Deborra Jane Hope: Oct. 11, 1955 - May 15, 2023
She was already a rising star on B.C.’s most popular TV news channel on that momentous day in 1985, though still using her first husband’s surname and not yet the one that she would make famous. She and her camera crew were in the car coming back from reporting on a news story. She needed a date for a posh banquet in Vancouver that night being hosted by the Chinese government, and was running out of options. Having already been turned down by the cameraman in the front seat, Deb van der Gracht turned to the shy young cameraman in the back seat and asked without much interest if he wanted to come with her. Roger Hope said yes. The rest was history, Mr. Hope says. They were a couple virtually from that night on for more than three decades of Deb Hope’s reign as one of B.C.’s best-known and most beloved TV news anchors. And then they were a couple through a much harder decade as Ms. Hope developed early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The first signs began to emerge around the time of her 2014...