Vance McFadyen’s legacy will long be remembered in the Royal City.
McFadyen, who died March 23 after a brief battle with cancer, was a leader on a number of fronts, including founding the Royal City Pride Society (now New West Pride) which started the New West Pride Festival in 2010, which started the pride festival as a way of showcasing New Westminster as a diverse and welcoming city.
“He was the guy who walked through that door, here, and asked us if we would support a Pride Week in New Westminster,” recalled Coun. Bill Harper. “I remember because we put the motion forward immediately. He became the leader of all those different kinds of things.”
In 2012, McFadyen co-founded the Seniors Gay Straight Alliance at Century House, the first group of its kind at a seniors centre in Canada.
“To me, he was a real hero,” Harper said. “It’s a huge loss for New Westminster. He contributed hugely to the city. It wasn’t just the gay community.”
While McFadyen enjoyed his roles in starting Pride Week and the Gay Straight Alliance, husband Curt Highham said he was proud of volunteering with the Seniors Peer Counselling program at Century House, and serving as president of the Seniors Services Society and the Century House Association. He also served as the president of the New Westminster Lawn Bowling Club and ran for city council in 1999 and for mayor in 2011, in a race where he placed third but was happy to have brought “a sense of evenness, a sense of politeness” to the campaign.
In 2010, he spearheaded a fundraising campaign that led to New Westminster receiving a $25,000 grant from Kraft Canada for the new youth centre and a live TSN SportsCentre broadcast.
More than anything, Higham said his husband was a family man who would like to be remembered for the kind of person he was.
“Just being a good soul. He never hurt anybody,” he said. “He is very proud of his boys. He has two sons, two grandsons and a great-grandson who is just four months old. Very family oriented. He was so kind. Helpful. Giving of himself.”
McFadyen and Higham met while having lunch at the Marine Room restaurant in the former Eaton’s store in downtown Vancouver in November 1976.
“We each spied each other across the restaurant, struck up a conversation and were together 41 years. After 26 years together we legally got married on Aug. 29, 2003. It didn’t matter to me, but it was so big for him. Part of it was the gay rights thing and equal rights,” Higham said. “He was kicked out of the navy for being gay.”
McFadyen was at home with Higham last November, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an apology to civil servants, military members and criminalized Canadians who suffered discrimination and injustice based on their sexual orientation. In addition to the apology, the federal government announced $110 million in compensation for LGBT civil servants and military members whose careers were sidelined or ended because of their sexuality.
McFadyen was just 17 when his three-year term with the Royal Canadian Navy ended early in 1960 because he was gay.
"It screwed up my life pretty bad for the next 10, 12 years. I came back, and everyone was surprised I was back after 11 months when I'd signed up for three years,” he told the Record last fall. “I ended up lying to my family, my parents, everybody. I told them the reason I was discharged on medical grounds is I had acute sea sickness. I held that lie for about 10 years."
The couple lived in a house near Moody Park for 30 years, before retiring to a small community on Vancouver Island in June 2017. After being diagnosed with terminal cancer in January, they made the decision to return to New Westminster, where Higham was born and raised.
“He was diagnosed in January and he passed away March 23. It was very, very quick,” Higham said. “He was so stoic. He was always smiling and happy, and worried more about me than himself.”
As per McFadyen’s request, a celebration of life will take place at Centennial Lodge in Queen’s Park on a Sunday afternoon in the summer. It’s set for Sunday, July 22 from 1 to 4 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, McFadyen hoped people would make a donation in his memory to the Seniors Services Society or Senior Peer Counselling program at Century House.
