Fonds MS 150 - Shuswap Narrows Lodge Fonds

Shuswap Narrows Lodge was operated by Frank and Kaye Oben from 1945-1952. Frank Edwin Oben was born on February 25th, 1913 in Vancouver to Mary McConicky and Edwin Alfred Oben.

On May 11th, 1937, at twenty-four years old, Frank Oben married a divorced bookkeeper two years his senior named Kathleen Law in Vancouver B.C.

Frank Oben learned the craftsmanship of baking from his father, and owned a bakery on Homer Street, Vancouver. During the Great War, Mr. Oben inherited the bakery and subsequently provided food provisions to armed workforce stationed in the Vancouver area.

In the summer of 1945, Frank and Kathleen Oben moved from Vancouver to the B.C. Interior where they owned and ran Shuswap Narrows Fishing Lodge in Eagle Bay. It was an extremely successful business endeavor due to his pragmatic personality and business savvy intellect, a favorite place amongst nature aficionados throughout the Pacific Northwest.

On June 11th 1952, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Oben sold their property, the Shuswap Narrows Fishing Lodge, to a Vancouver couple: Mr. and Mrs. Perrault.

In its aftermath, Kathleen and Frank Oben ended their marriage. Hereinafter, he remarried Joan Mary Dunn and had an efficacious career in Real Estate and property investing as a salesman in Salmon Arm.

Since 1945, Frank Oben was a resident of Salmon Arm, and has been a paramount participant in community life. Furthermore, he was the former president of the curling club, President of the Okanagan Real Estate Board, a Rotary club director, a member with the Shuswap Power Squadron, and a fervent golfer.

Tragically, on June 15th 1987 at the age of 75 Frank Oben committed suicide. The immediate cause of death was a gunshot to his head, and the antecedent cause was a fractured skull and lacerated brain.

The people who played a significant role in his life are; his former wife Kathleen Law, his second wife and widow Joan Mary Dunn, daughter Nicole Marshall, brother Edwin Albert Oben Jr., nephew Grant, and niece Joanne.