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 Evelyn Mae “Babe” Brown Richards (1924 - 2016)
-Babe Richards was born in Whitehorse to parents Bernadine and T.C. Richards. She grew up when Whitehorse was a town of about 300 people in the winter and about 500 in the summer.((Stephanie Waddell, “Pillar of the volunteer community remembered.” //Whitehorse Daily Star// (Whitehorse), 22 April 2016.)) She spent summers in the country as her father worked on his own mining ventures. She rode with him as he delivered fuel to the airstrip at Burwash. She would stay behind at McIntosh Lodge while her father completed the last difficult miles on the journey. Babe finished her schooling outside and returned to the Yukon in 1942 when the town was busy with soldiers.((Erin Linn McMullan, “The Road that Babe Built.” //Yukon, North of Ordinary,// Spring 2010: 49-52.))
+Babe Richards was born in Whitehorse to parents Bernadine (Langholtz) and T.C. Richards. She grew up when Whitehorse was a town of about 300 people in the winter and about 500 in the summer.((Stephanie Waddell, “Pillar of the volunteer community remembered.” //Whitehorse Daily Star// (Whitehorse), 22 April 2016.)) She spent summers in the country as her father worked on his own mining ventures. She rode with him as he delivered fuel to the airstrip at Burwash. She would stay behind at McIntosh Lodge while her father completed the last difficult miles on the journey.((Erin Linn McMullan, “The Road that Babe Built.” //Yukon, North of Ordinary,// Spring 2010: 49-52.))
-Babe Richards married John Brown and they lived in Whitehorse and Watson Lake.((Stephanie Waddell, “Pillar of the volunteer community remembered.” //Whitehorse Daily Star// (Whitehorse), 22 April 2016.)) Brown ran a sawmill in Watson Lake.((Myles Dolphin, "Whitehorse's Babe Richards remembered." //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 29 April 2016.)) They moved to northern British Columbia in 1967.((Stephanie Waddell, “Pillar of the volunteer community remembered.” //Whitehorse Daily Star// (Whitehorse), 22 April 2016.))
-In 1971 Babe returned to her hometown and became a central figure in the community. She was the owner and operator of the Broises Tienda dress shop and later a day care where she was known to the kids as Grandma Babe. She was well-known for her extensive work with local charities. She raised her own ten children and as well as a number of foster children. Babe had a great memory and could tell many stories about the past. One time she borrowed a bulldozer from a highway maintenance crew and briefly took a few lessons before building a road to a lake site where her family eventually built a cabin. Richards took on the role of beloved grandmother to twenty-three grandchildren, eventually becoming a great-grandmother to fifteen, and a great-great-grandmother to three.((Stephanie Waddell, “Pillar of the volunteer community remembered.” //Whitehorse Daily Star// (Whitehorse), 22 April 2016.))
+Babe graduated from Crofton House in Vancouver in 1942 and planned to attend nursing school. She flew back top Whitehorse that summer and, after her oldest brother, Cecil, drowned in Ear Lake she lost heart for continued education.  She worked as a desk clerk in her father's Whitehorse Inn. In the summer of 1945, Babe borrowed a cable-cat from the Marsh Lake army camp and pushed through a road to what became Army Beach She and her friend Vera White set up a wall tent and spent the summer there. T.C. Richards bought two lots nearby and built a summer home. Babe gave birth to her first child in 1946 and her first five were born in less than five years. The sixth child was on the way when Babe moved her children to Upper Liard where her partner had a job at the lodge. In 1956, Babe married John Brown and the family moved to the Brown Bros. Yukon Enterprise sawmill. Her new husband owned the mill at the conference of the Rancheria and Liard rivers.((Diane Green, "The 'Unsinkable' Babe Richards" in Sam Holloway, editor, //The Yukon Reader,// Volume Two, 2024: 41-54.))
+As the children reached school age, they left the sawmill to attend the Catholic boarding school in Whitehorse. Babe missed her children so in 1960, the Browns moved to a home at Watson Lake, at mile 1.3 of the Robert Campbell Highway. The house was several separate skid shacks under one roof joined under one roof by an unheated 60' central corridor. Each shack was heated by a small propane stove. There was a cabin for the girls and one for the boys. John found a good stand of timer for his sawmill seventeen miles from town. Babe's last child was born in Watson Lake in 1963. Babe cooked for the mill employees, her ten children, and four boarders. The boarders were children of parents who lived in the bush or at Swift River where there was no school. One boarder was Dennis Fentie who became Yukon's premier.((Diane Green, "The 'Unsinkable' Babe Richards" in Sam Holloway, editor, //The Yukon Reader,// Volume Two, 2024: 41-54.))
+John's sawmill was no longer profitable so the Browns moved to Dawson Creek, British Columbia where started work with a trucking company. The family, with the five youngest children, lived in a trailer. John was transferred to Fort St. John in 1969 and the family moved again. In 1972, they moved back to Whitehorse where Babe opened a dress shop on Main Street called Broies Tienda that ran for five years. Babe's marriage to John Brown ended in 1977 and she and two girls moved to a home in Riverdale.((Diane Green, "The 'Unsinkable' Babe Richards" in Sam Holloway, editor, //The Yukon Reader,// Volume Two, 2024: 41-54.))
+Babe became a central figure in the community. She operated a daycare where she was known to the kids as Grandma Babe. She was well known for her extensive work with local charities. Babe had a great memory and could tell many stories about the past. Richards took on the role of beloved grandmother to twenty-three grandchildren, eventually becoming a great-grandmother to fifteen, and a great-great-grandmother to three.((Stephanie Waddell, “Pillar of the volunteer community remembered.” //Whitehorse Daily Star// (Whitehorse), 22 April 2016.))
 Babe was an active and dedicated member of the Yukon Order of Pioneers Auxiliary. She welcomed calls from those who wanted to hear stories and borrow pictures or newspaper clippings to make copies.((Yukon Archives MSS40, Meg Waddington.)) The Yukon Historical and Museums Association 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award was given to two recipients: Gudrun Sparling and Babe Richards. As Jim Robb wrote in his nomination, these ladies have always shared their valuable knowledge, experience and history of the area, to both the general public and to the media. The two lifelong friends have contributed a lot through the years. YHMA was pleased to honour two ladies who have contributed a true lifetime of building and preserving Yukon heritage.((Erin Wall, Executive Director, YHMA Press Release, 18 February 2009.)) Babe Richards moved to Macaulay Lodge in March 2013 and soon became the unofficial greeter. She was remembered by her friend Goody Sparling as a “jolly” spirit.((Stephanie Waddell, “Pillar of the volunteer community remembered.” //Whitehorse Daily Star// (Whitehorse), 22 April 2016.))