“They enjoyed what they had and sharing it with other people,” Finn smiles. They and their children regularly volunteered to perform at seniors’ centres and veterans’ hospitals. Margarete and Andy were the founding members of the local Sons of Norway dance group. “But they were lovely people.”Īnd they were happy Finn was Norwegian. “(Margarete and Andy) may have been a little uneasy when I was dating their daughter, because sailors don’t have the best reputation,” Finn laughs. After she performed traditional Norwegian music on the accordion for him that night, Finn asked Freida out. “I’m still wondering if it was the car or me,” Freida laughs.įinn says it was definitely her. Drove a ’58 Pontiac.” Finn recalls with a smile. Rather than the beauty of the backyard, his eyes were focused on Freida. “He came for supper and he stayed for 51 years!”īefore he was her husband, Finn Eriksen was a visiting merchant marine from Norway. “That’s how I met my husband,” Freida says, before laughing. If they hit it off, Margarete would invite them up for a meal in the dining room. He’d offer the visitors tours of his display down in the basement. “Because dad wanted to share his clocks.”Īndy had a collection of 400 antique clocks, many hundreds of years old. “Which also lead (the tourists) into the house,” Freida says. Tour buses began making regular stops on their quiet, suburban street, and visitors from the around the world started taking pictures of the stone garage with the garden blooming on top. “It was a beautiful sight to see,” Freida says, adding that neighbours started calling it a mini Butchart Gardens, after the famous Vancouver Island tourist attraction. Then her mom Margarete Gilstein filled it all with elaborate arrangements of flowers. “And dad was into stone work.”Īlthough he was a barber by trade, Freida’s dad Andy Gilstein covered their garage with countless oval stones, before creating benches, windmills and lighthouses out of stone in their backyard. “What happened was, my dad and mom have always been creative and industrious,” Freida says. Freida Eriksen will never forget when she was a child and started helping her parents transform their home into an international attraction that would change her life forever.