LeRoy M. Sauder

Pillar Location: Pillar IX, Row 36, Column C

Story: 

LeRoy M Sauder was born on December 16^th, 1935 in Ponoka, Alberta but moved with his parents, Roy and Eva (nee Morrow) to Vancouver, B.C.  Within a few years, the small family welcomes another son, David, in 1940.

Roy Sauder had worked as a tradesman since arriving ‘on the coast,’ but as more and more people fled the droughts of the prairies, jobs of any kind were few and far between.  Eva had taught in a one room school house for many years near Ponoka and was a qualified teacher and member of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, but found she was unable to teach in B.C.  Unafraid of hard work, LeRoy’s mother took a graveyard shift at a meat packaging plant on Burrard Inlet.  Her grandchildren would later hear tales of Eva watching rats scurrying over hanging meat; who could forget that memory?

During the Second World War, money was very tight for most people.  As LeRoy’s mother stayed at home during the day with her two younger sons, Roy scrounged up the daily nickel that was the toll for crossing Lion’s Gate Bridge to work on the North Shore of Vancouver.  Sometimes he was hired for the day, and other times he wasn’t.

Worried about her family’s situation, Eva decided to secretly write a letter to her husband’s uncle, E.L. Sauder, a man she’d never met.  Roy had mentioned his family’s Vancouver clan, but originating from Manitoba, he felt a reluctance to ask for favours from people he considered distant relatives.  And Roy, like his son LeRoy in later life, was not the one to ask anyone for anything.

LeRoy would tell his children later that he remembered playing on the porch of his house when a big, shiny Buick pulled up.  The man driving it, stopped and called out, “Hello!  I’m looking for Roy Sauder.”  Roy, may or may not have recognized the man, but he apparently wasted no time extending his hand in welcome.  The elder Sauder, owner of Sauder Lumber (which later morphed into Sauder Industries) introduced himself and said he was in need of good, strong men.  He’d heard that a member of his own family was perhaps looking for work.  Roy immediately accepted the offer, making Eva happy and creating a life long love of fancy cars in LeRoy. 

When WWII ended and men came home and some started families, they needed houses.  Roy thanked his uncle for the opportunities offered but he wanted to work for himself.  Roy Sauder struck out on his own and built homes throughout the lower mainland and later, Chilliwack, B.C.  Both his sons, LeRoy and David would work with their father, learning the craft of house building until LeRoy was 21 years old and accepted into training in Regina for the RCMP in 1956.

LeRoy would later tell his daughters that training had been tough; especially the swimming.  For some reason, neither LeRoy or his brother David had much buoyancy and when they were in training, it was difficult for them to stay afloat for long and tread water.  Every time LeRoy would try and reach for the side of the pool to catch his breath, the instructor would rap LeRoy’s knuckles with a brass cane.  LeRoy’s children wouldn’t know whether to believe that story when they heard it, but when their Uncle Dave, who followed his brother LeRoy’s lead and ‘went into the force,’ told them the same story about himself, they thought it just might be true.

When LeRoy finished his training, Eva, Roy, and David Sauder attended the graduation in Regina.  It was likely exciting and LeRoy’s family would have been very proud of him, especially if they knew about the brass cane.  Sadly, on the drive back to Chilliwack, Roy was struck with a blinding headache so Eva and David continued the drive home.  Although Roy hadn’t previously complained of illness, he died at the family home a few days later in the house that he and his sons had built.  Roy Sauder was only 51 years old. 

LeRoy was quickly stationed in the Peace River Country, which despite its name was anything but peaceful.  It was still very much a new frontier, with mostly gravel or dirt roads dissecting farmers’ fields and bush.  Villages and towns were few and there were lots of miles between them.  But, there was usually a post office, RCMP detachment, and likely a bar.  If it has been hotter and drier, there were probably tumbleweeds blowing about.  LeRoy was about 800 miles from home- a long way from his suddenly widowed mother and younger brother who was still in high school.  But, he did whatever any other young man or woman did when starting out.  He made friends and found a different kind of family with his troop and other RCMP personnel.  He, like his troop mates before and beside him, simply stood as tall and brave as they could.  It mustn’t have been easy, but nobody ever heard that sentiment coming from them. 

Spending about four years at postings in Northern Alberta, LeRoy was eventually stationed in Grande Prairie.  It was there that he met a vivacious young nurse, Anne, who had been born and raised on a farm in the hamlet of Abee, near the tiny town of Thorhild, Alberta.  Anne knew nothing of the Pacific Ocean, mountains, fields of corn and fruit orchards where LeRoy had grown up.  She knew backbreaking work every season on her parents’ small plot of farmland, trudging through snow to school during the long, bitterly cold winters and the richness of her mother’s Ukrainian food.

Anne and LeRoy became friends and eventually, a couple.  Soon, they decided they should get married.  Unfortunately in 1961, LeRoy was not allowed to get married and stay in the force.  So, after serving as an RCMP for five years, LeRoy retired and became a probation officer.

During those early years of marriage, LeRoy and Anne kept their friends from before they were married and made plenty of new ones.  They had a daughter, Bonita, and four years later, a second daughter, Nicole.  The family eventually joined by LeRoy’s mother when her other son, David, left home to also join the RCMP. 

Perhaps it was having his mother nearby which reminded LeRoy of building houses with his father, or maybe the same independence ran through his veins that had run through Roy’s.  LeRoy decided he wanted to build a house and it needed to be large enough for his own family and have room for an apartment for his mother.  At that point, he was not in any kind of financial position to do that. 

So, once again, LeRoy followed his heart and went off to seek his fortune on his own.  He set out to build something, but it wasn’t a house.  Someone else was contracted to do that.  LeRoy and his new business partner, Jim, started building a business like so many other self-made men did.  They found something that needed doing and did it.  Roads going in and out of Grande Prairie and one particular one heading northwest towards the Alaska highway.  Gravel as needed to build that so LeRoy and Jim bought a gravel truck, and then another one.  Soon they had several trucks and hired men to drive them.  Eventually, LeRoy and Jim would have dozens of people working and driving their company’s growing residential and commercial garbage business- all year long.  As each year led to more financial rewards than the one previous, both partners joined various clubs and committees, raising money for charities and giving back to the community. 

Business thrived during the boom times and survived during the downturns.  One of the ways LeRoy used to maintain his faithful staff was to treat them well.  There were many Christmas Days and Boxing Days that came and went over the years that LeRoy drove a garbage truck so the regular driver could spend the holiday with his family.  Not every boss would do such a thing, but LeRoy thought it was important to take someone else’s place once in a while.  Maybe he thought seeing things through someone else’s eyes was important.  He never actually said.

LeRoy and his wife Anne worked hard during those years in Grande Prairie and retired in their 50’s.  More than thirty years after leaving, LeRoy would move ‘back’ to the coast with Anne who had grown to love the smell of the ocean and the beauty of the mountains.  They spend their years after retirement building homes, travelling the world to visit their globetrotting daughters, and almost always, driving flashy cars.

It wasn’t until LeRoy was in his mid-70’s that both daughters finally settled on Vancouver as their Canadian home.  They each had two children whom LeRoy adored.  They adored him right back until his death in 2014.