Long time Kelowna heritage champion Ursula Surtees has died

Ursula Surtees was the driving force behind the preservation of much of Kelowna’s history from being the first curator of Kelowna Centennial Museum to saving the Laurel Packing House from the bulldozer.

She died in Kelowna on the weekend, according to a Facebook posting by her daughter-in-law, Christine Surtees.

“Mom was a woman driven by ambition, and most of that ambition was directed to making her community a better place – a place informed by a more thoughtful understanding of cultures and their tangible and intangible heritage,” Christine Surtees wrote.

Ursula Brans was born in Surrey, England and, during the Second World War, married John Surtees, a Canadian soldier she met while still living in England. He was born in the Surtees home on Lakeshore Road.

According to the City of Kelowna website, the original Surtees home was built around 1912 and served as the Ritz Café that flourished for a couple of years while the Kettle Valley Railroad was being built in the hills above Kelowna.

“As described by a later occupant of the house, the establishment 'was operated by two ‘ladies’ who catered to all appetites,’” the website says. “When construction of the KVR was completed, the Ritz Cafe, operated by Messrs. Edgelow and Lister, closed 'for lack of business.’”

After the end of the First World War the house and property were bought by Allen Surtees, described as a “young Englishman from a well-off family.”

It was sold before the Second World War. John and Ursula Surtees bought it back in the early 1960s.

At that time there was a barn on site that became a studio for local artists and two pits were discovered on the property that were originally First Nations pit houses.

Ursula always had an interest in history and became the first curator of what was then the Kelowna Centennial Museum in 1968.

“Mom spent the bulk of her career in the museum field where she spent her time building the profile of our own community museum to be the largest museum outside the Georgia Strait urban region,” Christine Surtees wrote. “Work to this end included the addition of a second floor on the museum building, restoration of the Laurel Packinghouse, which housed the first provincial Wine Museum, integration of the Okanagan Military Museum, Chair of Kelowna’s Community Heritage Commission, and construction of an artifact conservation lab that now bears her name.”

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The Laurel Packinghouse, according to its website, was slated for demolition in 1982 but was saved by members of the community to become Kelowna’s first designated heritage building.

According to a 1995 Kelowna Life article, the city had budgeted $10,000 to bulldoze the building. Surtees suggested they give the money to the museum society instead in order to preserve it.

For a time the project was called “Ursula’s Folly,” according to the article, but it’s now a thriving cultural facility integral to Kelowna’s cultural district.

Surtees was given the Award of Merit from the Canadian Museums Association and a Golden Anniversary Service Award from the B.C. Museums Association and was named Kelowna’s Citizen of the Year in 1983.

“Perhaps one of Mom’s more enduring legacies is the work she did with Mary Thomas, an elder member of the Neskonlith Indian Band,” Christine Surtees wrote “That collaboration brought important and new First Nation curriculum-based education to classrooms across the region.

“These local school programs were adopted by many other school districts across the province. More than that, the First Nation language tapes she recorded with Mary and Mary’s mother have been repatriated to the Secwepemc area where Mary originated and copies now form part of the UBC library collection.”

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Ursula Surtees published 10 books and had a passion for sewing, making many costumes for local theatre productions.

The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, a contribution be made to the Ursula Surtees Endowment Fund with the Central Okanagan Foundation that helps support the Kelowna Museums Society.

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