We Remember
FRIESEN, Raymond Earle
December 31, 1929 — November 3, 2014
Passed away on Monday, November 3, 2014 at the age of 84. Loved by his wife, Dorothy; six children: Lauranne, Niel, Linda, Sylvia, James and Ric; three siblings: Bob, Babs and Jackie and he loved them all! Also survived by fifteen grandchildren, eleven great grandchildren; one great great grandchild. Raymond was a wonderful husband, father, teacher/musician and Pantheist. He never met a tree that he didn’t like! A Memorial Service will be held on Sunday, November 9th at 1:00 pm at Springfield Funeral Home, 2020 Springfield Road, Kelowna, BC. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Alzheimer Society of BC, Suite 307 – 1664 Richter Street, Kelowna, BC, V1Y 8N3. For those wishing to send a condolence, photos or share memories, may do so by scrolling down this page to the area called “Share Your Condolences.”
Service
Sunday, November 9th at 1:00 pm
Location
Springfield Funeral Home
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Service Details
The service for FRIESEN, Raymond Earle is scheduled for Sunday, November 9th at 1:00 pm . Below you will find the map for the service location and the contact information should you have any questions.
My thoughts are with the family.
Steve
No words of mine can possibly lessen your sense of loss, but I thought the best way to honour Ray would be to share with you some memories and an anecdote.
I was in Mr. Friesen’s music class at KSS in the late ’60s, I think for grade 8 and grade 9 band. He was quite a guy. The only teacher in the school with facial hair – he had a very cool goatee. He was also very muscular and had a preference for short-sleeved shirts or rolled-up sleeves that revealed some impressive biceps. He also had a very cool car – I think it might have been a Pontiac GTO or maybe a Barracuda – can’t remember – but it was a muscle car and it had great motor music.
I learned the meaning of the word “philistine” which Ray used to dismiss the opinions of anyone with contented commonplace musical tastes who were not open to new sounds and musical ideas. He’d listen to their critical comments, shake his head, exclaim “Philistine”, and then change the subject.
He hated country and western music as I recall; saying that it was all the same sound – “neerd-neerd-chang-chang”.
Ray got a speeding ticket which he contested and the resulting court appearance was published in the Kelowna Daily Courier. In those days such trivial things appeared in the paper with a one or two sentence description which I happened to read. Apparently, the judge had let him off the charge because Ray was adamant that he could not have been speeding at the rate the RCMP officer alleged, because at that alleged speed his car emitted a harmonic that was precisely in tune with “middle C” at a frequency of 261.6Hz; and as a musician he knew what middle C sounded like and the car was definitely not generating that harmonic, ergo he could not have been speeding. Pretty convincing for the Judge really and certainly a unique counter-argument, so case dismissed. The day after reading the notice in the paper, at the end of band class, I went up to him and congratulated him on slipping out of the charge – I kind of implied that it was a clever stretch to get out of the fine. He strenuously denied that he had made up a story to escape the charge, and said to me “I’ll prove it to you, put your clarinet together, we’ll jump into my car and drive around, you play a middle-C and when the harmonics align we’ll see what speed we are doing”. Without bothering to put on jackets, off we went into the dark winter evening to get his car from the parking lot. It was dark and snowing, and we raced up and down Harvey Avenue in front of the school in his car, me tooting away on my clarinet in the passenger seat, my friend Don in the back seat watching the speedometer … and then the harmonics of the car and the clarinet aligned and guess what – he was right.
I’ll never forget that incident. There is just no way something like that could happen these days.
I live in Europe now, a long way from Kelowna, but my old friend who was in the back of Ray’s car that night we did the harmonic drive made me aware of his passing. Ray Friesen was a very interesting guy. He lives on in my memories.
Long ago in OK Centre, the Friesen house marked the last stretch down to beach, but “oh it’s so steep here” on the way up from the beach! Great memories with the Friesens – my condolences for your loss….
Dear Dorothy Lauranne, Niel, Linda, Sylvia, James and Ric:
I was in Ray’s senior band at KSS in the early 70’s. Ray was a great music teacher. Though I never played professionally, I did go on to play in a few bands after high school. I have many fond memories of Ray. I remember sitting in and playing with him at a wedding (possibly Linda’s but I’m not sure). Perhaps the funniest was a weekend in April, Easter maybe, when he invited Gary T. and I over. Somehow we got on the topic of water skiing. I learned that day that Ray was what I’d call a determined all weather water skier. He spontaneously decided to go skiing, so we all headed down to the dock. In lieu of a wetsuit, he coated himself with butter to help protect him from the very cold water. It must have been less than 10C out. What was funny was that while he was on the dock waiting to do a jump start Bartock (your dog) was licking the butter off his legs. I’m not sure Ray thought it was very funny. He was yelling Bartock! Bartock! Go! No! The rest of us thought it was hilarious. Finally he yelled hit it and escaped Bartock’s ticklish tongue.
He made a great jump start and went for a ski. Ray was amazing.
Thank you Ray for your mentorship and good memories. You had a significant and positive impact on me.
Gary Hovey
Gary and Doug,
I love your stories. Thank-you so much for sharing.
While I did not know Ray personally I have chatted with him many times as I sit on his bench on top of Knox Moutain. It’s my favourite place and I have no doubt Ray is there too. He sounds like a very lucky man to have touched the lives of so many people and still is. Wonderful memories of an obviously great man who will love on forever…..
My dad was the judge for that case! I’m so glad he didn’t give Ray a ticket!!
I loved him as a teacher and, I hope I remember correctly, had a couple rides with him in his go fast car (which I thing was a GTO). Once to the coast. And once to Banff.
So many good times!