Moody Park may not be Mayberry - but it was the perfect place for New Westminster natives Brenda and Barry Erlendson to raise a family.
Brenda was raised in the West End and Barry grew up in Sapperton, but nine years after getting married they moved to the Moody Park neighbourhood.
"It was $29,000," Brenda says of the price of the home they bought 40 years ago. "We bought a vehicle later that was worth more."
It was in a neighbourhood near Moody Park where they would raise their daughters, Natalie, Jackie and Wendy.
"Everybody knew everybody," Brenda said. "It was like a village raising a family."
Like many neighbourhood kids, Jackie and her sisters spent many a day at Moody Park.
"We lived at Kiwanis Pool. I loved the days it would rain - we'd have the pool to ourselves," she said. "We lived at the park."
The Erlendson girls would ride their bikes the short distance to the park, where they'd play the day away.
"It was like Cheers," Jackie said. "You would go up there, and you would always know somebody."
In the days before spray parks, Moody Park's playground had a wading pool where kids could cool down on hot summer days.
"I used to love sitting in the wading pool," Jackie said. "We used to sit in there and play."
The Erlendson house was located within earshot - literally - of Moody Park and Lord Kelvin Elementary School.
"Mom had a cowbell and she used to stand at the back door when it was lunch time or time to come home," Jackie recalls. "We could hear it all the way up to Moody Park. It was neat."
The family home was a short walk to New Westminster Secondary School - but an even shorter walk to Lord Kelvin.
Wendy wasn't much of a morning person and was sometimes summoned to the morning's track practices by teacher Rick Day - via the school's public address system.
"'Wendy Erlendson, get out of bed and get to track,'" Jackie laughed about his message "You could hear it from our house. We were so close."
So close that Jackie sometimes wished the family lived farther away from school than they did.
"What I didn't like about living close to Kelvin was I had to go home for lunch," she said. "I wanted to take a brown bag like everyone else. I came home to hot meals."
Barry was a New Westminster firefighter who eventually worked his way into the top spot as fire chief; Brenda worked for the New Westminster School District for 30 years as an aid and a library clerk.
Although it was a bit dicey to get away with anything when your parents were well connected in the community, Jackie managed to avoid detection and sneak into Kiwanis Pool for an after-hours swim - something that more than a few folks did through the years.
"I did," Jackie admits with a grin. "We climbed the fence. Let me tell you, that was scary. The pool was wide open."
Brenda wasn't the only Erlendson to work at Lord Kelvin Elementary, as Jackie taught at the school for about 17 years. During her time at her alma mater, Jackie enjoyed the experience of partnering on projects with Century House.
"We had pancake breakfasts with the kids. We played cards with the seniors. They came here and learned how to knit," she said during a recent interview at Century House. "It was so much fun."
On one occasion, the seniors and the elementary school students played a game of baseball. The younger folks thought youth would work in their favour, but they were wrong.
"They kicked our butt," Jackie laughed. "It put them in their place to see what seniors can do."
As part of the 50th anniversary of Century House, one of her classes created mosaics commemorating Princess Anne's visit to the centre on opening day.
While some families in the area have moved away in recent years, Brenda says it's been a joy to live in the area. Brenda and Barry have toyed with the idea of moving, but it's a tough move to make.
"It's been wonderful," she said of their Moody Park home.
Those sentiments are echoed by New Westminster native Tej Kainth, whose family moved from the West End to the Moody Park neighbourhood partway through her Grade 5 school year. She fondly recalls representing the school as its May Queen in 1993.
The Kainth family has just moved back to the West End, which has brought back, a "ton of memories" about their time in the Moody Park area.
"I think of it as a place where it is so walkable and friendly," she said. "It was so close to everything."
The Moody Park neighbourhood was a place where Kainth and her friends played on the streets until dusk, enjoyed water fights in summer and snowball fights in winter.
Many of Kainth's neighbours called the area home for years and years, something that has only started changing a bit in the past couple of years as empty nesters have moved into smaller spaces - making way for new families.
