Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
- Gertie Wepsala
- Gertil Peaton
- Gertrude Wepsala
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
Gertrude (Gertie) Marion Wepsala was a member of the Tyee Ski Runners in the 1930's, and winner of the Dominion Ladies combined downhill and slalom events in 1938 and 1939. At the same time, the man who would be Gertie’s husband, Al Beaton, was touring Japan with his basketball team, Dominion champions, the Vancouver Westerns. Each was training to compete at the Olympics and other international competitions. However, during World War II, the fifth winter and twelfth summer Olympics were cancelled.
The couple married in 1942. Gertie continued to ski and worked in wartime industry as a shop clerk at the Boeing Aircraft factory, and Al joined the Royal Canadian Signals Corps. After the war, Joe Wepsala, Gertie’s father was responsible for overseeing the production of the first chairlift up Grouse Mountain completed in 1949.
In the late 1950s, Gertie wrote a ski column called ‘Telemark’ for the Vancouver Sun and in her later years she took up golfing. She also wrote columns under the pen name 'Gertil Peaton'. Gertie died in 2007 at the age of 91.