Bernice Price was a feisty woman known to ‘raise hell’
‘When I get my teeth into something, I shake it until I win’
It was not unusual to see Bernice Price before city council in 2002 fighting the battle against pigeon poop.
She was 85 then, and pushing what some believed was the first bylaw of its kind in Canada — giving a municipality jurisdiction over birdlife in a private property backyard.
But she had been a presence in the corridors of city hall since the days of mayor Vic Copps and joked to The Spectator that even though they closed the doors when they knew she was in the building, she learned to knock. She argued for stoplights in her east Mountain neighbourhood, pushed for free rides on the HSR for those over 80, and advocated for the Sackville Hill Seniors Recreation Centre.
Her wish that day in May of 2002 was simple. If you feed pigeons in your backyard, and those birds poop on your neighbour’s property, and the neighbour complains to city hall, you’d be liable for a $105 fine. If you kept feeding those pigeons, you could find yourself in court before a justice of the peace and face a $5,000 fine.
She got her wish — council approved her idea, which some took to calling the Bernice bylaw and got her the nickname Bird Lady.
Price — who died April 8 at the Grace Villa Nursing Home six weeks shy of her 101st birthday (May 20) — wasn’t someone to sit by quietly.
“When I get my teeth into something, I shake it until I win,” she told The Spectator in 2002.
Price was a member of what she once estimated were 54 committees across the city. She joined the Hamilton Safety Council in 1964 and later served as its first woman chair in 1968. She joined St. John’s Ambulance in 1939 and was inducted as Dame of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in 1997. She also received a life service award in 2009.
She served on the seniors’ advisory board and was a member
of Royal Canadian Legion Branch 163 and The 447 Wing at Mount Hope. She taught sevenweek babysitting courses at the Terryberry Library, was a regular letter writer to The Spectator and appeared on the old Jane Gray show on CHCH to teach rug hooking (Gray apparently called her the Happy Hooker). In 1999, Hamilton named Price Senior of the Year and she received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.
“She was well-known around the city,” said her nephew Jack Branch, 79, who described her as feisty and someone who “would raise hell.”
“She was involved in so many organizations. She was quite the lady.”
Branch, who said his aunt lived in her East 13h Street home on her own until 18 months ago, used to say, “Have three meals a day, take your vitamins and stay the hell away from your doctor.”
During the Second World War, Price joined the RCAF women’s division police corps in Halifax and ran the fingerprint section. One time, she was sent to Quebec to bring back a servicewoman who’d gone AWL. She got the woman on the train to Trenton and to ensure she wouldn’t escape again she made sure she had nothing to escape in.
“I took every stitch of clothes away from her,” Price told The Spectator in 2005. “I figured if she gets away, I’ll know her if I see her.”
Price was one of six children born into the Conrad family of Lawrencetown, N.S. Her nephew said she was the last one left. After she came to Hamilton following the war, she spent 30 years at the Right House as a buyer in shoes and notions.
Price was on hand for one of the city’s most colourful episodes in its history — the Pink Floyd concert at Ivor Wynne in 1975. The show attracted 50,000 fans and Price was there to provide first aid with St. John’s Ambulance. She witnessed a streaker that day and accompanied a fan in labour to the hospital.
“She said there were all kinds of people coming into the first-aid station,” said her nephew, adding that his aunt recalled many were high on drugs. “It was really wild. She was really open, but seeing things like that — she was pretty straitlaced.”
Price is survived by daughter Linda, grandchildren Chris and Danny, nephews and nieces. She was predeceased by two husbands. Her second husband was Jack Price. She was also predeceased by daughter Gail, who died in a car crash about three decades ago.