Cyclist killed on Higgins Avenue was passionate mentor, volunteer

By: Mary Agnes Welch

A longtime North End volunteer who died Wednesday in a bike accident was an expert cyclist who always followed safety rules.

Violet Nelson taught dozens of neighbourhood girls proper road safety and organized a 15-kilometre bike-a-thon when she ran the North End's aboriginal Girl Guides program.

"She biked for transportation. She didn't like the idea of driving a vehicle," said her mother, also named Violet Nelson. "She didn't like the pollution."

At the time of the accident, the mother of two was cycling the few blocks from her work as the finance manager of a cutting-edge art gallery to the Native Women's Transition Centre, where she planned to join two of the province's most powerful politicians for a news conference.

Nelson, who chaired the NWTC's volunteer board, worked for years on a new halfway house for former female inmates. Premier Greg Selinger and St. Boniface MP Shelly Glover were on hand Wednesday to open the 15-unit lodge meant to help offenders get back on their feet and reunite with their children.

"She was always late," her mom said with a small laugh. "But I knew something was wrong when she didn't show up. That was a very important project to her."

In a short interview, Lucille Bruce, executive director of the NWTC, said staff was in shock over Nelson's death.

Nelson was cycling westbound on Higgins, just past Main Street, when she was in collision with a westbound vehicle in the curb lane. The collision threw her under the wheels of a semi-trailer, also travelling westbound, in the median lane. The driver of the semi wasn’t aware that he had run over Nelson and continued on. He was later contacted by police.

Nelson, known as Vie to all her friends, leaves behind two young children -- an 11-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son.

"Her life revolved around them," her mother said.

She was very fit and sporty and had a wall full of trophies, her mom added.

She suffered from dyslexia and dropped out of school a few credits into her Grade 9 year. But she was a whiz with numbers and later taught herself all kinds of administrative skills. Most recently, she was the finance manager at the Graffiti Gallery on Higgins Avenue.

Nelson was an avid volunteer from the time she was in grade school at Faraday School in the North End, where she also routinely stuck up for her brother when he got picked on. As a teen, she spent nine months as a Katimavik youth volunteer in Quebec. Later, when she was on staff at the Indian and Metis Friendship Centre, she founded the aboriginal Girl Guides, recruiting and training the leaders and designing the curriculum for a program that quickly spread into several low-income neighbourhoods. It was through the Guides that she offered bike riding and safety lessons, and organized the bike-a-thon.

"She was a very passionate woman. She'd come into the room and she'd light up the room," her mom said. "She knew how to get people doing things."

A wake is planned for Wednesday at Thunderbird House, likely beginning at 6 p.m. A formal service will follow Thursday at 11 a.m. at Thunderbird House.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/inspiration-to-aboriginal-girls-15397...