Bettina Somers

Canadian painter Bettina Somers was born in South Africa and immigrated to Canada in 1913. She first studied art in 1917 at Toronto Central Tech under the direction of Sam Findley. Her career as an artist was postponed by two World Wars and nurse’s training at the Hospital for Sick Children, which she completed in 1928. Her finest hour was the hanging in Maple Leaf Gardens of her line and wash drawing, Hockey, the Toronto Maple Leafs vs. the Chicago Black Hawks, which she entered for the 1948 Olympics. It is now part of the collection of the Original Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum in Kingston, Ontario. The Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup in 1947 and 1948, while the Black Hawks failed to make the playoffs in both years.

In 1940, then Miss Calverley was sent back to Egypt by the British High Command to spy on the Germans in preparation for the invasion of El-Alamein. Her intimate knowledge of the land and people proved to be invaluable. Her sister Amice Calverley (1896-1956) lived there at that time as an acclaimed Egyptologist and produced numerous documentaries about life in Egypt. She had been in England since 1933 and in 1940 was in the employ of the British Admiralty. She worked on the top-secret “Synthetic Data Generator”, the world’s first computer, and was able to send maps and data to her sister in Egypt using this encryption device.

Somers moved back to Canada after the War and remained in Oakville for a few years to work on a house her sister had bought in the 1920s. She then moved to Oliver to continue her work in the tranquility of the Okanagan. Somers remained a member in good standing of the Canadian Group of Painters her entire life. She was known for depictions of bodies in motion, such as in ballet and sports.