Published in the 2010 edition of Tidings, the University of King’s College magazine. You can see the entire edition here.
Friends, family and former colleagues remember Margaret Catherine Vickery as an outgoing, nurturing woman, and a central character at the University of King’s College.
Vickery worked at King’s from 1979 to 1996 as a switchboard operator and secretary for the Bursar, Donald Fry.
Angus Johnston, who taught at King’s from 1977 to 2009, remembers Vickery’s small office as a crowded hub where faculty would gather for coffee and conversation in the mornings.
“She was Grand Central Station,” he says. “It was like overseeing a family, more than simply doing a secretarial or administrative job.”
Vickery died on January 16, 2010. She was 78 years old.
Henry Roper, the Director of the Foundation Year Program from 1992 to 1994, says
he remembers Vickery’s kindness.
“Students who might have difficulties fitting in or whatnot tended to gravitate to her office,” he remembers. “She was that sort of person.”
Johnston says Vickery’s gentle nature sometimes helped ease relations between King’s faculty and her math-minded boss, Donald Fry.
“Some people are not great with numbers, and I think this is where Margaret was truly encouraging,” Johnston says. “Don Fry was a very nice man. She would help him deal with others, and show a softer side.”
Kim Kierans is the Director of the School of Journalism. She remembers Vickery’s stories about her grandchildren. “I knew that there was more to her life than just King’s. Her family was everything,” she says.
Meghan Grant, who graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from King’s in 2007, is one of Vickery’s four grandchildren. A new mother herself, the Halifax ex-pat (She now lives in Calgary) says Vickery’s status as loving matriarch held firm within their family.
“We never really had that relationship where my mom would round us up once a month and say, ‘OK, we have to go visit your grandma,’ you know?” She says. “We were always at Nan’s, or she was always at our place.”
Margaret was a stay-at-home mother when her husband, John Vickery, passed away in 1976.
“I don’t know, if he hadn’t died, if she would have gone to work,” says Grant. “But she just did what she had to do for her family. I’m really glad that she found that job at King’s. I think she really loved her job there, and loved interacting with young people.”
At home, Grant says her grandmother was a true example of unconditional love.
“Some of the values in today’s culture really didn’t sit well with her, but she was so un-judgemental to her family,” Grant recalls. “She never made us feel that she disapproved. She just loved her family so much.”
Grant says Vickery always liked to look her best, and had an impressive collection of shoes. Grant’s mother and sister found seventy pairs in Vickery’s apartment after she passed away.
“They gave them to one of the hotels that were collecting shoes for Haiti. Of all the things that came out of her death, I think that makes me the happiest, says Grant. “I just imagine all these little Haitian women wearing Nan’s shoes.”
