By Roger Knox - Vernon Morning Star Published: September 05, 2008
One of the driving forces behind Vernon’s Performing Arts Centre, Marie Fleming is being remembered for her determination and passion of the arts. Fleming passed away peacefully Thursday morning at the age of 89 in the Polson Extended Care Facility. “She was the one who piloted the process for the Performing Arts Centre,” said Sigrid-Ann Thors, current president of the Vernon Performing Arts Centre Society. “When things got tough, she got tougher. If it wasn’t for her determination, there would be no theatre. “She was very determined, always prepared to roll up her shirt sleeves. She was always pushing.” David Hesketh, a current Morning Star advertising representative, recalls the time Fleming and Rosalie Gower took him to lunch in 1997, trying to get him to serve on the board of the society. “Their plan was to make me the president of the board, which I fought and lost, and I got the task of taking the plan for the performing arts centre to referendum, and overseeing the design for the centre,” said Hesketh, visibly upset over Fleming’s passing. “She was such a sweet lady. She and Rosalie took me for lunch, saying they needed some young blood on the board.“I was thrilled to be thought of as young.”
Fleming was also well-known in Vernon, where she moved to with her family from Alberta in the 1960s, as one of the first women in the area to operate her own business. Fleming ran Winman’s Furniture after her husband, Walt, died in 1969. “Feather your nest with a little down,” everybody knew that line, because mom said it on the commercials,” said her daughter, Nola Neilson, referring to Fleming’s television and radio ads for the store. Fleming’s community involvement also included working with Girl Guides, Toastmasters, the Downtown Vernon Association and Vernon Winter Carnival. She designed and made the first jopo uniform, and even performed as jopo herself. She was named Vernon Women In Business’s 2001 Woman of the Year. When her second husband, former Vernon Mayor Stuart Fleming, died, Fleming continued the couple’s dream of having a performing arts centre built in Vernon. She contributed $100,000 towards the society’s endowment fund, and a rehearsal hall in the performing arts centre was named after her.
In a 2001 Morning Star interview after she was named Woman of the Year, Fleming said she enjoyed being busy, and loved living in Vernon. “The day I don’t accomplish something is a day that I hate,” said Fleming. “I enjoy my life. I enjoy my 10 grandchildren – all 10 of them have lived with me at one time or another. “If you look around and look at all the things there are to do, it’s amazing, and if anybody’s going around saying there isn’t anything to do, they need to have their head examined, because there’s a million and one things to do here.” Marie Fleming was pre-deceased by her first husband, Walter, her second husband, Stuart, and by one son, Lew Neilson. She is survived by three children, Shala, Nola and Belva, 10 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. A Celebration of Fleming’s life will be held at the Marie Fleming Rehearsal Hall in the Vernon Performing Arts Centre on Friday, Sept. 12. beginning at 6 p.m.
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