstein, great grandchildren; Savannah Taylor, Kyler and Payton Swim, Eli Goldstein Swim and Piper Swim.
Donations placed in her memory are asked to be made to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation – Atlantic Chapter, 5251 Duke St., Suite 417, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J 1P3. Condolences for the family may be left at www.huskilson.net
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July 09 1925 February 18 2021
Nos plus sincères sympathies à la famille et aux amis de Gladys Fiske Swim July 09 1925 February 18 2021..
H.M.Huskilson funeral homes and crematorium
Décès pour la Ville: Lockeport, Province: Nova Scotia