Dallas Chapple, a prominent real estate agent known for her contributions to the community, has died of cancer at 66.
Chapple was diagnosed with cancer in June 2015 but kept working until five months ago. She was an agent at Remax Camosun for 25 years. Despite some physical issues, she remained a top seller until her retirement.
“She remained on the board at the Victoria Symphony until September,” said stepmother Muriel Richards. “She was on the board of the Victoria Executive Management Club.”
Chapple always had a “sparkle” to her, Richards said. “She had a fabulous, fabulous smile that dazzled.”
Len, her husband of 37 years, said she was “something special.”
Dallas and Len, a retired television and radio broadcaster, moved to Victoria from Seattle in 1990 and settled in a waterfront townhouse on the Saanich Peninsula.
She was on the Victoria community board of B.C. Children's Hospital, serving as chairwoman of the board's Festival of Trees for a time, and attended a wide variety of community events.
She was often called upon by the media for expert comment on real estate issues.
Fellow real estate agent Guy Crozier said Chapple was a true professional. “She was a woman with tremendous class.”
Deborah Coburn, also a fellow agent, said Chapple was a wonderful person "and will be absolutely, incredibly missed by many of us." Coburn said she and her husband spent many vacations with the Chapples in Hawaii.
"Every year for 15 years we would all meet on the big island of Hawaii and spend a month or more over there together," she said. "Hawaii is and was her favourite place."
Chapple was blessed to have a lot of people who were close to her, Richards said.
“Charisma is charm that inspires devotion, and Dallas just had the most devoted group of friends and colleagues,” she said. “It’s been an overwhelming response to her illness. She had visitors constantly, people wanting to come just to say hello and she was so generous with her time, even as the end approached.”
Richards said that Chapple battled her illness valiantly. “She was such a fighter. She always believed that she would beat it.”
Richards said Chapple died at home as she wanted, but was grateful for the time she spent at Saanich Peninsula Hospital. “It made such a difference to her to have a hospital close by that she could go to when she needed help.”
Richards described Chapple as a “people person,” going back to her days in Toronto when she was with Mary Kay Cosmetics. Top performers received pink Cadillacs, and Chapple earned four of them.
Earlier, she spent time in Europe. “She studied in Paris,” Richards said. “She didn’t defend her doctorate but did her Ph.D in communications at the University of Paris.”
She said Chapple had an interesting upbringing as the daughter of Vancouver big-band musician Dal Richards and Lorraine McAllister, meeting such famous people as Lena Horne and Bing Crosby. When her father died on New Year’s Eve 2015, Chapple referred to him as an icon.
“She had a lovely, lovely life,” Muriel Richards said.
