PEOPLE OF BELL ISLAND
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YVONNE E. SAUNDERS
1942-2022
Created by Gail Hussey Weir
February 2023
​Yvonne E. Saunders (1941-2022): Bank Manager. She was born East #1, Bell Island, on August 22, 1941 to Maggie (nee Rose, 1921-2009) and Eric Saunders (1916-1981), a driller/blaster with DOSCO (see above). She attended Jackson Memorial School and, at age 11, contracted Rheumatic Fever, which left her with a diagnosis of a heart murmur. As a consequence, she was prohibited from playing with children or partaking in any sporting activity. While in hospital in St. John's for two weeks, her bed was located in a ward with the elderly as she was not permitted to be with other children. Because of her illness, she missed six months of school, which resulted in her having to repeat a year. Returning to a classroom of unfamiliar, younger students was difficult. Then when she was 13, her youngest sibling was born. Complications of the birth meant her mother had to spend time in hospital and Yvonne, being the eldest daughter, was thrust into the role of "mother" to her five siblings. She was responsible for taking care of them, cooking meals, baking bread and doing the laundry and house cleaning. The prevailing thought of society at that time was that girls did not need an education because they were only going to get married and would stay home to look after their husband and raise children. Over the next five years, Yvonne struggled to attend school and found it even more of a challenge to find time to study. In spite of everything, she did enter the new St. Boniface Regional High School when it opened in 1958. Another expectation of the times was that when young people reached age 16, they took whatever paying job they could find and would start paying "room and board" to augument the family income, so Yvonne began working part-time at Charles Cohen's dry goods store on Town Square. Between that and helping at home, there was little time for study and, as a result, she did not complete Grade Eleven. Like many of that age and under those circumstances, she left home as soon as possible.

On January 6, 1960, she left the relatively small community of Bell Island, where there was not one traffic light in sight, and went straight to downtown Toronto where, six days later, she was employed by TD Bank at the busy intersection of Bloor and Bay streets, and found herself having to contend with subways, street cars, trolleys, thousands of strangers and many traffic lights. While working there, she attended night courses at the University of Toronto and, over the course of 13 years, moved up through the ranks to work in Personal Loans. While in that department in 1973, she was training a young man who had no previous experience when she discovered that he was being paid more than she was. She decided it was time to change banks and took a job in Commercial Lending with the Royal Bank, where she was treated more equitably. When she was asked to manage a new branch that was under construction in 1977 in the Yorkville district of Toronto, she hesitated at first, before deciding to give it a try.  The Hazelton Lanes branch would cater to both business people and residents. Yvonne did some research on the needs of those in the area and the result was the first branch to offer longer business hours. She and her Administrative Officer had to wear hard hats at work for a long time due to construction until the official opening. The newspaper clippings attached illustrate the novelty of a bank that not only offered extended hours, but also one that was headed by a female manager.