She was known as the matriarch of the Burnaby RCMP detachment.
Delores Jackson, or Mrs. J as she was referred to, spent more than 30 years working for the local Mounties. Her tenure with the department is something she looks back on with fondness, she told the NOW.
“You get to know the people. So many of them, they still keep in touch with me,” she said. “It was a wonderful part of my life, really.”
At 33 years old, with three teenagers at home, Jackson found herself working as a secretary for the Burnaby RCMP. Her husband had decided to go back to school to become a United Church minister, which meant Jackson had to get a job.
She went down to the unemployment office, and a woman at that office booked Jackson an interview with Sgt. Click of the Burnaby RCMP.
“He was very nice, and he said, ‘Now, there’s a lot of swearing going on in here, and if you can’t take it, you better not take the job.’ Well, I took it,” she laughed.
Jackson became the new secretary for the traffic section, a post she held until her retirement in 1995.
“I could have been the secretary to the officer in charge, … but I preferred to stay in traffic, it was my niche,” she said.
She started her career working at the old detachment office at Kingsway and Edmonds Street, eventually moving with the rest of the Burnaby RCMP members to their new headquarters on Deer Lake Avenue.
At the time, it was the largest detachment in the country (it’s now second-largest behind the Surrey RCMP).
“The older members would call me the matriarch of Burnaby detachment,” she said.
‘Mrs. J’ was like a mother to many of the officers in the detachment. She kept track of many of the officers that came and went.
Over the years, she began working on a unique project of her own: a scrapbook.
The large, laminated scrapbook includes 1,250 photos of Burnaby RCMP members Jackson worked with over the decades. (Some of the officers are more recognizable than others, including current Staff Sgt. Maj. John Buis.)
The 86-year-old is constantly updating the scrapbook – which resembles a family album more than anything – with family photos, birth announcements and death notices.
While she had never dreamed of working for the RCMP, Jackson said it was quite an exciting and interesting job.
“I didn’t see murders or anything like that, but it was interesting,” she said.
One time, she and her colleagues were headed towards the lunch room at the Kingsway detachment office, and as they passed by the women’s cellblock, one of the inmates tossed a bucket of urine at them –luckily, none of them were hit.
Jackson also witnessed many changes in the detachment over the years.
“The first big change was the electric typewriter, and none of us had worked on an electric typewriter, and so we had to take a course over at the city hall,” she said. “And then, of course, computers came, so we’d type everything, but it appeared on a screen to your right, and you printed it off. That was all new.”
Other changes she witnessed included new officers in charge, and the different quirks they often brought with them. One officer in charge in particular was very adamant everyone wore their caps at all times, she recalled.
In 1993, Jackson retired from her position with the Burnaby RCMP. About 180 people attended her retirement dinner at the Executive Inn on Lougheed Highway.
“It was something else,” she said with a smile.
Twenty-two years later, Jackson still keeps in touch with many of the members she worked with. When asked if she would do it all over again given the chance, Jackson was quick to respond.
“Oh yes. Like I said, it was just a wonderful, loving part of my life,” she said.
